The natural gas that lights popular gas stoves for both home and professional cooks contains low concentrations of several pollutants and chemicals linked to cancer, a new study has found.
The study, by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and published this week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, is the latest in a growing body of research that links both the delivery and use of natural gas NG00, -0.14% to possible consequences for public health and climate change.
The impact is significant: over one-third of U.S. households — more than 40 million homes — cook with gas. Over 16 months, researchers collected 234 samples of unburned natural gas from 69 homes in the Boston metropolitan area that received natural gas from three suppliers. They turned up several “air toxics,” which is an Environmental Protection Agency classification of hazardous pollutants, including benzene.
Too tiny to matter? Pipeline operators and natural gas suppliers generally test the composition of gas along the production process, including at power plants, in accordance with the North American Energy Standards Board. But to date, those tests are limited to roughly 16 of the most abundant components of natural gas. It excludes, for instance, benzene, the study authors stressed.
In American kitchens, hood use and ventilation help reduce concentrations pollutants in the air, yet surveys show that home cooks on average use them only 25% to 40% of the time, the earlier Stanford research showed. The highest emitters were cooktops that ignited using a pilot light instead of a built-in electronic sparker.
New York is not alone. Berkeley, Calif., became the first city in the U.S. to ban gas hookups in new construction in 2019. And now at least 42 cities in California, including San Francisco and San Jose, have acted to limit gas in new buildings. Salt Lake City and Denver have also made plans to move toward electrification. And notably, Ithaca, N.Y., took the step to convert all of its buildings, not just new construction, to heat pumps and electric ranges over gas.
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