(There is also a climate case to made in either direction, depending on where the marginal electricity is coming from, since often, as in Europe, the answer is ‘coal’ which is way worse than a gas stove.)
I don’t believe this is true, that is, I don’t believe that, in Europe, often, the marginal electricity is coming from coal. Of course this depends on what often means.
Digging into this question isn’t easy, but I found a few things
Coal produced about 15% of the electricity in the EU in 2020, and the trend is going down. This is obviously not an indication of the marginal electricity source.
Within the EU, 13 of the 27 member states do not have a single coal plant.
Even when coal plants are running, this doesn’t mean that coal is the marginal source of electricity. Electricity from gas is more expensive, therefore whenever a gas plant is running, gas is the marginal source of electricity.
I found this paper computing the marginal electricity source in Spain (see figure 2), between 2015 and 2021. Coal is the marginal source of electricity only a few percents of the time.
I also found this paper computing the marginal electricity source in the EU as a whole in 2010 (see figure 1b). Back then, coal was the marginal source of electricity slightly below 60% of the time. Given that this was 13 years ago, this number must be lower now, how much though I don’t know.
This doesn’t undermine your points. Indeed:
Coal is a dirty source of electricity, dirtier than gas and basically everything else.
If we want to discuss the climate implications of gas stove vs electric stove, we should take into account the climate implications of the marginal production of electricity.
If the marginal electricity source on the grid is gas, the advantage of using an electric stove isn’t obvious.
A significant fraction of the climate impact of gas is actually ubiquitous fugitive leaks rather than the CO2 produced, as several percent is lost somewhere between production and final combustion or while appliances are turned off. Multiplied by a greenhouse effect dozens of times as strong as the CO2 it combusts into, that builds up.
It is at least theoretically conceivable if the parameters were just right that the same gas running through fewer, shorter, larger pipes with a lot less leakage to centralized power plants driving electric heating could actually produce less impact per unit useful work (especially given that gas heat has a smaller fraction of the heat actually go into the thing being heated). I am utterly unprepared to do numbers on this though and this would be completely dependent on actual leakages and where they occur and the difference in the fraction of useful work.
Also induction has efficiency advantages that apparently compensate a lot for the lower thermal efficiency of electricity. And lower fire risk since you aren’t using an open flame.
I don’t believe this is true, that is, I don’t believe that, in Europe, often, the marginal electricity is coming from coal. Of course this depends on what often means.
Digging into this question isn’t easy, but I found a few things
Coal produced about 15% of the electricity in the EU in 2020, and the trend is going down. This is obviously not an indication of the marginal electricity source.
Within the EU, 13 of the 27 member states do not have a single coal plant.
Even when coal plants are running, this doesn’t mean that coal is the marginal source of electricity. Electricity from gas is more expensive, therefore whenever a gas plant is running, gas is the marginal source of electricity.
I found this paper computing the marginal electricity source in Spain (see figure 2), between 2015 and 2021. Coal is the marginal source of electricity only a few percents of the time.
I also found this paper computing the marginal electricity source in the EU as a whole in 2010 (see figure 1b). Back then, coal was the marginal source of electricity slightly below 60% of the time. Given that this was 13 years ago, this number must be lower now, how much though I don’t know.
This doesn’t undermine your points. Indeed:
Coal is a dirty source of electricity, dirtier than gas and basically everything else.
If we want to discuss the climate implications of gas stove vs electric stove, we should take into account the climate implications of the marginal production of electricity.
If the marginal electricity source on the grid is gas, the advantage of using an electric stove isn’t obvious.
A significant fraction of the climate impact of gas is actually ubiquitous fugitive leaks rather than the CO2 produced, as several percent is lost somewhere between production and final combustion or while appliances are turned off. Multiplied by a greenhouse effect dozens of times as strong as the CO2 it combusts into, that builds up.
It is at least theoretically conceivable if the parameters were just right that the same gas running through fewer, shorter, larger pipes with a lot less leakage to centralized power plants driving electric heating could actually produce less impact per unit useful work (especially given that gas heat has a smaller fraction of the heat actually go into the thing being heated). I am utterly unprepared to do numbers on this though and this would be completely dependent on actual leakages and where they occur and the difference in the fraction of useful work.
Also induction has efficiency advantages that apparently compensate a lot for the lower thermal efficiency of electricity. And lower fire risk since you aren’t using an open flame.