Interesting article about the future of gas stoves

bajaespuma · Feb 15, 2021

Not exactly good news from my perspective but some nice references to vintage stuff and professional stoves.

Gaslit: How the fossil fuel industry convinced Americans to love gas stoves

And why they're scared we might break up with their favorite appliance.

www.motherjones.com

kimball455 · Feb 15, 2021

Induction Cook Tops

If you have a cardiac pacemaker or defib device the recommendation is that you don't get too close to an indication range. The magnetic field can impact the programming of the device. I was considering an induction range but asked my cardiologist about the possibility of interactions. There is a risk. End result is dual fuel.

Harry

imperial70 · Feb 15, 2021

pacemakers and induction range.

Both my cardiologist and the pacemaker manufacturer don't advise an induction range at this time.

kevin313 · Feb 15, 2021

What about a single induction burner? Like a portable induction hotplate? Would that cause issue with a pacemaker?

henene4 · Feb 16, 2021

What ever is induction will cause that.

Main issue is the strong, high frequency field.

Interactions are relatively unlikely technically speaking.

Most time when there is no pot or pan on the plate, the magnetic field is turned off.

If a pot is on, the coupling between coil and pan usually blocks most magnetic fields.

But since if you get unlucky you basically just die most manufacturers advice against it on all sides.

Better safe then sorry.

One interesting thing about induction I learned recently:

Induction is touted to be more energy efficient and for the most part - especially today with higher efficiency components - that stays true.

BUT the longer the cooking time the less that gain is compared to other electric cooking methods.

Main reasons from what I understand is the loss due to electronic inefficiencys (there is a lot of high frequency switching involved) and the reduced thermal mass.

Also, induction cooktops are shorter lived compared to other technologies.

Main issue there again are the electronics.
You need a high power, high frequency switched power supply for the field to be created.
Imagine your phone charger, just like 300 times more powerful and way higher voltage.

And now cram that into a cooktop.

These thing have a suggested life span of 10-15 years with frequent use.

A normal coil is just way less complicated.
Ovens and cooktops are surprisingly still rather "expensive" appliances simply because more often then not they still last 20+ years.

Just not a whole lot to go wrong and to cheap out on.

warmsecondrinse · Feb 16, 2021

Original post:

That burner under the kettle is out of whack. Gas flames should never be burning yellow. Blue is the rule. I'm pretty sure that the flame should not extend beyond the bottom of the pot; most heat produced by flames licking up the sides does not heat the pot, but the room.

IIRC, what makes gas clean is the fact that it burns (when properly set) at such a high temperature (denoted by the blue flame) that combustion is nearly 100%, leaving few by-products. A yellow flame denotes a much lower combustion temp and MUCH higher production of by products. Could an expert please correct me if I'm wrong? Thanks.

I also have a vague memory of reading at least one in-situ study in which it was discovered that gas stove pollutants were measured without first determining that the gas stoves were functioning properly. So that's like evaluating a washer without knowing if it's working as designed.

As an aside, I've read a fair number of articles over the years regarding the rise of allergies, asthma, etc. in step with residences being more tightly sealed up to reduce HVAC costs which means the residences have less air exchange. I've also read that certain areas of many cities have much higher incidence of respiratory illnesses for whatever reason. My point is that these factors have to be accounted for. And 'accounted for' can be as simple as a single sentence in the study stating why what appears to be a confounding factor is not due to x,y, & z.

A little off point but I thought that California was gung ho on gas in order to reduce electric demands. What changed?

petek · Feb 16, 2021

I think the rise in gas stove popularity is directly related to the "faux pro" stylings even among the lower tier brands, along with the plethora of cooking shows. It's hard to even find a plain jane gas stove on display in most stores whereas there are still more visible plain jane electrics (coil and glasstop) along with the fancier electrics.

kb0nes · Feb 16, 2021

Evolution happens, we used to cook with coal, wood or kerosene. As homes get tighter there is just no reason to have a non-vented fire in the house.

As for pacemakers and induction it's darned unlikely to cause any issues, but there is no way any medical professional would tell you that. Cover your ass is the rule. Field strength drops with the square of the distance, you'd have to get the device within inches of the surface. The induction unit has to sense a pan in place before it ramps up the power, the vast majority of the magnetic flux short circuits through the cookware.

petek · Feb 16, 2021

re Induction and pacemakers

Out of interest I looked up a couple of studies and it's very complicated. So many variables including where the pacemaker is located in your body, left side, center or right side. What type of pacemaker it is and what type of leads it has. Your distance to the coil and pan placement. How long you stand in front of it. Whether your hand is on the metal handle of a pot for a long time and whether your other hand is also touching the stove or something else grounded .

warmsecondrinse · Feb 16, 2021

#8

Medical <--> environmental interactions are usually this complicated. It's all those pesky laws-of-physics things that annoy so many people.

The problem is that the truth of the above does not change the fact that a prospective buyer needs clear data (like WITH NUMBERS0 which he can use to judge whether or not an induction coil would be safe given where the design of his kitchen would require him to stand to use it.

Maybe I'm naive but I don't see a workable solution here.....

earthling177 · Feb 16, 2021

Well, let's start with the "good news", the things the article got not exactly right, then move on to other stuff.

 

First off, it wasn't too hard to convince people back then that gas was better: most people were cooking with wood or coal (sometimes even sawdust stoves) and even the homes that had electric stoves often had stoves which were underpowered by current standards (no pun intended) -- many homes had 50-60A electric panels for the entire home, while nowadays just the electric range is often 40-50A.

 

Up to the 50's or so (but at the very least 30's-40's), methane ("Natural Gas") was less common than it is now. Most of the cities who had gas used "manufactured gas" or "town gas", which was extracted from coal, if I remember right, and was more dangerous, in that it had a higher percentage of carbon monoxide in it. (As a sidebar, the amount of inherent carbon monoxide in town gas was one of the reasons movies often used the "suicide by sticking their heads in the oven" thing.)

 

And yes, it's funny how so many people who have asthma and other breathing problems fight for their "cooking with gas" rights, but people quickly back down from induction stoves when doctors tell them it might affect their implants (pacemakers, defibrillators).

 

Things the article either doesn't mention or didn't get quite right include the fact that, with population growth, even if we didn't care about pollution or climate change, we wouldn't have a choice to stay with gas for home heating or home cooking. And that's to say nothing about bringing manufacturing back into US, which will use massive amounts of natural gas.

 

If you ask around, right now, there are plenty of restaurants in the past 5 years or so, particularly in NYC and other metro areas, which couldn't get their permits because there wasn't enough gas to supply the stoves/ovens -- some of them chose to go with induction and electric ovens and say they'll never look back, some kept their place in the "wait line" to get connected to gas, because it's cheaper than the electric options.

 

The article also mentions that "there is no standard for ventilation", which is not quite true, there are multiple areas of the country where building standards require not only more ventilation for gas stoves (particularly "commercial-style" ranges with high-power burners), but it also requires a heat-exchanger for make-up air to replace the air being exhausted by the hood. This adds enough expense that many owners give up their gas stoves in favor of electric or induction, where they can get away with less than 600 cu ft of air/min or even just a recirculation hood ("commercial-style" ranges often require 1,200 cu ft/min hoods or higher).

 

Either way, I've said this before here multiple times: the hubby and I grew up with gas stoves, and a few years ago we installed an induction range and we don't want to go back to gas. In fact, my parents had a new home built right after we made the change, and we warned them to at the very least instal an electric line/outlet for an induction range behind their gas range in case they ever wanted to switch, but they said "nah, we'll use that money for something else", and now, for years, every time they visit us, they both say they regret not having that line all the time.

 

Before I forget, someone asked the question -- a full-size induction range, particularly with pots/pans of the proper size for the burner, will generate way less stray electromagnetic fields than one of those portable countertop single induction burners, which are housed in plastic and allow for more "leakage" than the regular stovetops/ranges, which are encased in metal.

 

Most of the problem comes from the fact that the vast majority of implants had a coil somewhere on the body so that the doctors could use an induction coupling to either reprogram the devices or gather data. 

 

That being said, more recent implants are more resistant to interference (coils put higher up on the body and responsive to a much narrower frequency band, plus microchips that discard interference they don't understand, instead of just passing it thru to the heart), and my plan, if/when such implants become necessary, is to tell my doctors "we have an induction range, and that's not gonna change, so plan for the implant accordingly" and I think that even people who have gas stoves should do the same, you never know when you're gonna be visiting people who have induction ranges in their homes, and the percentage of induction stoves will only rise as more and more people find out they are much easier/nicer to use than gas burners.

lowefficiency · Feb 16, 2021

It's sort of like how they ask everyone to turn off their electronic devices (or the radios on them) during takeoff and landing on aircraft. Is my device going to interfere with the flight instruments? Statistically, no. But there is a non-zero chance that it will, and the consequences if it does faaaaar outweigh the inconveniences of turning devices off, so the guidance remains.

maytag85 · Feb 16, 2021

Nice thing about gas stoves is you can use them when the power is out but you’ll have to light the burner with a match or lighter to get the burner lit. Downside about electric stoves is you can’t use them at all when there’s a power outage and I genuinely feel bad for the people who have lost power in this winter storm effecting most of the US at the moment and all electric homes are getting effected the worst that have been without power since yesterday.

qsd-dan · Feb 17, 2021

It's not just stoves....

California officially has a war on natural gas and that includes HVAC systems. Their current goal now is to eliminate all sources of natural gas on an already overburdened grid that is now, thanks to PG&E, highly unstable. This is all without a zero-carbon grid in place to carry the load. Berkley has become the first city in California to ban natural gas in its new structures beginning in 2019.

Some interesting days lie ahead....

Berkeley became first US city to ban natural gas. Here's what that may mean for the future

The California city on Tuesday voted to ban natural gas hook-ups in new buildings, in a historic move

www.theguardian.com

henene4 · Feb 17, 2021

What is funny

As far as I understand, there are a few pretty recent implant advances that allowed certain pacemakers to be labelled as MRI save which is impressive in its own right.

I would suppose that if it doesn't interact with fields in an MRI, it won't interfere with induction hobs I would dare to say.

earthling177 · Feb 17, 2021

Dave (LowEfficiency):

That makes a ton more sense in an aircraft for two main reasons: first off, the appliances they are asking us to shut off are appliances that have, as one of the primary functions, use a radio transmitter (not just a receiver), or as opposed to just a random device encased in a metal cage to eliminate as much stray EMF as possible; second, airplanes are built very differently than most other equipment -- because of volume and weight, they use very thin wires with high-end insulation which is very thin compared to regular equipment, so not a lot of shielding, and can pickup more EMF than it should. Most modern planes are better built now, particularly in planes that offer Wireless Networking themselves, but it wasn't that strange to ask for people to turn stuff off 20 years ago as a lot of people make it sound.

earthling177 · Feb 17, 2021

Sean (Maytag85):

One should always check to see if the gas stove/oven/range one is buying will in fact even work during a power failure. Rumor some years ago was that there were high-end stovetops which used some form of automatic (re-)ignition device that depended entirely on electric power and the solenoids would, of course, close without power.

Maybe they improved the design, maybe they don't make it anymore. And many people only think of the stovetop part, when I was a kid, all gas ovens used a thermocouple to open the gas valve and the thermostat would not turn the main burner on/off during baking, it would modulate the gas to lower the flame. Not sure how modern gas ovens work, I keep hearing people complain that the glow ignitor breaks often and you can't just light the oven by hand when that happens.

I think this falls way more under "emergency preparedness" -- I have an induction range and, if the power goes out, my plan is to use the propane camp stove anyway. We'll do without the oven for a bit.

foraloysius · Feb 17, 2021

Well, this asthma patient will never defend the use of a gas stove. I have been cooking on gas a part of my life but that ended after my asthma became more serious. Even a perfect blue flame creates combustions that make me very wheezy to say the least. Some friends have gas stoves and far from perfect ventilation in their kitchens. When they start cooking I have to evacuate far away from that stove I have experienced more than I care about.

daveamkrayoguy · Feb 17, 2021

Well what about the campaign to get rid of gas cars--and get electricity and charging to run this:

I love my gas stove and wouldn't give up gas cookimg for the world, just another stance on some sort of a soap box, or if everything has to be processed into electricity let the former fossile fuel industry be absorbed by this new era in energy...

But I could never live with a fake flme--I was amazed at the knobs that had no numbes when I first saw a gas stove and had no idea a blue fkame could actually be hot(forget that cartoonish geegaw of depiction as well!) or that years laster I would peer under every pot and pan I cook to gauge the heat under it...

-- Dave