Gas Stoves Found to Leak Dangerous Chemicals, Even When Turned Off

By Yehudit Garmaise

While gas stoves are usually thought to be easier to use, and more energy and cost-efficient than electric stoves, which use twice as much power and thus more fossil fuels, such as gas and coal, new research shows that when gas stoves are turned off, they emit high levels of nitrogen oxides that can have negative effects both on people’s health and the quality of the air in people’s homes, CBS News reported.

In addition to the 6.8 million tons of carbon dioxide gas stoves emit in the air across the U.S. in one year, while the blue flames are burning, even when the stoves are not in use, they continuously leak an additional 2.6 million tons of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas that has a warming potential of more than 28 times that of carbon dioxide, a University of California at Davis website says.

The gas emitted from gas stoves when they are off is an amount that is equivalent to the annual amount of greenhouse gases from 500,000 cars, Lebel and other researchers said last Thursday in the Environmental Science & Technology journal. 

Methane leaks are not dangerous to human health, unless the escaping gas is sufficient to cause an explosion, Rob Jackson, a Stanford University climate scientist and co-author of the study, told CBS News.

The same study, which measured emissions from gas stoves when they were both on and off in 53 home kitchens in California, however, also found that home stoves can emit high levels of nitrogen oxides that exceed what the Environmental Protection Agency deems unacceptable for even outdoor air quality.

In fact, minutes after they are turned on, gas stoves emit more than 100 parts per billion of nitrogen oxides, which are irritants that can trigger asthma and difficulty breathing. 

Kitchen sizes, open windows, and the use of stoves’ fans while cooking can diffuse the impact of nitrogen oxide levels.

"I never used my [stove’s fan] until we started this work," Jackson said. "Now I nag people: never [turn on] a burner on without flipping on the [fan under the] hood."

Zachary Merrin, a research engineer with the Illinois Applied Research Institute's Indoor Climate Research & Training group, who was not part of the study, told the AP that “from an emissions standpoint, cooking directly with gas is better than using a fossil-fuel powered electric stove, but worse than using a solar-powered electric stove."