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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Gas in general may cause incidental gas pollution —but I see a problem by the author. The author mentions high pollution results when cooking —which for the author does using a gas range. However the author doesn’t discuss results from alternate ranges. I have an induction stove and every time I cook the indoor air pollution also spikes (lots of frying). It’s likely less than that caused by gas stoves but never the less creates pollutants in the air.

I have no doubt that gas causes more pollution but they are remiss for not mentioning the cooking process itself causes pollution.

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> incidental gas pollution... the author doesn’t discuss results from alternate ranges... "

The alternative ranges produce zero. Combustion heating, cooking and driving produces NO2, electric doesn't. The article is specifically about NO2, it has specific adverse health effects.

> Every time I cook the indoor air pollution also spikes "

What kind of pollution are you measuring? My air purifier reacts to frying too and shows "high pollution', but it just measures particles in the air - it cannot tell apart cancerous coal ash from harmless pollen and frying oil getting in the air.

The food itself can give off emissions — obviously less so if you're doing something like, say, boiling eggs in water, but if you're using high temperatures and oil then it could be significant.

>I have no doubt that gas causes more pollution but they are remiss for not mentioning the cooking process itself causes pollution.

Yes, and the real problem is vents that do not exhaust outside. Even in code crazy California, it is perfectly legal to have vents that just blow the air around.

Author also mentions pollution from the gas furnace though, so no cooking involved. But you're right: would be interesting to know amounts of NO2 released by frying though.

I was never taught you must use the hood and barely use it.

The author is comparing cooking between different types of stoves, not indoor air quality between different activities. I believe you would call this a controlled variable, for example by making sure you cook the same meal, at the same quantity, the same way. Real scientists can correct me.

No. The author didn’t do this.

You might wanna take a second look at the title of the article.

You might want to take a minute to read the article itself. The author measures NO2 levels in their house with the equipment (stove, furnace, etc) that they have and the meals that they cook (or don't, e.g. when getting takeout). They make no comparison to other stoves.

There is an implicit comparison through the research he cites. It’s also almost certain the reader would be using this information to decide on moving away from gas. No one is trying to use this information to make a decision on whether to abandon cooking. They want to know how bad gas stoves pollute indoor air so they can weigh their decision to go electric.

Sure. But the comment you responded to was about the observational study that the author did, not about the research. The question is about what portion of the observed emissions come from cooking per se, as opposed to the gas that is used to do the cooking. I suspect it is a small portion, but it is still an interesting one, and not addressed by the article.

My original comment was saying that when trying to make comparisons between types of stoves food emissions are controlled.

And that comparison hasn’t been made. Sure. The food emissions are going to be (about) the same for the same meal, regardless of the stove. But nobody knows whether the food emissions make up 5% or 95% of the emissions in his measurements. Because he hasn’t compared his gas stove to any other stove.

No, the author is not comparing different types of stoves. I never saw anything about induction or wood stoves.

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