A new study by Stanford University recently revealed the methane that leaks from natural-gas burning stoves within the United States homes has a climate impact compared to the carbon dioxide released from approximately 500,000 gasoline-powered vehicles.
As indicated in a Phys.org report, humans for millennia, humans have cooked with fire, although "it may be time for a change."
Appliances run by natural gas are warming the planet in two ways. First, it generates carbon dioxide by burning natural gas as a fuel, and second, leaking unburned methane into the atmosphere.
Essentially, the extra warming coming from home methane leaks contributes approximately a third as much warming as the CO2 produced by combustion of the natural gas of the stove, and at times, exposes users to respiratory disease-stimulating contaminants.
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Blue flames rise from the burner of a natural gas stove.
Impact on Indoor and Climate Air Quality
Findings of the study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, come as legislators in several municipalities in the US, as well as at least one state, New York, in particular, weigh prohibiting natural gas hookups from the new structure.
According to the study's lead author Eric Lebel, who performed the research as a graduate student in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences at Stanford, surprisingly, "There are very few measurements" of the manner natural gas is escaping into the air from inside homes and buildings through leaks, as well as incomplete combustion from appliances.
Perhaps, he explained, it is the part of natural gas emissions they understand the least about, and it can have a huge effect on both indoor and climate air quality. He added this is an overlooked contributor to a growing problem.
Methane's Global Warming Potential
CO2 may have been more abundant in the atmosphere, the global warming potential of methane is roughly 86 times as great over a two-decade period and at least 25 times as great as a hundred years following its release.
In addition, methane is threatening air quality as well, by increasing the tropospheric ozone's concentration, exposure to which is causing approximately one million premature fatalities each year globally because of respiratory diseases.
The relative concentration of Methane has grown more than double as quickly as that of CO2 since the start of the Industrial Revolution due to human human-driven emissions.
Whereas pipeline leaks of natural gas, which is over 90 percent methane, have been examined thoroughly, natural gas-burning cooking appliances have been given somewhat little attention.
Use of Hood and Ventilation Helps
A similar report from The Washington Post via the MSN News specified that over 40 million households, or more than one-third of the American homes, cook using gas. Unlike other gas appliances like space and water heaters usually placed away from living quarters, this study revealed cooking appliances are directly exposing people to their emissions, including formaldehyde, nitric oxides, and carbon monoxide, among others that can trigger coughs, wheezing, difficulty breathing and asthma, occasionally leading to hospitalization.
Essentially, the use of hood and ventilation can help lessen concentrations of nitrogen oxides, as well as other co-produced pollutants in the kitchen atmosphere, although studies reveal that home cooks on average are using hoods for kitchen ventilation only 25 to 40 percent of the time.
Related information about the impact of the gas stoves on climate change is shown on GlobalWitness's YouTube video below:
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