Why are there so few electric stoves?

I have spent a lot of time Zillow-surfing lately since my partner and I are planning to buy a home in a few years, and I like early planning. Some people look for a specific number of bedrooms, amenities, or types of roofs.

I am zooming in on the kitchen photos to see the types of stoves. And usually, I am disappointed. Instead of the electric stove and heating I seek, there is a gas range — even in newly constructed homes.

This has led me to ask: why is there so much gas?

Gas has problematic environmental, health, and safety impacts

Natural gas is a major source of carbon emissions and other pollutants. In addition, the presence of gas in homes as a source of heating and cooking fuel — something that is tied to class and race in this country — correlates with a higher risk for respiratory health conditions.

Finally, gas is quite unsafe. Several thousand house fires occur due to gas every year. And sometimes the results are catastrophic, such as the explosion in Silver Spring that left 100 people homeless in March. These safety impacts fall disproportionately on older adults and people with disabilities who suffer from inaccessible systems tied to an already dangerous material.

Despite this knowledge, gas is still very prevalent: more than half of new homes rely on gas for heating, cooking, or both. I have observed that many of the all-electric homes in DC date from the middle of the 20th century.

Analyzing the defense of gas

Gas companieshave a lot of influence on local and state governments across the United States. Even where they do not, policy often does not fully address the matter of thetype of heating or cooking fuel. Electricity is also very expensive in many areas — a matter aggravated bythe relative lack of sustainable electric production and adequate infrastructure. But I think there is something else at play.

Gas gets a lot of defense culturally. On many cooking forums and websites, those who ask about electric stoves get told that real or serious cooks always prefer gas or that gas is more efficient. As a serious home cook, I can say that this idea is nonsense — plenty of incredibly skilled cooks use electric stoves including in countries like Iceland and Finland where gas stoves are functionally non-existent, and in places like Bhutan where there is a significant policy effort to get cooks to switch to electric. Electric stoves are also becoming more popular in South Korea and electric heating is becoming more popular in Norway.

To be fair, gas remains cheaper in many areas — in some regions of the country, it’s less than half the cost to run a gas stove than an electric stove. In addition, gas is helpful for heating many older houses. In fact, the cost of retrofitting housing heating systems is prohibitive for most people, and the effort is functionally impossible for most people not in single-family detached housing.

Some prefer gas for cooking certain cuisines. Many restaurants still rely on gas to cook certain things for which we do not yet have an affordable, scalable electric option, for example, grilling or barbecuing meat. Thus, any changes would need to be in consultation with the community — a broadly mandated shift from gas to electric cooking, such asLos Angeles’ recent effort, will probably not be as effective. In addition, because of the expense, many people will need financial help switching from gas to electric. Marin County, California, for example, provides financial rebates for households that switch from natural gas to electric appliances.

Some pushback is also historically rooted: many older electric stove models take a longer time to heat and are more difficult to control for temperature, but these issues have been ameliorated in many newer models. In addition, many cooks and experts are excited about induction cooking, a highly energy-efficient form of electric cooking — though induction cooking remains expensive and requires different cookware. Even non-induction models, however, are improved from those of the past. Beyond that, any policy options can not rely on legislation or battling a lobby alone — even if the effort is making electric the default or a common choice, rather than mandatory.

We need a cultural shift

There will not be the impetus to increase the availability of electric stoves and heating, to provide funding and support for building retrofits, or to create reasonable alternatives to gas if there is no cultural support behind the push.

Education, cooking media, and advocates can start by pushing back on the narratives that gas is inherently better — or that it is absolutely necessary for every home cook to have (most home cooks are not professionals, even if they are serious!) Sometimes trying it out will be the best advocacy: Takoma Park, for example, is allowing residents to borrow portable induction cooktops for two weeks to test them out.

We can take a lesson from our colleagues advocating for safer streets who have developed a language to push back on progressives who defend car-centric culture. They can empathize with the fears of change, and so can we.

This cultural shift is actually already happening. More media coverage recently has focused on the disadvantages of gas cooking and heatingand the advantages of various electric forms. This change seems to be international, including the examples mentioned above.

Let’s build on the shift, so that we have more options and a healthier, safer built environment for everyone.