New research shows gas stove emissions contribute to 19,000 deaths annually

Mr. Kite

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How often are you cooking with all burners on the stove, the oven, and charging your EV at the same time? At least in the US you can significantly overprovision circuits, ie., sum of all circuits is fine at 2x or more the main panel breaker rating assuming assumptions of concurrency can be made. You just need to show that these uses don't all overlap near their worst cases.
He has to hurry to quickly cook provisions to be able to deliver trombones across the country in his EV.
 
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iim

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I’m pretty sure slapping a “this is known by the state of California to cause …” sticker on the stoves is going to do absolutely nothing. It’s already a joke that those stickers come on everything. Why not do what New York did?
That was proposition 65. The ballot initiative process in California can be credited for many good things, but it comes with some real drawbacks. It is a double edge sword.

Because anything that is approved by the voter that way, becomes the law. For better or worse, even if there are unintended consequences. You can’t just modify it or make changes on the fly. You have to go back the same way it came through the ballot initiative process, and that is a huge ordeal in itself.

So what ends up happening is nothing happens. Nothing gets done or corrected. And there are a lot of well intentioned badly written propositions that have been passed by the voter that really need a do over.
 
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Errum

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We switched to induction. It’s just flat-out better than cooking with gas and I’m baffled we as a society are still having this conversation.
I don’t speak for society, but in my own case an induction range would mean I’d have to replace virtually all my cookware, install heavier kitchen wiring, and have an electric service upgrade to the house. All that would likely double or triple the cost of an induction stove alone.

So yeah, I’m keeping my large, professional level gas stove. However, and not accidentally, we do have a powerful range hood that vents outdoors via a 10" duct. Perfect for when food just has to release its inner smoke.
 
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50me12

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That was proposition 65. The ballot initiative process in California can be credited for many good things, but it comes with some real drawbacks. It is a double edge sword.

Because anything that is approved by the voter that way, becomes the law. For better or worse, even if there are unintended consequences. You can’t just modify it or make changes on the fly. You have to go back the same way it came through the ballot initiative process, and that is a huge ordeal in itself.

So what ends up happening is nothing happens. Nothing gets done or corrected. And there are a lot of well intentioned badly written propositions that have been passed by the voter that really need a do over.
Exception being if the courts strike it down.

Proposition 8
 
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I don’t speak for society, but in my own case an induction range would mean I’d have to replace virtually all my cookware, install heavier kitchen wiring, and have an electric service upgrade to the house. All that would likely double or triple the cost of an induction stove alone.

So yeah, I’m keeping my large, professional level gas stove. However, and not accidentally, we do have a powerful range hood that vents outdoors via a 10" duct. Perfect for when food just has to release its inner smoke.
If you have to replace your cookware, they're not decent cookware to start with...

Literally the only thing that doesn't work with induction is cheap aluminum pots and pans...

Take it as a good chance to grab some cast irons or stainless steel stuff...
 
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? Are you seriously discounting any causal link that is indirect instead of direct? How come you're not complaining about COVID on that list? Almost nobody actually dies directly from the virus.
Basically nobody has ever died of AIDS. They died of the thing that AIDS prevented them from being able to fight off.
 
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cwac

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I think about it too. One big problem at least in my country it will put heavy load at power line and our power plant.

One immediate solution albeit higher cost are put battery (5-10 kwh) at house for buffer and make it better with control unit that can recieve solar cell.

With this buffer, everyone happy including power plant operator
I don't understand all the downvotes on this one. It is a sensible solution.
 
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If you have to replace your cookware, they're not decent cookware to start with...

Literally the only thing that doesn't work with induction is cheap aluminum pots and pans...

Take it as a good chance to grab some cast irons or stainless steel stuff...
Glassware/pyrex too. I'm not one to stovetop cook in that but I know people who do.

I've never really understood the people who chase after $200 nonstick cookware every few years. We've been using the same $30 cast iron skillets and dutch ovens (ok, I did buy my wife a very fancy enameled Le Creuset set decades ago because she liked the color) and stainless pots for 40 years now without a problem. Bakeware is a little trickier but none of that is stovetop. I've never made caramel or a weird sauce and thought 'a more expensive pot would make this better'.

A lot of cooking is about projecting status (like the pretty enameled set), rather than just being good for cooking. A $50 Lodge dutch oven will cook exactly as well and last you decades.
 
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I don't understand all the downvotes on this one. It is a sensible solution.
Not only that, but there's at least one if not more US startups that are making battery induction cooktops for retrofits into homes with only 110 outlets that can also be scheduled to charge during off-peak hours. This is a pretty sensible solution if they can be more reasonably priced.

A whole house battery is better option than a per-appliance one for a host of reasons, but if you are trying to avoid a panel upgrade or getting a 220 to that location is otherwise prohibitive, it's not an unreasonable solution. Maybe not at $5500, but I don't see any reason why more economical ones can be developed if appliance makers could stop for a hot second from acting like automakers.
 
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He has to hurry to quickly cook provisions to be able to deliver trombones across the country in his EV.
In fairness, part of the problem with CAs grid is that people come home from work, plug in their EV, turn down their AC, and fire up the stove to cook dinner, opening the refrigerator and usually triggering that cycle, turning on the TV, etc. There's this small window when consumers go from 0-100 on home electricity usage. Sure, they should be scheduling their EV to charge, but most people don't. They should be pre-charging their AC as the state asks them to do, but most people don't, etc. Setting those schedules are often harder than they should be.

The unfortunate reality is that until whole house batteries become ubiquitous, and maybe smart panels like Span, along with some protocol to communicate to your devices to say 'yo, this is a bad time to charge', the burden being put on consumers for managing a pretty substantial electric transition (cars and appliances in homes that previously used gas) is a bit too high. When CA nearly hit their generation limit in Sept 2022, the state sent out an emergency text to all households to cut power usage and in 15 minutes we cut 2GW of demand. Basically, we turned off TVs, turned up AC, etc. But there was that much discretionary use that was just there by asking. I would argue they could have gotten that if meters could tell EVs at home 'don't charge now', phones, Roomba's, ACs go to their high cooling level rather than their low one, etc.
 
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Ozy

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If you have to replace your cookware, they're not decent cookware to start with...

Literally the only thing that doesn't work with induction is cheap aluminum pots and pans...

Take it as a good chance to grab some cast irons or stainless steel stuff...
I don't think regular austenitic stainless pans are good with induction, and that would cover the stainless-clad aluminum or copper as well, which are popular for including a high thermal conductive aluminum/copper disc for spreading heat while presenting a stainless cooking surface.

That said, steel and cast iron cookware can be pretty inexpensive.
 
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Oldnoobguy

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Glassware/pyrex too. I'm not one to stovetop cook in that but I know people who do.

I've never really understood the people who chase after $200 nonstick cookware every few years. We've been using the same $30 cast iron skillets and dutch ovens (ok, I did buy my wife a very fancy enameled Le Creuset set decades ago because she liked the color) and stainless pots for 40 years now without a problem. Bakeware is a little trickier but none of that is stovetop. I've never made caramel or a weird sauce and thought 'a more expensive pot would make this better'.

A lot of cooking is about projecting status (like the pretty enameled set), rather than just being good for cooking. A $50 Lodge dutch oven will cook exactly as well and last you decades.
Totally agree. Well seasoned cast iron cookware is easier to clean than nonstick cookware and far more durable than nonstick. We have been using our cast iron nearly as long as your household. I finally am cooking on an electric stove, unfortunately not induction. One pleasant surprise moving from a gas stove to radiant electric is that heat is now distributed more evenly across the bottom of my extra large cast iron skillet than with a gas stove. I do have some fear that someday I will accidentally drop the skillet and crack the glass stovetop. Switching to radiant heat from gas has required some changes in how I cook, but overall the transition has been remarkably smooth.
 
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numerobis

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If you have to replace your cookware, they're not decent cookware to start with...

Literally the only thing that doesn't work with induction is cheap aluminum pots and pans...

Take it as a good chance to grab some cast irons or stainless steel stuff...
No, there’s definitely fancy cookware that isn’t ferromagnetic.

I have quite limited empathy for the desperate plight of people with fancy cookware who are forced to replace it with different fancy cookware.

Even less empathy for those who have fancy cookware and a resistance cooktop who are complaining about the utter injustice of … stoves they don’t use being revealed to be dangerous. I really don’t get what that guy’s problem is.
 
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raxx7

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I don't think regular austenitic stainless pans are good with induction, and that would cover the stainless-clad aluminum or copper as well, which are popular for including a high thermal conductive aluminum/copper disc for spreading heat while presenting a stainless cooking surface.

Many of the later have a magnetic steel base so they work on induction.
 
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Oldnoobguy

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Please note that as I write "yet another pile of BS" that I'm not arguing that burning anything produces fumes/gasses/particulates. But the first red flat here is that gas stoves "contribute to" 19k, deaths, not cause them. Well driving on a busy freeway at rush hour "contributes" to inhalating of toxins, and it's a lot less enjoyable than well cooked food.
"Contribute to" does mean cause, in exactly the same sense that smoking cigarettes causes, that is contributes to cancer. No one can legitimately deny that smoking cigarettes increases the incidence of lung cancer in the general population. That doesn't mean that every person who smokes will get lung cancer. It also doesn't mean that only those who smoke will get lung cancer. Stating that smoking causes/contributes to lung cancer also doesn't mean that it is possible to predict which smokers will or won't get lung cancer. What the statement that smoking contributes to lung cancer means is that the number of incidents of lung cancer will be significantly higher in a population of smokers than nonsmokers.

Here is another example of "contribute to" from my own personal experience. I happen to suffer from occasional migraines. I have learned through experience that red wine, peanut butter, smoked salmon, and sourdough bread all contribute to the likelihood that I will experience a migraine. This doesn't mean that every time I consume one of these substances will result in my getting a migraine. It also doesn't mean that if I avoid all of these items, I will never get a migraine. What is does mean is that my chances of suffering a migraine are considerably higher when I consume those items, which really sucks, because all of them are things that I love. I choose, with considerable regret, to avoid those items because migraines are not things I relish experiencing.

I want to bring out one word in particular that I used above - chance. Chance is a statistical concept applied across multiple trials or a population. With my migraines, each day is a trial over whether or not I will suffer a migraine. The consumption of certain substances on a particular day will increase the probability I will suffer a migraine either that day or the next day. I absolutely will get a migraine at some time within a few days if I consume any of those substances on a daily basis, so it is clear they do cause migraines in me.

In the case of gas stoves, it is clear that they cause 19,000 deaths across the population each year. That doesn't mean one can look at any particular death and claim with certainty that it was caused by fumes from a gas stove. What it does mean is that if gas stoves are eliminated there will be 19,000 fewer deaths in the population. There will still be deaths by accident, illness, cardiovascular disease and so on and so on, but there will still be 19,000 fewer deaths if we eliminate gas stoves.

If you are still claiming that "contribute to" doesn't mean the same thing as cause, then you simply don't understand basic statistics.
 
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Is this really a problem? Don't you already have electric stoves? They've been a thing for decades and for example nobody I personally know uses gas, mostly the resistive glass-ceramic stoves. Replacing them with induction would only lower energy demand.

Obviously if everyone's still on gas, this would be net new demand for electricity, but in practice I doubt it's all that much. An induction stove would pull what, like 2-3kW peak, and way less on average since you only usually need max power for a very short duration. Considering the improvements in lightning, TVs and other appliances, I really doubt this would be a massive problem.


This (and ublock or sponsorblock) sadly doesn't work IRL
It's more specific problem in my country. Ordinary house have only 1300VA-2200VA, some of less income only have 900VA subsidies by government. So majority of us really depend on gas stove.
No other immediate solution good enough for large scale stove replacement.
 
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Ozy

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Many of the later have a magnetic steel base so they work on induction.
I'm sure that's becoming more and more popular. Back when I was looking more than a decade ago, it was less common. But again, whining about cookware in the face of a stove that is literally damaging your health every time you use it seems silly.
 
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Impulse Labs makes an induction stove that has an integrated battery, it's designed for homes that aren't wired for the high electrical loads of a traditional electric stove.
Thank you for information. Unfortunately still expensive enough to large scale deployment. But that a start right direction
 
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raxx7

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It's more specific problem in my country. Ordinary house have only 1300VA-2200VA, some of less income only have 900VA subsidies by government. So majority of us really depend on gas stove.
No other immediate solution good enough for large scale stove replacement.

Wow.
I have "just" 5.25 kVA and it's more than fine.
But 1.3 kVA seems really low (though it's an option here). Can you run a clothes washer on that?
 
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Glassware/pyrex too. I'm not one to stovetop cook in that but I know people who do.

I've never really understood the people who chase after $200 nonstick cookware every few years. We've been using the same $30 cast iron skillets and dutch ovens (ok, I did buy my wife a very fancy enameled Le Creuset set decades ago because she liked the color) and stainless pots for 40 years now without a problem. Bakeware is a little trickier but none of that is stovetop. I've never made caramel or a weird sauce and thought 'a more expensive pot would make this better'.

A lot of cooking is about projecting status (like the pretty enameled set), rather than just being good for cooking. A $50 Lodge dutch oven will cook exactly as well and last you decades.
Yeah... I didn't list things that most westerners won't use. I personally am still on gas range and probably have no plans to move to induction because of things that induction doesn't work well with....

Anything that's made with clay/sand/etc that's not ferrous metal, woks (unless you got a specialized wok induction range with the wok that goes with it), and alot of other specialized/ethnic cookware doesn't work with induction ranges...
 
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azazel1024

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I was shocked to learn gas stoves don't require exterior ventilation in most of the USA
That’s only because a lot of the US by area doesn’t follow International Building Code. However, most of the population of the US do live in cities and counties that follow IBC, and IBC has required exterior venting of range hoods for gas cook tops and stoves for about 20 odd years now (maybe closer to 30).

I am sure some code authorities don’t bother enforcing that.

But since the majority of housing in the US was built before the 2000s, most houses and apartments are not vented to the outside. Many are, plenty aren’t.
 
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azazel1024

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Wow.
I have "just" 5.25 kVA and it's more than fine.
But 1.3 kVA seems really low (though it's an option here). Can you run a clothes washer on that?
Yes, but maybe not a ton more than that. My early 1990s Admiral brand washing machine peaks at about 800W and averages closer to 400 when running the motor itself. Not sure the power factor on it, but likely fairly high. So call that 800-900VA peak.
 
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It's more specific problem in my country. Ordinary house have only 1300VA-2200VA, some of less income only have 900VA subsidies by government. So majority of us really depend on gas stove.
No other immediate solution good enough for large scale stove replacement.
::blinks::

1.3-2.2 kVA? That's... low. Really, really, really low. My main breaker is 63 amps; on a 230 volt (nominal) supply, that's about 14.5 kVA. That said, my solar setup is able to supply up to 5 kVA (on the AC side; the panels on the DC side can do 6.6 kVA), and it's exceedingly rare that I go above that unless I deliberately push it (eg: by running the air conditioning at the same time as cooking food and running the hot water heat pump. I'm deliberately ignoring the EV charger since that's very much a discretionary activity.)

But 3-4 kVA at dinner time is very easy for me to hit. Not for long, but still.
 
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azazel1024

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Maybe I've missed it but I don't recall seeing yet how well good exterior venting mitigates the problem. 100%? 50%? I mean, even when using our vent (which is always when the stove or oven are running), the smell of the cooking still spreads through the house. And if there are emissions while the stove is off then obviously the fan won't help that at all.
It would depend heavily on how leaky your house is.

IIRC your typical vent hood is around 1000CFM max. A typical house experiences around 1 air change per hour. Which means whatever indoor pollution is going to take around 1-2 hours to mostly dissipate (it isn’t like all of the air disappears and new air comes in, in an hour).

Most of the studies happen to show about 1-2hrs for the pollution created to have mostly dissipated once the stove turns off. The worst air is in the kitchen of course.

A 1000CFM fan will completely ventilate he air in a small 12x10’ kitchen once per minute. And an entire typical small US house in about 10 minutes.

A very well sealed up house it would do a worse job.

BTW international building code has standards for vent fans. 100CFM per 10,000BTU. Electric is 10x every inch width of cook surface. So a fairly typical gas cook top requires around 1000CFM minimum ventilation and electric is around 300-360CFM.

Electric cooking produces particulate pollutants. But at a vastly lower level than gas cooking. And does not produce toxic gases (well, unless you are doing it very, very badly).
 
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GKH

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John Timmer recently wrote an article titled “Using vague language about scientific facts misleads readers”.
The article about gas stoves says their “emissions contribute to 19,000 deaths annually”. In a different way this is an example of vague language.
Basically. This appears to be a decent study looking into pollutant concentrations that then goes briefly into wharrgarbl-ville with the deaths. This study's primary citation is here and says:

We therefore consider that as the evidence stands at present, the causal basis for estimating the burden of NO2 on mortality and loss of life expectancy remains weak.

Which is not to say that burning gas is a wonderful thing for the climate, or isn't a very clearly established problem for people with respiratory issues, or that having good ventilation in a kitchen regardless of heat source shouldn't be a no-brainer mandated by building codes, or that we shouldn't be transitioning away from gas stoves.

There's just no need to go to OMG PPL DED!!! It's both very weakly supported and irrelevant to any policy changes. All it does is give people an easy opportunity to question other conclusions and motivations.
 
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My initial thoughts are that cooking with propane stoves is still better for your health than eating out regularly, even if we say that the health outcomes are twice as bad as stated. (That doesn't take away from the study in any way, just an observation that eating out is bad for you.)

After reading through the study, it was interesting to see the level of predictive modelling that they did to support their findings. Before I would use this to guide legislation, I would want there to be more independent data collection supporting the real world assertion that there was an actual statistical difference in asthma levels between children in homes with inductive cookware vs gas stoves for example. I like predictive modelling as a way to guide real world data collection-type studies, but am uncomfortable making a deterministic prediction as a result of the study, and indeed the study authors in this link ( https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adm8680 ) say that the exposure "may be responsible for up to 19,000 deaths" which is an order of magnitude in certainty below the article title "New research shows gas stove emissions contribute to 19,000 deaths annually".
 
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Crito

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Agree - love my induction cooktop... except, I wish the glass top had more grip... you often can't stir one-handed because the vessel doesn't have enough grip on the glass. Of course, if it did have more grip it wouldn't be such a breeze to clean.

Silicone pads on Amazon can solve this issue pretty easily. You don’t even need the full size ones — a small one will do the trick so long as your pan isn’t terribly concave. The limit temperature wise is well above normal liquid cooking (searing is another story, but then most mortals aren’t absent-mindedly searing one handed). Reusable/dishwasher safe.
 
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Marlor_AU

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Yeah... I didn't list things that most westerners won't use. I personally am still on gas range and probably have no plans to move to induction because of things that induction doesn't work well with....

Anything that's made with clay/sand/etc that's not ferrous metal, woks (unless you got a specialized wok induction range with the wok that goes with it), and alot of other specialized/ethnic cookware doesn't work with induction ranges...

This is one thing I gave some thought to. We're looking at shifting from gas to an induction cooktop (for health reasons), but we cook dishes in clay pots or stone pots once or twice a week, and really wouldn't want to have to give up the option of doing that.

We decided that the best option is just to have a separate set of hobs for when we want to use earthenware or stoneware. Luckily, we already have them - the barbecue in our screened-off outdoor dining area has gas burners, so we can still cook with gas when we need to. If we didn't have that option, we could just pick up a double-burner portable electric stove and use it on the nights we want to cook in stone or earthenware pots. I've always noticed our local Korean grocery store has a huge stock of portable stoves sitting right next to the dolsot and ttukbaegi in the homewares section. Now I realise why.
 
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Snark218

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Yes you are right. You go and buy your 40 quid thing from Amazon. And will be as good as what you have expected from your 40 quid purchase. Hey, and you will get the opportunity to give it a 4 or 5 star review!!!
First you complain about them being too expensive. Then you dismiss the cheap ones because they're not expensive enough. One just gets the impression you're just being a contrarian doorstop, not actually advancing an argument.
 
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we cook dishes in clay pots or stone pots once or twice a week, and really wouldn't want to have to give up the option of doing that.
You can get metal plates that sit on top of an induction cooktop that turn it into essentially a resistance heater. You don't want to do that for regular saucepans, since induction saucepans (and frying pans) are easily obtained for not much money, but for clay or stone pots, they're a reasonable option, and save you from having to have separate hobs for that purpose.

Just a thought.
 
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Does it matter? My uncle died of lung cancer, from smoking. He saw the warnings, either didn’t care or didn’t believe them. Either one had the same end result...he’s dead. There will always be people taking an unhealthy stand, not wanting to take other people’s recommendations or doing things just to piss others off. It’s 2024, look around, it’s getting worse.
Well you can’t say he wasn’t warned.
 
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Why no comparison with electric heating elements?

A push for anything without direct comparisons is most certainly an agenda based push. Those agendas are rarely what the surface statements would claim.

Like Columbo would say: "Follow the money." Who stands to benefit most from this type of legislation? Would this push equal regulatory capture in an industry?
My current hob has 2 induction and 2 hot plates (well ceramic glass top but you get the idea). Ive never used the hot plate side. It’s now just the area where my utensils sit.
 
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Marlor_AU

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You can get metal plates that sit on top of an induction cooktop that turn it into essentially a resistance heater. You don't want to do that for regular saucepans, since induction saucepans (and frying pans) are easily obtained for not much money, but for clay or stone pots, they're a reasonable option, and save you from having to have separate hobs for that purpose.

Just a thought.
A very good thought!

Some web searching shows they appear to be called conversion discs, adapter plates or some similar name. It appears they’re effectively a flat pan that acts as a hotplate?

I’ve mentioned this issue to a dozen people during my research into induction cooktops and nobody has mentioned these conversion discs. I wonder how effective they are when compared to a conventional, non-induction electric hotplate.
 
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At least replace with induction if you're gonna switch.

A while back we moved from Gas (9kg in cupboard next to stove) to induction. I live in rural NZ and all was fine through summer. Then come winter and the induction rings would not stay on, they just kept tripping and hence would not heat. We have the stove maker and power company monitor the lines, they replaced the stove twice and then we refunded.

Power company said lines in spec but in winter there it appears there was enough noise on the grid from all the electric heating used in NZ that the induction would not stay on and keep tripping. We have 3 phase to the house and has that run to the stove so it had all the juice it needed.

So yep, I love induction BUT we are back on gas now, after having gas lines run outside because regs changes in NZ about bottles in the house. A good reg change but in my case costly lol
 
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