These homes replaced their gas stoves – and saw a huge drop in indoor pollution

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 22:20:05 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/31/gas-stoves-replaced-electric-pollution-air-quality-study-bronx>

"What happens when you replace a gas stove, recently linked to one-eighth of
all US asthma cases, with an induction stove? A program in New York offered
tenants the chance to do just that and found striking differences in the levels
of harmful indoor chemicals after the switch.

The pilot program took place in a 96-unit public housing building outfitted
with gas stoves in the Bronx. Twenty low-income households participated, and at
the beginning of the study half were given induction stoves, which use
electricity to heat the cookware directly and don’t emit pollutants.

Researchers performed a controlled cooking test and found that the baseline
level of nitrogen oxide (NO2) – which forms in the air from burning fossil
fuels – in homes with gas stoves was 18 parts per billion (ppb).

It rose to an average of 197ppb during cooking. That is almost twice the
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) threshold for outdoor exposure deemed
unhealthy for sensitive groups, such as people with respiratory illnesses,
seniors and young children. Long-term exposure to NO2 can exacerbate asthma,
lung disease and increase the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses.

(The EPA does not have standards for indoor air pollution, even though
Americans on average spend 90% of their time indoors.)

In the homes with induction stoves, by comparison, the background NO2 level of
11ppb saw a negligible change to 14ppb during cooking.

On average, households with gas stoves were exposed to nitrogen dioxide (NO2)
concentrations 190% higher than those with induction stoves when cooking a
meal. Over 10 months of air quality monitoring, households with induction
stoves experienced a 35% drop in daily NO2 concentrations in their apartments."

Via The Fixer February 8, 2023:
<https://reasonstobecheerful.world/an-invasive-species-is-helping-to-restore-the-amazon/>

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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