A new study discovered that gas stoves contribute more to global warming than previously assumed due to persistent small methane leakage while they are turned off. Because of the quantities of nitrogen oxides recorded in the same study that examined emissions surrounding stoves in homes, new concerns regarding indoor air quality and health were raised.
Even when not in use, gas stoves in the United States emit 2.6 million tonnes (2.4 million metric tonnes) of methane — in carbon dioxide equivalent units — into the atmosphere each year, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. That is the annual amount of greenhouse gases produced by 500,000 cars, or what the United States emits into the atmosphere every three and a half hours.
“They’re constantly bleeding a little bit of methane into the atmosphere all the time,” said co-author and Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson.
According to the study, this methane is in addition to the 6.8 million tonnes (6.2 million metric tonnes) of carbon dioxide that gas stoves emit into the air when they are in use and the gas is burned. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is dozens of times more potent than carbon dioxide but doesn’t stay in the atmosphere nearly as long and isn’t as plentiful in the air.
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