Indoor Pollution from Gas Stoves

[check]

All of my old gas ranges are vented with chrome vent pipe...

So anything baked or broiled would be vented... cooktop not.

Somewhere along the line venting stopped.

Newer doesn't mean better... sometimes it just means cheap.

Isn’t all of that taken care of with an HRV system?

 

[Jstpssng]

I strongly suspect this gas stove study was done, in support of future political plans to move away from hydrocarbon based fuels in this country. California already has plans to ban natural gas stoves in all future new home construction. And this type study, though having many flaws, it fits politically with encouraging the public to adapt to the future strategies. And you should do it now for the sake of your children. Not even subtle and certainly sneaky and borderline unethical.

Reminds me of the huge political strategy we faced in 1970's and 80's. To help the environment and save our forests, everyone was encouraged to switch to plastic bags, plastic plates, plastic straws and reduce use of paper products whenever possible. Scientific studies by universities were released, that clearly showed, for every 10 million people that switched from paper to plastic, we could save 100,000 acres of forests in this country. Plastic was touted in all the studies, as the best and safest for the environment. Grocery stores were required by law to do way with paper bags and supply plastic bags only. And 25 years later, we all know how this strategy worked out. We nearly destroyed the world with millions of tons of plastics.

That's based on false data to begin with, the study must have been funded by the plastic industry. Trees grow back... there is more forestland in this country now than there was 100 years ago.
People hear about the destruction of the rain forests and don't realize that's an altogether different ecosystem. The real irony is that we're sending wood chips to Europe as "green energy"... the challenge has been to economically heat treat it to kill all of the bugs and pathogens.

 

[Oaktree]

Reminds me of the huge political strategy we faced in 1970's and 80's. To help the environment and save our forests, everyone was encouraged to switch to plastic bags, plastic plates, plastic straws and reduce use of paper products whenever possible. Scientific studies by universities were released, that clearly showed, for every 10 million people that switched from paper to plastic, we could save 100,000 acres of forests in this country. Plastic was touted in all the studies, as the best and safest for the environment. Grocery stores were required by law to do way with paper bags and supply plastic bags only. And 25 years later, we all know how this strategy worked out. We nearly destroyed the world with millions of tons of plastics.

That's based on false data to begin with, the study must have been funded by the plastic industry. Trees grow back... there is more forestland in this country now than there was 100 years ago.

Then again, comparing forestation today with 100-150 years ago is kind of bogus too, given how much of New England had been clear cut, largely due to poor forestry practices, and attempts to farm land that really wasn't suitable. And you don't even have to go back 100 years...I found some aerial photos of my neighborhood from the 1950s, and it was a whole lot less forested than it is today, even though I doubt most of the area was being farmed even then.

There is, was, and continues to be a lot of junk science that's accepted as fact. Let's not forget that it wasn't all that many years ago that the same scientists who are harping about global warming were predicting that we were on the verge of another ice age. And of course, politicians (of all ideologies) feel pressured to "do something", even if it's the wrong thing. Witness the current hysteria over plastic bags. Yes, many stores over-use them, putting only one or two items per bag and I'd guess only a small percentage of the population bothers to put them in the recycle bin. But is banning them a better solution? I don't think so.
I'd miss plastic bags if they went away...lots of ways to re-use them...liner for the compost bucket or small wastebaskets, covers to keep the weather off PTO shaft yokes or trailer hitches, wrapping messy stuff like oil filters when you put them in the trash. Dog owners often use them to pick up after their pet.

There are no easy solutions.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^
I agree about the plastic bags, although like milk jugs they seem to be building them more and more flimsy. I never recycle mine because as you say, there always seems to be another use for them first. I"ve brought them to the local farm stand and to the used book store I used to frequent, as trash bags and a myriad of other purposes. I do wish there was a way to recycle all of the grain bags I generate in summer though; I do reuse some for trash but not as many as I generate, and it seems like a waste to throw them out.

 

[ruffdog]

... there is more forestland in this country now than there was 100 years ago.

Do you have data that supports this claim?

 

[Jstpssng]

Do you have data that supports this claim?

From this website... U.S. Forest Facts Trend Data

Since 1900, forest area in the U.S. has remained statistically within 745 million acres +/-5% with the lowest point in 1920 of 735 million acres. The U.S. forest area in 2000 was about 749 million acres.

The USFS has collected data on forestland since the 1950s. Among other things they have a series of plots established where they go in and measure all of the trees every 5 years. The actual task was recently handed over to the states. That data is what my comment was based on.

 

[RickB]

Steam powered rail, home heating and mom & pop iron smelting decimated US forests in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

[Jstpssng]

Steam powered rail, home heating and mom & pop iron smelting decimated US forests in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Burning was also a common way to clear land for farmland, much of which has since reverted back.

 

[MossRoad]

Much of northern Indiana and SW lower Michigan's forests were cleared of hardwoods for sewing machine cabinets. It's hard to believe, but Singer had a huge factory here and that's all they did for about a hundred years.

 

[ultrarunner]

Isn’t all of that taken care of with an HRV system?

Many ranges hoods do not vent to outside... they just filter.

The piped chrome vents on the old stoves worked all the time and no electricity required.

 

[cqaigy2]

^^^^
I agree about the plastic bags, although like milk jugs they seem to be building them more and more flimsy. I never recycle mine because as you say, there always seems to be another use for them first. I"ve brought them to the local farm stand and to the used book store I used to frequent, as trash bags and a myriad of other purposes. I do wish there was a way to recycle all of the grain bags I generate in summer though; I do reuse some for trash but not as many as I generate, and it seems like a waste to throw them out.

I know that feeling, like, i say to myself, man that cardboard box is sure a good box, i wonder if i can use it for something, or that's a nice glass jar. I missed the plastic bags at first, used them in all kinds of ways. But what i don't miss, is those same bags blowing around the country side. And something i didn't really think about, but most of that plastic breaks down after time, even if its a long time, which seems like a plus, but apparently it just breaks down into smaller plastic pieces that get taken up by all kinds of organisms. You can see all kinds plastic crap on ocean beaches and other places you never used to see it. So do we raise the price of plastic stuff to pay for keeping it out of the environment, or do we replace it with more expensive stuff?

 

[ultrarunner]

San Jose just restricted new gas installations...

In time I'm sure it will go nationwide as did smog controls for cars...

 

[grsthegreat]

i have a good range hood over gas stove that vents outside. you can see steam and smoke (if any) get drawn up hood. hold a piece of paper there and it gets sucked up. my wood stove has outside combustion air. so not worried in the least.

 

[rademamj1]

Jspsnng: Thanks for the link to national forestry data. I did read it with enthusiasm. So I must question what drove the huge national environmental strategy to move away from paper to plastics in the 70s and 80s. It certainly was not done to save national forests, which were mainly in a period of new recovering growth.

 

[5030]

I don't like electric stoves, so I have a gas stove. The hood over it is vented, (outside) so I don't see any problem with it at all.

It's all my dad/mom had, and dad did a lot of the cooking and still lived to be over 100. lol

SR

Only 'gas' here is what comes out my rear end (least in the house. Not about to implicate my wife in that as she may read my comment...

 

[RickB]

Burning was also a common way to clear land for farmland, much of which has since reverted back.

With good reason in many instances.

 

[ultrarunner]

Jspsnng: Thanks for the link to national forestry data. I did read it with enthusiasm. So I must question what drove the huge national environmental strategy to move away from paper to plastics in the 70s and 80s. It certainly was not done to save national forests, which were mainly in a period of new recovering growth.

It was the Save Trees movement... people tree sitting to protect and spiking trees very common back then.

It was a whole movement Not to use paper and billboards showed how many trees would be saved using plastic...

Maybe the Plastic Guys were behind it?

 

[gsganzer]

I take every study I read with a grain of salt these days. I'm not a science nay-sayer, but it seems so many of these studies are ultimately funded by an interest group that has cherry picked data that supports their argument, while downplaying data that opposes it. Or make tenuous links between cause and effect that feed more on people fears of it being so, than the actual evidence suggests.

 

[ericm979]

I have a hand held air pollution monitor that measures PM and formaldehyde among other things. But not NO2.

I can leave it running next to the propane stove, turn on a burner and there's no change (from essentially zero in non wildfire season). Actually cooking of course can put a bunch of stuff in the air depending on what and how you're cooking. But that's the same for any stove technology.

This study could be using more accurate air quality meters than the cheap one I have but mine would have to be really inaccurate to be missing all the PM2.5 and formaldehyde that they say gas stoves produce. Perhaps my stove burns cleaner than theirs. Or my sampling method was flawed.

 

[gsganzer]

I have a hand held air pollution monitor that measures PM and formaldehyde among other things. But not NO2.

I can leave it running next to the propane stove, turn on a burner and there's no change (from essentially zero in non wildfire season). Actually cooking of course can put a bunch of stuff in the air depending on what and how you're cooking. But that's the same for any stove technology.

This study could be using more accurate air quality meters than the cheap one I have but mine would have to be really inaccurate to be missing all the PM2.5 and formaldehyde that they say gas stoves produce. Perhaps my stove burns cleaner than theirs. Or my sampling method was flawed.

I used to perform source emissions sampling (stack testing) and currently work with SCR systems on power generation and other combustion sources. I wouldn't expect any particulate from natural gas, but I would expect NOx (NO and NO2) and CO and CO2. I'm not sure about formaldehyde. However, in a normally functioning house, is the amount generated from a cooking appliance going to be enough to be an issue? Because almost every other gas appliance (water heater, furnace, gas dryer) has it's combustion gases vented to the outdoors.

I did some reading from various sources and I suspect the issue (and probably the underlying purpose of the study) is to get legislation in place to ban the use of gas in residential applications as part of a wider "climate change" agenda for CO2 emissions.
Just my :2cents: