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I'm confused by this. Most forms of cooking produce really alarming levels of particulate polution, regardless of the energy source. If you have adequate vent
by nullc 2y ago
I'm confused by this.
Most forms of cooking produce really alarming levels of particulate polution, regardless of the energy source.
If you have adequate ventilation to address the pollution from the cooking itself, then that is more than enough to address the combustion products.
From a policy perspective, cooking is a major energy sink that significantly occurs during peak hours (and outside of solar production)-- moving 100% of that load to the electrical grid seems far from desirable.
Particularly when the issue could (and should) be addressed with improved ventilation requirements for cooking areas, esp in California where the outside weather is usually mild enough that better ventilation isn't a big deal.
- IshKebab 2y agoSure but "not cooking" isn't really a viable way of cooking food, whereas "using an induction hob instead of gas" absolutely is.
- nullc 2y agoMy point was that using induction instead of gas still leaves you with terrible indoor air pollution. The solution to that is ventilation, but any ventilation sufficient to eliminate the polution from the cooking food also addresses the combustion gasses (which are an order of magnitude hotter, less massive, and less numerous-- so easier to eliminate with ventilation).
- stefantalpalaru 2y ago[dead]
- jeffnappi 2y agoMost residential homes do not have proper ventilation.
- nullc 2y agoIndeed, though they could-- outside of dense multi-tenant facilities-- and it would improve the indoor air quality with almost certain health benefits. AFAICT demonizing gas will not have a significant improvement to indoor air quality, as it doesn't address the root cause of poor ventilation. It may cause health harm by making people falsely believe the issue is addressed by not using gas. At least with gas it is relatively obvious that ventilation is an issue.
- dyauspitr 2y agoWhat are you talking about? Induction is very clean, no particulates at all. Same with covered infra coils. Naked coils might have negligible levels of particulates.
- Vecr 2y agoNot from the coils, from the food itself. You can kind of fix it by cooking in a very conservative way, but good luck safely cooking chicken without oil and a high temperature (and the particles that generates).
- dyauspitr 2y agoYeah but particulates are a lesser worry either way. I would be way more concerned about the harmful byproducts of propane/lpg combustion. It gives off large amounts of benzene and toluene which I think is a much bigger concern.
- adrian_b 2y agoI cook chicken and turkey and any other kind of meat (after removing all bones) in a closed glass vessel, in a microwave oven, without adding anything to the raw meat (i.e. no oil), except salt and spices. This produces very tasty meat, which is very similar to roasted meat, except for no or minimal browning. This method produces no particulate pollution and it does not require any kind of ventilation in the kitchen.
- nullc 2y agoFWIW, cooking in my microwave spikes the particulate sensor-- and I'd be willing to bet it does in yours too. Though I agree this could be fixed with a particular filter on the microwave. Certainly there are ways of cooking that produce little to no particulate pollution, presumably sous vide or indeed microwaving with a microwave that has a particulate filter. But the conclusion there is that you should have ventilation or cooking techniques that don't need ventilation. Gas or not is incidental. And conveniently the low pollution modalities I can think of are already electric by default, except for boiling in a closed pot. (Which I happily agree is best done with induction, even if just for speed alone).