Quote:Federal agency considers ban on gas stoves following report linking them to childhood asthma
A study released last week found gas stoves were the cause of 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the United States.

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[url=https://www.yahoo.com/author/david-knowles]
David Knowles
·Senior Editor
Tue, January 10, 2023 at 4:30 AM GMT+7·4 min read



A blue flame from the burner of a natural gas stove. (David McNew/Getty Images)
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering a federal ban on gas stoves in response to a growing body of scientific research has linked them to a variety of health problems.
“This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., an agency commissioner, told Bloomberg in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
The agency will begin public comment sessions this winter as it begins weighing restrictions on emissions from gas stoves that have found to be harmful to human health.
Last week, a study in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health concluded that gas stoves, which are used in roughly 40% of U.S. homes, were responsible for 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the country. In all, the study found, gas stoves are responsible for giving asthma to 650,000 children in the U.S.
“When the gas stove is turned on, and when it’s burning at that hot temperature, it releases a number of air pollutants,” Brady Seals, a co-author of the study and the carbon-free buildings manager at the energy policy think tank RMI, told Yahoo News. “So these are things like particulate matter, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide, along with others. So, for example, nitrogen dioxide is a known respiratory irritant. And the EPA, in 2016, said that short-term exposure to NO2 causes respiratory effects like asthma attacks.”
The dangers of using gas stoves have long been known. In 2013, a meta-analysis published in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that children living in homes with gas stoves were 42% more likely to experience symptoms of asthma than those that lived with electric ranges and ovens, while 24% were more likely to be diagnosed with lifetime asthma.
“Cooking with gas stoves creates nitrogen dioxide and releases additional tiny airborne particles known as PM2.5, both of which are lung irritants. Nitrogen dioxide has been linked with childhood asthma,” Wynne Armand, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, wrote in September at Harvard Health Publishing. “During 2019 alone, almost two million cases worldwide of new childhood asthma were estimated to be due to nitrogen dioxide pollution.”

Quote:Pre-2010 Diesel Engines Banned From California Roads

The ban is the first step in a complete phaseout of all diesel engines by the 2030s.

If you own a diesel-powered rig that’s over 10 years old in the state of California, it’s now illegal to drive it on the roads, thanks to a new law that went into effect January 1 of this year. 

The California law has been a long time coming. In 2008, California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved legislation to curb emissions from old trucks and buses within the state. This legislation was updated in 2014 that banned engines manufactured in 2006 and earlier. At the end of 2022, the ban was extended to include diesel engines manufactured before 2009.

Quote:Robert Bryce has written a disturbing essay about the Climate Imperative Foundation, which received $221 million in donations in its first year of operations. The donors include Steve Jobs’s widow, as well as Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, and their priority is to ban natural gas, starting with your gas boiler. All very well for private-jet-owning billionaires, Bryce argues, but what impact will the ban have on working-class communities? Here’s how it begins.

Quote:The Climate Imperative Foundation is the newest and richest anti-hydrocarbon, anti-natural gas group you’ve never heard of.

How rich is Climate Imperative? According to the latest report from Guidestar, the group took in $221 million in its first full year of operation. (Guidestar calls the income “gross receipts”.) That means that Climate Imperative, which is less than three years-old, is already taking in more cash than the Sierra Club, which bills itself as the “nation’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organisation”. According to Guidestar, the Sierra Club collected $180 million in its latest reporting year. Climate Imperative is also taking in more money than the Rocky Mountain Institute which collected about $130 million in its latest reporting year. I use those groups for comparison because they are pushing anti-gas initiatives across the country. More on them in a moment.
The emergence of Climate Imperative – which has received virtually no attention from legacy media outlets – is important for several reasons.

First, it shows that the effort to “electrify everything” and ban the use of natural gas in homes and businesses – and that includes gas stoves — is part of a years-long, lavishly funded campaign that is being bankrolled by some of the world’s richest people.

Second, despite numerous claims about how nefarious actors are blocking the much-hyped “energy transition”, the size of Climate Imperative’s budget provides more evidence that the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex has far more money than the pro-hydrocarbon and pro-nuclear groups. Indeed, the anti-hydrocarbon NGOs (most of which are also stridently anti-nuclear) have loads of money, media backing, and momentum. As can be seen in the graphic below, the five biggest anti-hydrocarbon NGOs are now collecting about $1.5 billion per year from their donors. (All data is from Guidestar.) That sum is roughly three times more than the amount being collected by the top five non-profit associations that are either pro-hydrocarbon or pro-nuclear.

Quote:Third, banning the direct use of natural gas in homes and businesses may be worse for the climate. You read that right. Burning gas directly allows consumers to use about 90% of the energy contained in the fuel. Using gas indirectly – by converting it into electricity and then using that juice to power a heat pump, stove, or water heater – wastes more than half of the energy in the fuel. That point was made by Glenn Ducat, in his excellent new book, Blue Oasis No More: Why We’re Not Going to ‘Beat’ Global Warming and What We Need To Do About It. Ducat is a Ph.D. nuclear engineer who worked at Argonne National Lab, as well as at two electric utilities. He explains: “Burning natural gas by residential commercial and industrial customers is at least twice as efficient and emits about half as much CO2 as processes that use electricity produced from fossil fuels. Converting process-heat applications to electricity before the electricity grid is completely carbon-free will increase CO2 emissions.” (Emphasis in the original.)
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