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Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

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21–30 of 139 posts

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#21
post #6

I find it significantly harder to cook with electric than gas, and the first hurdle these days is always that for some reason all modern stoves use awful touch interfaces instead of just plain knobs. I don't understand how we got there. It should be obvious to anyone that it's a terrible interface when you are trying to multitask several pots and might also have greasy hands

Am I missing something? A quick search for electric ranges on Home Depot shows simmerstats at every price range.

The harder one is induction, where there are lots of touch controls, but I don’t see this issue on traditional resistive stovetops.

(This is in the US of course)

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#22

I don't care. Quality-of-life. I cook in a pan every day. Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do. Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously. My life would be noticeably worse without my open-flame stove. I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion. A gas stove is a…

Induction is more precise with better control

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#23
post #6

I find it significantly harder to cook with electric than gas, and the first hurdle these days is always that for some reason all modern stoves use awful touch interfaces instead of just plain knobs. I don't understand how we got there. It should be obvious to anyone that it's a terrible interface when you are trying to multitask several pots and might also have greasy hands

Simply not true. There’s a ton of induction and electric coil ranges with knobs. Just look at the Bosch line.

they are definitely a minority, not "tons". On the Bosch website I can't even find them.

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#24

I don't care. Quality-of-life. I cook in a pan every day. Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do. Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously. My life would be noticeably worse without my open-flame stove. I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion. A gas stove is a…

No way. I cook everyday and induction is vastly superior than gas. The only time fire is vastly superior is when I use a wok which I have a stove I use outdoors. Most induction stoves have temperature maintained too. So it can keep your oil at a specific temperature let it be frying or confit or roasting spices.

Yeah I was going to say, induction is the shit. Normal electric stove tops are a far cry from them and people should not assume they’re anything alike other than a non-flame process.

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#25
The paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf341

The numbers:

[...]

We estimate average total residential long-term NO2 exposure across the United States to be ∼10 ppbv for people who own a gas stove (∼18 ppbv or more for households in the top 5% of gas burned while cooking) and ∼8 ppbv from total outdoor exposure for those with electric stoves, which cause no additional NO2 exposure.

[...]

Stratifying exposure by gas stove use intensity (i.e. by amount of gas burned while cooking, [...]), we find that people in households burning the 5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles of fuel nationally on average are exposed to 0.03 (95% CI: 0.01–0.07) ppbv, 1.7 (95% CI: 0.8–3.5) ppbv, and 10.3 (95% CI: 4.8–21.7) ppbv, respectively, of additional NO2 exposure from using their gas or propane stoves.

[...]

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#26
post #6

I find it significantly harder to cook with electric than gas, and the first hurdle these days is always that for some reason all modern stoves use awful touch interfaces instead of just plain knobs. I don't understand how we got there. It should be obvious to anyone that it's a terrible interface when you are trying to multitask several pots and might also have greasy hands

Still easy to manage, quick wipe with a paper towel, but rarely need to do even that.

Yeah, so my (electric) stove has knobs, but my oven and microwave are both touch buttons and this has literally never been an issue.

Admittedly I have other complaints about the microwave controls (why is it so damn many button presses to vary the power output) but it's not because the buttons are hard to use.

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#27

I don't care. Quality-of-life. I cook in a pan every day. Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do. Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously. My life would be noticeably worse without my open-flame stove. I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion. A gas stove is a…

Maybe it’s just because the gas stoves I’ve worked with are cheap, but I find them frustrating because their temperature ramps aren’t remotely linear, which can make finding exactly the right setting a pain.

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#28

I don't care. Quality-of-life. I cook in a pan every day. Nothing but an open flame gives me the kind of control I need to cook with the precision I do. Whatever the harmful effects on my health are, that is a trade I make consciously. My life would be noticeably worse without my open-flame stove. I'd wager anyone who opines otherwise in this thread barely cooks or doesn't cook in a serious fashion. A gas stove is a…

Tradesmen typically are paid to offset the health effects of their profession, but you get benzene for free.

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#29
post #14
post #6

I find it significantly harder to cook with electric than gas, and the first hurdle these days is always that for some reason all modern stoves use awful touch interfaces instead of just plain knobs. I don't understand how we got there. It should be obvious to anyone that it's a terrible interface when you are trying to multitask several pots and might also have greasy hands

This! The only electric (induction or otherwise) stovetops are either bottom of the barrel portable or top of the line commercial models. Everything in between is capacitive touch garbage.

I bought a relatively inexpensive induction range from LG specifically because it has knobs - a lot of the more expensive ones from other brands were capacitive touch.

Re: Switching to electric stoves can dramatically cut indoor air pollution (2025)

#30
I’ll be frank - I don’t buy this stuff because there are well funded agendas behind it. We find ourselves in an era where electrical utilities have shifted from widow & orphan dividend stocks to growth companies… and shockingly the environmental people are fully mobilized with gas everywhere.

Asthma is clearly correlated to urban areas with exposure to various pollutants. We’d see those same clusters in suburban populations with gas stoves if these indoor pollutants were elevating risk.

I live in New York. The utility in my region successfully lobbied to hike delivery rates for electricity by 40%. My spring electric bill is $300/mo, as much as my peak August or January utility bill a decade ago. 3-5 years ago, various foundations were bussing hundreds of protestors to lobby for climate change legislation that is essentially outlawing new natural gas service. They also prevented construction of pipelines to serve NYC and New England with additional capacity. All new construction must be electric only.

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