If You Cook With Gas Are You Putting Your Family At Risk?

The facts are this. Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that when leaked into the atmosphere contributes to global warming more rapidly and over a shorter term than carbon dioxide (CO2). Natural gas is commonly used in heating and cooling systems in homes, apartments and other types of buildings. In much of Canada, natural gas is our primary heating fuel source. The same is true for much of the U.S.

During the presidency of Barack Obama, the U.S. government policy related to climate change made natural gas a transition fuel away from coal and oil. Utilities were encouraged to shutter their coal-fired and oil-burning infrastructure and convert it to natural gas. Today, the transitional strategy is still in place fuelled by the rationale that switching to natural gas reduced GHGs per heating unit by 42%.

In 2021 the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimated natural gas contributed to 34% of the country’s total GHG emissions. The transitional strategy, therefore, although lessening emissions from coal and oil, was doing little to reduce the country’s global warming impact.

The Cooking with Gas Controversy

Natural gas, however, is more than just a fuel to heat homes and businesses. In the United States cooking with gas appears to be the method of choice for the majority of homeowners who prefer it to electricity.

The latest controversy has arisen because an official, Richard Trumka Jr., a member of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission told a Bloomberg reporter that there is research linking gas stoves in homes to increased levels of asthma in children. Trumka mentioned that the agency was considering regulating natural gas indoor home appliances because of this remark that “products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” 

This comment was interpreted by some in politics to be an assault on freedom of choice with Matt Gaetz, a Republican Member of the House tweeting “you’ll have to pry it from my COLD DEAD HANDS!” (Note: The use of uppercase on Twitter is the equivalent of shouting.)

Nitrogen Dioxide Leaks, Not Methane, The Problem

What does the science say about cooking with gas pertaining to emissions? How much does it contribute to respiratory illnesses in children? And how much does it contribute to global warming?

The former is a real issue, the latter not nearly as much. And it is not CH4 consumption that is the kitchen appliance issue. Almost all the CH4 used during cooking burns up. The problem occurs if an appliance is not well maintained because that’s when leaks occur. Those leaks can be CH4. But they can also be carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). CO leaks can kill you. NO2 leaks contribute to increased incidents of respiratory disease.

NO2 can also come from emissions produced by internal combustion engines. It contributes to ground-level ozone in cities, a known respiratory irritant that can cause asthma in children and pulmonary disease in adults. In China, for example, where urban air pollution from burning coal and other fossil fuels is far worse, the daily death toll from the air is 4,400. And if you don’t believe that NO2 and other noxious gasses are the real deal, just walk along a busy city street during rush hour and feel the effects of these pollutants on your eyes and in your nose. The NO2 and other pollutants coming from tailpipes are exposing you to medical risk.

Outside or Inside Air Pollution

So when you get home and light the stove or turn up the thermostat, do you want to continue experiencing what is on the outside? The risk of exposure to indoor air pollution is real. But which is worse, the outside air or the inside air?

The outside air undoubtedly. That’s because the actual contribution cooking with gas in a home makes, according to U.S. figures amounts to no more than 0.1% of the total GHG emissions produced by the country annually. And cooking with gas uses only 3% of the natural gas consumed in homes. The rest is for heating. So is this really a kitchen appliance problem or more a problem about the right fuel energy choices to be made now and in the future to achieve two goals: respiratory disease reduction, and climate change mitigation?

For Matt Gaetz with his cold dead hands’ declaration, I wonder, would he have been so vehement if the agency spokesperson had cited furnaces and water heaters. After all, that stuff is hidden away in the utility room or basement and not front and centre with the stainless-steel, four-burner, state-of-the-art appliance in the family kitchen surrounded by granite countertops.

Asthma, Pulmonary Disease and Gas Stoves

Studies that link respiratory illnesses like asthma in children and gas stoves show varying increases of between 12 and 42%. As early as 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) produced guidelines about exposure to NO2 from gas stoves. While the U.S. has yet to do this, Health Canada, in 2015, revised its recommendations on indoor air quality referencing gas stoves as a NO2 issue particularly during brief periods after a burner is shut off. The Canadian guidelines stated that gas stoves shouldn’t be used without a hood fan turned on and connected directly to the outdoors, or the use of other ventilation such as an open kitchen window.

The gas stove controversy has seen new fuel poured upon it by New York City which recently announced a change to its municipal building code, banning gas hookups for all new construction. The ban didn’t apply to legacy buildings. Other municipalities and some states enacted similar new gas hookup bans, while at the same time in protest, a number of contrarian jurisdictions banned the ban.

A Final Word

The greater natural gas risk really isn’t centred on the kitchen stove although the NO2 link to childhood asthma and adult pulmonary disease cannot be discounted. The real risk is the reliance on and acceptance of a transitional fuel strategy to get to net zero that has entrenched natural gas as a greener option to combat climate change.

Even the European Union with all its environmental activism recently gave natural gas the green stamp which had more to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine than combatting climate change.

The result of the transitional fuel notion means we continue to pay for a policy that has outlived its short-term purpose which was to get utilities to shutter coal-fired operations. Natural gas is no different from other fossil fuels that produce GHG emissions. It is certainly not green and definitely continues to contribute to rising atmospheric and ocean temperatures.