The gas stove uses methane to create heat. Just a note, so do cows when passing their gas. Lots of it. But alas, this is about stoves and not cows.
It appears that some group of environmentalists from Stanford have created a new career for themselves bemoaning methane stoves. The NY Times reports that this band of methane stove destroyers are measuring willy nilly various gasses in apartments with gas stoves.
Now the problem is that methane, CH4, burning with the air, mostly nitrogen, and some oxygen, creates some outgasses like nitrous oxide etc. Also a small amount of cyanide gas if you will.
I found the paper referenced above at best a shabby attempt to create a problem where there very well may be none. Outgassing occurs from hundreds of factors, especially in old poorly ventilated and unclean living circumstances. The Times shows an apartment which contains many sources of outgassing besides a gas stove.
The Stanford team appears in my opinion as a 21st century set of Ghost Busters. Their approach in my opinion is not at all scientific since there are some many exogenous factors that attributing a gas to any one source is near impossible.
This is what "science" has become. In medicine we would call it witch doctoring. In engineering it could lead to real problems.
The Times states:
Change could be on the horizon. More than 60 percent of American households already use electricity to cook, and the Biden administration has proposed to expand gas stove efficiency rules, with an estimated $100 million in energy savings for people on top of the climate and health benefits. Several cities in mostly blue states have passed or considered bans on new gas hookups, effectively requiring electric cooking and heating in new construction, though some red states have moved to pre-empt such bans.
The estimate is truly baseless in my opinion and based upon any real analysis. This is a quasi-religious movement driven by belief not science. Welcome to what we seem to be teaching students today.
Posts
