New pilot program says using induction stoves can make home air healthier

On a recent Friday afternoon, the scent of coconut, turmeric and sautéed onions wafted through the Corrine Sain Senior and Family Community Center in North Richmond. A group of about 30, mostly seniors and their families, listened attentively as Chef Cindy Gershen demonstrated how to prepare a curry more safely using a portable induction stovetop. 

Gershen, a former restaurant owner and nutrition-focused cooking instructor who works with East Bay Health, was there in partnership with Sustainable Contra Costa and the Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN), participating in a pilot program to make induction cooking more available to low-income communities. By the end of the day, 100 people had received induction cooktops to take home, and 30 more had joined a waitlist. 

While gas and traditional electric stoves provide heat via burners, induction cooktops heat pots and pans directly using electromagnetic field technology. This reduces the risk of kitchen fires and injury and can help reduce air pollution inside the home. 

“It turns out that your stoves are leaking, even if they are turned off,” Doug Bleakly, director of operations at Sustainable Contra Costa, told the audience that day. “Natural gas is going into the air and you’re breathing it.” 

Gas stoves have been shown to contain higher levels of harmful gasses, including carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, nitrous oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are known to cause cancer. One recent study found that households that switched from gas to induction cooking saw a 56% reduction in average daily nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) concentrations in their homes. 

Exposure to NO₂ is linked to increased respiratory disease and asthma, according to the EPA, which regulates outdoor NO₂ emissions to protect public health. While no such regulations exist for indoor NO₂, the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines recommend no more than 10 micrograms of NO₂ per cubic meter of air annually and 25 per 24-hour period to avoid harmful health effects – a limit gas and propane stoves regularly bypass. 

Emissions from traditional gas, propane stoves linked to pediatric asthma

 In the long term, increased NO₂ exposure from gas and propane stoves alone likely causes roughly 50,000 cases of current pediatric asthma nationally, according to a study published in Science Advances.

Gas and propane stove emissions are responsible for 200,000 current cases of pediatric asthma in the United States, according to the Science Advances study. Another study found that 13% of current childhood asthma in the United States can be attributed to gas stove use, and a meta-analysis of 41 studies concluded that children who live in homes with gas stoves had a 24% higher risk of having asthma at some point in their lives. 

A study from Stanford University found that benzene pollution from gas stoves is more concentrated than that from second-hand cigarette smoke. Regular exposure to benzene is linked to multiple cancers, including leukemia and lymphoma. 

“Because [these particles] are so small, they can get deep in the lungs,” said Bret Andrews, former associate chief of neurology at Kaiser Permanente. Andrews spoke about the issue at a recent town hall at the Nevin Community Center with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). 

“Gas stoves are the only appliance in our homes that do not have a pipe directly from the burning appliance. So we are all breathing the exhaust pipe of our stoves and ovens directly,” Andrews said. He said this is true even when there are vent hoods over the cooktop, which are only 75% effective at best. 

Children are at an especially high risk of experiencing the harmful effects of air pollution from gas stoves. 

“They are more active and take in more air. Their lungs and bodies are still developing, and pollution from gas stoves and appliances is part of the reason why Latino children and children of other communities of color are more [often] experiencing asthma,” Andrews said. 

In addition to safer cooking and cleaner air, induction stoves are about three times more energy efficient than their gas counterparts. However, the Richmond events also had a larger goal — one that is just as urgent. 

One piece of broad home electrification push

In the Bay Area, commercial and residential buildings account for 9% of greenhouse gas emissions (statewide, it’s closer to 25%). As California faces longer-lasting heat waves and higher temperatures, with less predictable rainfall and more extreme weather, lawmakers and local agencies statewide agree that replacing gas appliances with electric ones is an important step toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2045. And, thanks to state and federal funding, hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to flow into the region to electrify water heaters, HVAC systems and stoves over the next decade. 

In Richmond alone, home electrification could reduce nearly 36,000 metric tons of carbon emissions by 2030, according to research by UC Berkeley’s Cool Climate Network.

Locals at both recent community events were passionate about making the switch. But there are others who still don’t realize what’s at stake or how they can be a part of the solution. 

BayREN aims to empower local governments and communities to electrify homes quickly and equitably. The coalition has budgeted nearly $78 million for residential electrification in the Bay Area between 2024 and 2027. Marin Clean Energy, an alternative energy provider that services Marin, Napa, Solano, and Contra Costa counties, has also piloted multiple programs to install heat pumps and heat pump water heaters in multi-unit apartment buildings in Richmond. 

In February, Richmond directed city staff to hire an Inflation Reduction Act coordinator to maximize federal funding to cut carbon emissions and transition to clean energy. This position has not been filled yet, but the city’s environmental and health initiatives division hired Yahna Williamson as an administrative intern in March 2023. The city is applying for an EPA grant to support the IRA-focused role, according to Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin. 

At the state level, the California Energy Coalition is spending $500 million on a new program that includes energy efficiency retrofits and direct installations in low- and moderate-income households.

While replacing gas furnaces and hot water heaters with heat pumps offers more efficiency and therefore larger reductions in emissions, the actual appliances are utilitarian and, for the most part, invisible to consumers. For that reason, some experts see induction stoves as a gateway toward getting consumers on board with the larger sustainability transition. 

Changing cooking habits is part of energy transformation

Last year, the state’s utility commission created a new agency tasked with transforming the state energy market. The new Market Transformation Administrator (or CalMTA) has zeroed in on cooking.

“Everyone cooks. This is in every house,” said Stacey Hobart, CalMTA’s principal of stakeholder engagement and communications. “It is a very visible product and we think we can use that education to translate into other sort[s] of electrification technologies.”  

Since January, the agency has been working with the Building Decarbonization Coalition to roll out a “chefluencer” program that will engage well-known chefs from around the state in events and promotions. (Of course, not all chefs are fans of induction cooking. When the California Restaurant Association sued the city of Berkeley for its 2020 gas ban in new construction, the group quoted a spokesperson from the Chef De Cuisine Association of California who likened the shift to “taking paint away from a painter and asking them to create a masterpiece.”)

Richmond isn’t the only place where this kind of hands-on education is taking place. In Oakland, Copper, a company making battery-powered appliances that don’t require electrical panel upgrades, has partnered with Ava Community Energy to showcase induction cooking at farmers markets and community events. 

Copper was founded by a group of scientists who have received support from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop appliances that store their own energy, and its founders see stoves as an important first step in the larger transition to home electrification. 

In an interview earlier this summer, Copper’s Chief Marketing Officer Weldon Kennedy spoke about the attachment some people have to gas-powered cooking and how that has impeded their willingness to join pilot projects that involve free whole-home electrification.

“Fifty percent of the people who said ‘no’ cited the reason as cooking. And so in as much as you want to electrify things you have to take care of the stove, and you have to make a better cooking experience [than traditional electric stoves],” Kennedy said. “You have to hit that cultural problem square in the face.” 

Copper’s technology helps residents electrify without making costly panel upgrades — a common barrier for many households. Kennedy said the company is “very focused on servicing affordable housing” in its startup stage, but the full ranges cost $6,000. 

So marginalized communities are often priced out. And that’s where countertop induction burners come in — at least for now. Portable single-burner induction cooktops typically cost $100 or less at most big-box stores such Target and Home Depot.   

What this could look like in Richmond

The median income in Richmond was just under $89,000 in 2022 — much lower than the region’s average, and the city has a disproportionate number of people impacted by air pollution, toxic waste, and threats to groundwater. North Richmond, where the Corrine Sain Senior, Family and Community Center sits, stands out as bright red on the CalEnviroScreen mapping tool, which was developed by the state to help planners and lawmakers pinpoint regions facing the most pressing environmental hazards. 

Calculated through a combination of disproportionate pollution burden and at-risk population characteristics, North Richmond tops the list in the 96th percentile for climate impact relative to other census tracts in the state. It ranks in the 99th percentile of asthma rates.  

With this disparity in mind, Bleakly and his team are working to get countertop induction burners to low-income residents of Richmond, as well as nearby San Pablo and El Sobrante with a specific focus on childcare workers and seniors on fixed incomes. The health risks of gas stoves are especially serious for older adults, who tend to face additional respiratory challenges and often spend up to 90% of their time indoors. 

Suilma Navarrete, a member of ACCE, said that she attended the Richmond town hall to strengthen her case in persuading her landlord to replace her gas stove. 

“I have diabetes. So this really made me wake up,” she said through Spanish interpreter Ladna Miller. “I want to investigate this more because I’m part of this demographic that is more at risk.” 

Chef Gershen said the portable, countertop stoves also bring cleaner indoor air and an intro to induction cooking to people who don’t have traditional kitchens.

“And we’ve given them to some people out in Bay Point that don’t have kitchens; they live in a garage and all they have is a plug,” she said.  

In the future, Bleakly hopes to directly target more transitional housing residents. 

“Think of the small, tiny houses,” he said. “You literally already have a hot plate anyhow, right? So let’s give you a healthy hot plate.”

In a series of listening sessions CalMTA hosted over the last year, the agency found that “culturally appropriate, accessible and credible outreach and education,” works best when it comes to induction cooktops. 

That’s why Sustainable Contra Costa and BayREN are collaborating with existing community organizations. Inviting a trusted source like Corrine Sain to introduce the concept tends to go a long way toward helping folks get comfortable with a new approach to something as essential to their daily lives as cooking.

And so far it looks like it might be working. More than 50 people showed up at the town hall, and the turnout at Corrine Sain was more than six times what Sustainable CoCo had planned for. Bleakly suspects having people get their hands on the equipment was key.

“Everybody gets tired of handing out brochures,” he said. “The idea was: ‘Can we do something more tangible?’ “

Countertop burners do go a significant way beyond brochures, and they may help fill the gap as Richmond and the rest of the state moves toward the electric future. But low-income renters and others who have long been at the mercy of landlords and government programs will ultimately need a more sustainable solution.

“Market transformation is a long-term effort. It takes sometimes five to 10 years to bring the market around,” Hobart said. In the meantime, she said, it’s important to keep driving toward public awareness and consistent investment in more affordable models. 

ACCE is hosting an induction cooking demo at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Richmond’s City Civic Center Memorial Auditorium, 404 Civic Center Plaza. Visit the Facebook events page and Sustainable CoCo’s website for more information.

This article was produced with support from the Climate Equity Reporting Project at Berkeley Journalism.