Is Your Gas Stove Destroying the Planet?

Is Your Gas Stove Destroying the Planet?

Of the natural gas burned in American homes, just 2.8% is used for cooking, according to a 2015 survey by the US Energy Information Administration.

Residential natural-gas use in turn makes up just 15% of total US consumption, a percentage that has fallen over the past decade as (1) natural gas passed coal to become the country's main power-plant fuel and (2) residential gas use held more or less steady, as it has since the mid-1970s.

Home kitchens thus account for about 0.4% of US natural gas use. Burning natural gas was responsible for an estimated 36% of US carbon-dioxide emissions in 2020, so residential natural-gas cooking's share of those emissions comes in at less than 0.2%. That's not a lot!

Gas cooking does, however, seem likely to be the biggest obstacle to the effort to electrify the American home in the name of slowing climate change.

Why's that?

Mainly because people (myself included) like cooking with gas! It's one of the few energy uses that inspires brand loyalty to the fuel consumed. A 2019 survey by E Source, a utility-consulting firm spun off from the decarbonization-focused Rocky Mountain Institute, found that only 21% of those with gas cooking equipment would consider replacing it with