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.
The only real issue is that how environmentally friendly electric is compared to gas depends on how the electricity is made. Gas effectively converts all of its potential chemical energy to heat where it is used. Electricity has to be generated from some process eg. burning fuel, nuclear energy, wind, solar, hydroelectric etc. and if it is primarily generated at coal or gas power plants, maybe 40 to 50% of the potential chemical energy in those fuels are converted into electricity. So if more than about 40% of the electricity you use is generated by burning fossil fuels, you arent really saving the environment by using electric instead of gas. But of course where that pollution ends up matters. In the case of electric, if your power is generated in power plants that burn fossil fuels, the pollution isn’t directly being vented into your house. And those power plants may scrub their exhaust to an extent. i.e to reduce Sulfur Dioxide emissions etc.
Scrubbers at power plants will do way more than the one you won’t have at home.
And gas can never be converted.