Attack on CO2 by proxy

Global BC recently did a couple of TV news pieces  on the purported link between gas stoves and asthma. The first was balanced, including messages of alarm from a University of Saskatchewan Chemistry professor and skepticism from a University of BC Pediatrics professor. Unfortunately, they followed this up the next day, airing a one-sided interview with a York University Chemistry professor. When asked for an example of an equivalent to gas stove emissions, he stated: If you parked your car in your garage and let your tailpipe fill up the closed garage, you could get similar levels …

​The message absorbed by the average viewer was “blah, blah, blah, asphyxiation, blah, blah”. Choosing to sit in a running car in the garage often succeeds as intended, but suicide by frying bacon doesn’t. Even if the comparison was meant to address nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and not carbon monoxide, it was misleading and sensational.

Beyond NO2, cooking releases a number of hazardous substances that may cause breathing problems, including food particles. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) advises that this occurs whether the heat source is gas or electric. Their fact sheet sets out: Surprisingly, cooking with the electric stove also produced very high pollutant levels indoors in some cases. Frying tortillas and stir-frying on an electric stove actually produced higher levels of PM10 than on a gas stove: 1200-1300 micrograms per cubic meter using the electric stove vs. 200-800 micrograms per cubic meter on the gas stove.

CARB also provides the obvious solution: Cooking can contaminate the indoor air with harmful pollutants, but range hoods can effectively remove them. A study by Singer et al (2017) Pollutant concentrations and emission rates from natural gas cooking burners without and with range hood exhaust in nine California homes quantified the emissions reduction achieved through proper venting: Range hood performance varied widely, but one with a large capture volume and a measured flow of 108 L/s reduced concentrations 80-95%.
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This media flare-up of alarm about NO2 emissions from gas stoves is really just another thinly veiled attack on CO2 from the burning of natural gas. Vancouver’s Climate Emergency Action Plan is currently poised to require the retrofit of existing homes to electrical heating only, but no doubt cooking will follow once the masses are sufficiently frightened by the hype.