Highlights: A study this summer found that using a single gas stove burner on high can raise levels of cancer-causing benzene above what’s been observed from secondhand smoke.
A new investigation by NPR and the Climate Investigations Center found that the gas industry tried to downplay the health risks of gas stoves for decades, turning to many of the same public-relations tactics the tobacco industry used to cover up the risks of smoking. Gas utilities even hired some of the same PR firms and scientists that Big Tobacco did.
Earlier this year, an investigation from DeSmog showed that the industry understood the hazards of gas appliances as far back as the 1970s and concealed what they knew from the public.
It’s a strategy that goes back as far back as 1972, according to the most recent investigation. That year, the gas industry got advice from Richard Darrow, who helped manufacture controversy around the health effects of smoking as the lead for tobacco accounts at the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton. At an American Gas Association conference, Darrow told utilities they needed to respond to claims that gas appliances were polluting homes and shape the narrative around the issue before critics got the chance. Scientists were starting to discover that exposure to nitrogen dioxide—a pollutant emitted by gas stoves—was linked to respiratory illnesses. So Darrow advised utilities to “mount the massive, consistent, long-range public relations programs necessary to cope with the problems.”
These studies didn’t just confuse the public, but also the federal government. When the Environmental Protection Agency assessed the health effects of nitrogen dioxide pollution in 1982, its review included five studies finding no evidence of problems—four of which were funded by the gas industry, the Climate Investigations Center recently uncovered.
Karen Harbert, the American Gas Association’s CEO, acknowledged that the gas industry has “collaborated” with researchers to “inform and educate regulators about the safety of gas cooking appliances.” Harbert claimed that the available science “does not provide sufficient or consistent evidence demonstrating chronic health hazards from natural gas ranges”—a line that should sound familiar by now.
Capitalism is such shit…
It really is…it’s outlived it’s usefulness and needs to go the way of the horse drawn carriage.
What is the better solution? What country has implemented something better than capitalism?
A system that fully accepts environmental realities and works against the wholesale ecocide of the planet as it’s first tenet. The rest is kinda whatever at this point. It could be a resource based economy or some sort of mixed planned/free market. Just gotta make sure that invisible hand doesn’t strangle us all in our sleep, ya know?
Well if no one else has done something, it clearly can’t be done, right?
The main alternative is, instead of focusing on wealth accumulation, focus on societal betterment.
Marx figured it out 160 years ago. Spend some time and learn about it. Did the Wright brothers have to fly in a plane before they built one?
Feudalism is such shit.
What is the better solution? What country has implemented something better than Feudalism?
You, with a time machine, probably.
Everyone’s gonna be like, oh the USSR, or venezuela, or whatever type of fully nationalized country that’s got embargoed to shit and has either gone under or has gone the way of cuba and just kind of lives with it. And I’m not gonna waste your time trying to convince you about how all those countries are actually great or yadda yadda ya. Instead, I wanna turn you on to a couple neat things. First, would probably be the Zapatistas, who are a pretty cool kind of anarchist group that tends to function well mostly independent of the mexican government. Kind of hard to find information on them, but they’re neat and I think outside of the general preconceived notions that people have against the idea itself, it’s hard not to empathize with opposition to the mostly corrupt and totally fuckied mexican government. There’s also, for your consideration the Mondragon Corporation, a co-operative that employs 80,000 people and rivals the size of probably a mid-sized country. If you’re just taking issue with power structures themselves, rather than the monopoly on violence or the borders said to define a country as different from a corporation, than that’s kind of an interesting counterpoint to like, global capitalism. Kind of ironic that they’re, you know, a corporation, but then the structure of the corporation is different enough as to call into question whether or not the insane wealth disparities of corporations that americans are generally used to are required. But then, the surrounding stuff also has some problems, because the corporation itself has been criticized for employing contract workers, much like a state might employ immigrant labor or outsourced labor, reaping the rewards but giving none of the benefits, kind of creating an internal sense of “nationalism” in the corp. But then, I suppose, let us not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Capitalism is industrialised greed, it keeps the wheels turning, having people forever chase shit that they don’t need for the sake of feeling better than the man stood next to them. What an inspirational ladder to climb.
You’re under the misunderstanding that it works.
It’s more the sociopaths running the companies that are shit. They don’t give a damn about the people they exploit and the harm they cause. And every institution’s got their share of them, not just businesses.
And they’re in the positions they are because of capitalism. Capitalism dictates you should exploit as much as possible to increase profits.
they’re in the positions they are because of capitalism.
More specifically, they are in them because of human nature. Those who don’t care about others gravitate towards positions of power. That is not exclusive to capitalism. Any hierarchy is prone to sociopaths rising to positions of power. They seek them no matter what the economic system is.
In other words, power corrupts. People without power who get power inevitably start to act like sociopaths.
But feel free to blame capitalism if you like. It is the cause of many problems with our society. Any change that decreases its power should be welcomed at least in the context of American society.
Because any other form of government did (and does) not have the same problem to an even greater extent?
Lol that you’re being downvoted.
Everyone knows there were never any cover ups under Communism! RBMK reactor? Completely safe, comrade!
/s
That could be pretty easily described as state-owned capitalism… Position in the party was your capital, influence, and authority all rolled into one conveniently bribed package. You could describe the whole USSR as a nation-state megacorp… Make the borders open and do better marketing, and it might as well have been called Soviet Energy Corp. Although, if we go full corpo-fuedal, that’s probably not far off the mark
They even had the global trade and horrific externalities down - remember how everyone started to starve, and how their weapons were always disappearing onto the black market? It was all sold off - it all got shipped overseas and sold so a party member could have a nest egg stored in Switzerland. They even did the whole “Irish potato famine” thing where they kept exporting food while people starved
I seriously have no idea what Lenin was smoking… He built a government that took all of the downsides of capitalism, and focused them in one convenient institution. It’s the perfect government system you’d make to manage humans if you’ve never actually met a human or seen a government before
It seems to me that centralization is the key problem with every modern system… Big just has a way of going bad
Mostly because communism is not a form of government, but an economic system. A communist economy can be run by a democratic government or an authoritarian one. Same as capitalism.
Some communist economy governments were terrible, others weren’t so terrible, but all of them were sabotaged every step along the way of changing their economic systems by Capitalist interests.
It’s like everything is lies or something, that sure is surprising in a world where the only important thing is money. It’s like its an inevitable consequence or something. Like we shouldn’t have organized our society this way
fuckin shocking
I was told that the free market would naturally remove any bad actors… I guess we just have to deal with half a century of collateral damage before that happens.
Half a century? This kind of thing has been going on much longer than 50 years…
It’s that neoliberalism is a lie. Neoliberalism which strated in the 70s with financial capitalism and then deployed fully with Reagan and Thatcher boosted disregulation to make all of this (profit before everything else) possible. Capitalism is a part of neoliberalism, but neoliberalism is more than just capitalism and free market. The fact is that both neoliberalism and capitalism have to be strongly regulated at best.
You might want to reread das Kapital. Capitalism and neoliberalism are the same.
They should, or at least a brief summary of it. I am not going to begrudge someone for not wanting to dive into such a dry dense tome. But Marx as someone who studied sociology has many astute analysis and critique of the inherent social dis-functions and toxicity of capitalism.
But so many of us, in the United States especially have been beaten over the head with mccarthy-ist propaganda since birth. As well as intense indoctrination to treat Leninism as a representation of all socialism. When that almost couldn’t be farther from the truth. Leninism much like fascism is much more tied to totalitarianism* or authoritarianism than it is to any particular socioeconomic model.
I hear a lot that gas is cheaper for heating and I took that as the truth for a long time. A while ago I did the math though, and for my house is would have been nearly the same annual power bill if I replaced my 90% gas furnace and water heater with electric units. Although the price of gas is far more economical for heating, there’s a monthly gas usage fee that’s a flat rate. If you go all electric, you don’t pay that, and over the course of a year, I didn’t heat enough for the lower gas price to offset the flat fees. If instead of a regular electric furnace and water heater, they were heat pumps, electric would have been much cheaper than gas.
This certainly would depend on your local prices and weather and how well your house is insulated, but if you need a new furnace, I’d do the math over a year to see if gas is still the most financially attractive option, especially if you can install an air or ground source heat pump.
Heat pumps are so stupidly efficient that my coworker didn’t believe it, even when I showed him how it worked, lol. They are the SSDs of heating and cooling, particularly ground source ones. I had an apartment with one and loved the $60 summer power bills. God, it was fantastic. $60 for the AC, hot water, gaming PC, washer/dryer/dishwasher, oven, and lights.
…And no worries of a gas line leaking or carbon monoxide poisoning.
I heard that geo heat pump installation cost is very high. Did you do the math to see how many summers of $60 energy bills it will take to recuperate initial investment?
Oh, it would take quite awhile to recoup, and air source is much cheaper to install than ground source. Pays itself back over the decades. Right now (and for the next 10 years or so), the federal gov will give you a kickback if you swap your furnace for a qualifying heatpump, up to 11k USD. The installation might be $30k, but a qualifying heatpump covered under that program will save you a serious chunk of change. And as long as you do maintenance on them, they should last for a very long time.
My apartment had them built in as it was all new construction. I miss that place!
One thing to deeming before you out one in: whether you have good insulation and good windows first. Those will go a long way in saving you $$$ on your energy bills regardless of what you are using to heat and cool your home.
Geo heat pump install is indeed very high. But air source heat pumps (both heat pump water heaters and heat pumps for heating/cooling) don’t have that issue and have similar performance, except in extreme climates where geo outperforms.
Gas stoves are easier and more comfortable to cook, but if this study is true im definitely going electrict next.
try induction stoves. they require certain pans (magnetic so test with a fridge magnet if it sticks you good) but its got INSANE temperature control on the high quality units. like, if something starts boiling and you don’t want that you adjust down and it almost instantly stops boiling. the only thing to watch for is getting a unit with variable power not duty cycles. this is a great counter top unit for trying it out tho!
Electric costs about 3x as much in my experience, and it is extremely dry and uncomfortable. Definitely need a humidifier if you’re using electric
???
What are you smoking? Energy is energy, it doesn’t matter where you get the heat from.
I believe hydrocarbon fuels produce water (vapor) as a combustion byproduct, so LPG or natural gas could certainly contribute to humidity levels in some cases.
There may also be a separate effect by which the heat strips in an electric furnace dry out the air versus the heat exchanger in a gas furnace, but I don’t know about that.
https://youtu.be/fmd0pMKxjhA?si=dRObkdpvaU8wRzpE
Please explain by what physical mechanism electric heat can remove water from the air.
Technology connections informed me of this long ago! And it makes perfect sense. But almost every house I go in has a gas stove because apparently people think it’s better or nicer or “more professional” or whatever.
I find this crazy. I live in SE USA and I’ve never even seen a gas stove outside of camping. When everyone was “freaking out” online about the gas stove ban, I was just confused.
Haha! I go in about three houses per day for work and the majority will have gas. Also SE US. Although I’ve never had one in the places I’ve lived so if not for work I’d never have seen them either.
There’s a certain wealth line where they all have gas stoves. Look up the Wolf 6-burner gas range. Not something you find in a 3-2 home.
I grew up in a rural area, hence the no gas. I now live in a metro area and maybe it’s just my friends, but I’ve really never seen one. They always sounded dangerous to me.
I think this is mostly because it is what cooks are used to. The ones who go to culinary school learned on gas stoves, and the ones who learned on the job also mostly learned on gas stoves.
Gas stoves aren’t the best option anymore. Induction stoves heat up much quicker and offer much finer heat control, but they are a bit more expensive, and many of the cooks would have to relearn how to make some of the stuff they are used to cooking.
So not only is it what cooks are used to, but it would require an investment from the restaurant that most aren’t willing to look into. Gas stoves last for many many years, so it’s not like they break down and need replacing regularly, either.
It’s just nicer to cook on gas. Electric is a pain in the ass and generally less efficient time-wise. Induction apparently solves a lot of issues, though.
Shit, what one do you have? My family has some stupidly expensive one, and the goddamn electric pilot lights get dirty and fail to click off for about 30-50 seconds.
This is also their second gas stove in about 12 years. I only wanted electric because theirs was such a bitch to deal with all the time. :P
Induction stoves are still pretty expensive, and resistance electric stoves suck ass.
Do they? I’d check out Technology Connections videos on the subject. A couple more seconds to boil water is worth not inhaling whatever junk byproducts of combustion.
Induction is cheap as shit nowadays, and faster, so no-one should install new gas stoves. When renovating I ripped out my gas line.
HOWEVER I completely disagree with Alec on resistive electric stoves being “fine”. They’re terrible. They have ENORMOUS thermal inertia. He says “just move the pan off the heater”, but that doesn’t take into account that just getting a pan to the correct temperature is much harder on resistive electric. It takes forever to heat up an empty pan, but if you wait until the food is cooking to turn down the heat, it’s already too late and your food will be overcooked. Frying an egg is the worst, by the time that the pan is hot you gotta kill the heat entirely or the egg will be burnt so there is no margin for adjustment. Ugh. With induction it’s so much easier, you can just adjust the heat based on how the egg is frying and the pan will actually cool down or heat up enough that the egg will come out alright.
I mean sure depending on ventilation and personal opinions on air quality then resistive may be favorable over gas, but if I’m honest, if induction didn’t exist I’d probably take my chances with cancer.
Boiling water isn’t what id try to sell a gas stove on. If you’re a hobbyist cook you develop hobbyist, non essential task opinions.
I bet 95% of people could happily use electric and never even wonder about alternatives.
The last 5 want the features and cook pans used with gas, to get the hobbyist results they are after.
To that I say go for it, but be aware of the risks.
Speed to boil water is not at all the selling point of gas.
It’s speed and precision of temperature control.
Coils stay hot. When you turn the gas off, the heat is off RIGHT NOW. When you turn it on it’s on RIGHT NOW.
Many coils pulse full heat to simulate different heat levels. Gas gives you very precise control over exact heat levels and it is instantly responsive to change.
I’m not here to argue about the possible health concerns, I don’t know anything about that and would need to read more. But people who argue electric ranges are just as effective as gas simply haven’t cooked as much. I’m certain of this because I used to think that too until I switched to gas. Gas is plainly better.
I’ve heard great things about induction and maybe that’s the way I’ll go next. Not sure yet. I’m certainly curious.
Induction stoves get cheaper and cheaper every year.
Also? It is mostly just the old exposed metal coil resistive stoves that were horrible. You know, the one we all had growing up where you had to poke the coil with a fork until it made connection again so that it would heat up.
Pretty much any glass top resistive electric stove (so anything made in the past two decades or so?) is fine. Very easy to clean, much less prone to damage, and gets pretty hot pretty fast. You aren’t getting “wok hei” for all the cantonese stir frying you do but… you aren’t getting that with a gas stove either unless you have an ACTUAL restaurant setup (no, not just the expensive options at the Lowes) which tend to have very specific ventilation requirements too… If you want to go all out with your wok, get an outdoor propane burner.
Now, I do actually think the drawback to resistive heating staying hot is a lot bigger than “just pick up the pot”. Not when I am making a weeknight meal for myself. But when I am cooking a larger meal for a date night or having friends over and am using multiple burners? I don’t really have anywhere to put the pot. But that is also incredibly “first world problems” of “I have too much food”
I actually prefer the coils. The glass-top ones are never as easy to clean as they claim, and the glass between the burner and the pot reduces heat transfer and causes them to heat up even slower. With the coil-type the pot is resting on the heater, which means maximum heat transfer via conduction.
Another problem is that the cooktop stays very hot after you take it off the heat. With gas and induction the heat stops instantly, but I’ve burned a lot of food because I misjudged how long it takes for a resistive burner to cool down. And the glass tops are again worse because they have a lot more thermal mass than a coil.
Induction solves all of these problems, though. Heat is controllable and instant, and the cooktop cools down very quickly.
suck ass
I always blame my tools when I have no experience using them.
They’re different. You’ll be fine.
I do have experience with gas, induction, and traditional electric and can say with confidence that cooking on traditional electric sucks ass. Induction is good though and I’d say it’s on par with gas if you have the right pans.
Resistance electric stoves can only get to about 1600 degrees. Gas stoves get to well over 3400. You can’t get a good a sear out of resistance electric, and water takes forever to boil.
My next stove is going to be induction, though I will have a propane burner for when I really need to char something.
And I’m sure you’ll be horrified to know that I have a charcoal grill like some kind of caveman.
Acklutally, up until recently gas has been far cheaper than induction. It was leagues better than electric. Even today unless you are spending a lot more on a new stove and probably upping running costs; it’s expensive to move to conduction when gas stoves last for basically forever. It’s also quite regional to natural gas areas where it’s been cheaper than electricity.
If you want to sear meat at high temps, a powerful gas stove is still today going to outperform a induction.
I’ll gladly spend a little more time in front of a stove that isn’t actively killing me.
And that’s your choice. Just don’t pretend like there isn’t a valid reason so you can make fun of hillbillies.
If you want to sear meat at high temps, a powerful gas stove is still today going to outperform a induction.
Nope, that is a myth.
I’ve done plenty of my own testing on several mid range from 200 up to 600 and even a few full units on 250/40/50 circuits. None of them were as hot, in even half the time to get up to 700f especially on a double burner range. The cheaper 1500w portables many times didn’t even make it to 700. Being more efficient is not my concern.
Beyond that, I’m still left with gas for using the oven vs electric, and is more efficient.
I’ve lived in places with gas stoves and with electric stoves. I vastly prefer gas stoves. Just open a window or use the exhaust fan. I don’t see a problem. Gas is currently way cheaper than electricity where I live.
It’s been time to switch to induction stoves for a long time now, they are basically better in every way that matters.
How are they with temperature regulation? I think that’s a big holdback for a lot of people. A gas burner gives consistent heat output at the set level, while an electric burner cycles on and off, resulting in a wider temperature range.
ETA: Wow, WTF? Downvoted for asking a legit question. Are we Reddit now?
They’re probably more consistent than gas. Provided your cookware isn’t moved on the surface, they provide a constant energy output that is a simple linear equation of energy in - losses = energy out. Period. Induction elements “cycle” on and off – hundreds or thousands of times per second. They don’t work like a radiant electric stovetop at all. There is no human perceptible duty cycle.
Fancier models like Bosch and some of the new GE Profile/Cafe ones can even wirelessly communicate with special cookware that has a temperature sensor built in, and deliver you absolute parametrically controlled temperature output at a specific temperature down to the degree, with computer controlled precision. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Provided your cookware isn’t moved on the surface
One thing I don’t like about induction is that I don’t feel like a cool chef tossing the pan. I have to just let it sit there, and if I pick the pan up it beeps at me and turns off. Plus there’s no fire.
It’s safer but definitely way less fun.
Induction elements “cycle” on and off – hundreds or thousands of times per second […] There is no human perceptible duty cycle
See unfortunately what you’re describing here are good induction stoves, which is not the majority of what is on the market.
I’ve seen far too many of the bad kind, with duty cycles measured in the tens of seconds. Your 7/10 on the dial could be - like a non-inverter microwave - something in the neighbourhood of 7 seconds on / 3 seconds off. At that point they can actually be worse to use than old halogen glass cooktops, which at least remain hot during the off part of their thermostat’s cycle.
This is not even just cheap no-name crap either, have witnessed it with big-name-brand in-bench stovetops with four-figure pricetags.
If you’re doing something like poaching eggs (which typically calls for a wide, flat pan), you’ll actually see the water starting and stopping boiling in a cycle as it switches. Absolutely terrible.
They are perfect at temperature regulation. I have a little 120v unit that even has a hold @ temperature function. Goes as low as 180 and I think as high as 500°
Remember induction heats the pan directly via induction and thus requires cookware that a magnet can stick to. Otherwise faster, more efficient, easy to control
They also boil water faster than consumer stoves. My pans are no longer sticky with the un-ignited gas residue. Baking is so much more even as well. I cook the same amount and my power/gas bill is lower than before. Lots of benefits.
It really depends on which induction burner you have. I’ve got a 120v one with a “temperature hold” function. It varies +/- 30 degrees. Trying to hold chocolate or a cream sauce at a specific temperature always results in burning. Maybe I have a shitty one, but it just cycles on and off at full power at set intervals, and it’s nowhere near the consistency I get out of my gas stove.
I really, really hope the stoves out there don’t do this sort of thing, and actually just run the induction constantly at reduced output instead of just cycling on and off. But the cooktop is still perfect for boiling huge amounts of water, or getting cast iron rocket-hot for searing.
Are we Reddit now?
Always have been.
And as others may have said, induction stoves hold perfect temperature, but also require you to use more substantial steel pots and pans to begin with. As such, they won’t suffer from poor temperature modulation like older resistive electric stoves with cheap aluminum pans would.
All electric are fine. There is no discernible difference by the time it gets to the food. Like I had to be academically informed that this on/off even happened, I had no idea. This is such a ridiculous fake concern that’s been created.
I’m sorry, it is unbelievable to me that anyone who has done a good amount of cooking on both gas and old-style electric stoves would say they are equivalent. It simply tells me you do not have adequate experience, or are not observant enough to notice.
I don’t mean this as a personal attack. It’s just…this isn’t an opinion. Gas is dramatically more responsive and precise for heat control. This is objective. If the way you cook does not leverage fine heat control or require quick changes to heat levels, then no you will not notice.
But the difference is stark and noticeable for someone who wants and uses this level of precision.
It might come from those cheap portable models. I tried one my mom had and the cycles were very obvious. It was difficult to do anything where I had to hold a temp, even doing a simple simmer was hard because it would go from boiling to nothing repeatedly. Things constantly burned on it due to poor temp regulation. I know it was a shitty model and I expect full size models to be much better, but it was a concern of mine as well.
I do hope to pick up an induction within a year or two. Can’t really afford it at the moment though.
That mostly has to do with your cookware. I’ve got an older electric unit with really distinct power cycling like you say and it’s only a problem with cheaper aluminum pans. My good laminated steel pans and cast iron are perfectly consistent because they have a lot of thermal mass so they retain the heat and even out the power cycles into a nice average temperature.
Consistent heat to that level doesn’t matter outside of VERY specific use cases like tempering a ridiculously small amount of chocolate with very little water in the double boiler setup. Oh, and you have like pure aluminum pans, I guess.
Because also? Gas stoves aren’t as consistent as people think. Yes, we assume they are because we can see the fire. But various impurities in the line, air in the system, etc and you still get minor sputtering and fluctuations.
All of which… almost never matters. Because even when you are doing the most delicate of baking work: You tend to have a double boiler set up so that the water can maintain the heat during these fluctuations.
How are they with temperature regulation? I think that’s a big holdback for a lot of people. A gas burner gives consistent heat output at the set level, while an electric burner cycles on and off, resulting in a wider temperature range.
That is not how induction works. The big holdback for people is ignorance about what induction even is. Temperature regulation is instant same way as it is with gas.
