Feel free to correct me, but this sounds incredibly ill-informed. Yes, methane itself is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, far more potent than CO2. But there are several types of "natural" gas. You are talking about fossil fuels, the type of methane either trapped underground or beneath the arctic perma frost. Methane is created by decomposing organic matter though. Livestock is one of the biggest producers of natural gas as far as I know. If released into the atmosphere, methane would be devastating, as it takes about ten years for it to degrade into CO2 first. I don't know the impact of using "natural" gas compared to other kinds of fossil fuels. Burning it definitely seems like the lesser of two evils though.
A quick Google search says that "emissions per unit of energy produced from gas are around 40% lower than coal and around 20% lower than oil." While this is far from perfect, putting it on the same level seems either ignorant or disingenuous.
TLDR: Methane doesn't necessarily mean fossil fuels. Burning methane and using it as an energy source is less bad than releasing it directly into the atmosphere.
Again, if there's anyone with actual knowledge on the subject, please correct me.
That's why I specified fossil methane, the stuff we're getting out of the ground to burn in power plants. I'm all for burning non-fossil methane (e.g., from compost piles) for reducing the impact of those.
Still, stating it's 40 times more potent than carbon dioxide also feels deceptive. While it's technically true, it's not a fair comparison.
I'd like to clarify here, that I'm not defending gas as an energy source. I don't own a gas stove or anything in that regard.
The name Natural Gas arose long before there was any effort to greenwash anything. It was in comparison to Coal Gas, which was artificially produced from coal and in use before Natural Gas came to market. Acting like this is some kind of greenwashing propaganda conspiracy just makes you look ignorant, and as a result it makes the whole movement look bad.
Also it's ironically the opposite of what OP was accusing the fuel industry of doing. Instead of green washing they're trying to Brownwash (greywash? Blackwash?) the term.
It's called natural gas because before we got it from the ground we got it by heating coal until it gave off gas and piping that to homes and businesses.
Natural gas is natural because it naturally occurs in the earth and is not distilled from coal like coal gas is.
This is great. Reminds me of how in Alberta they call tar sand fields the "oil sands" because then it hides how filthy and dirty it really is and how much processing is needed to make it viable.
People also still believe that gas is better for cooking food. Because it gets hot “faster”. These dumbasses have never heard of an induction stove. They think every electric stove is an electric coil stove.
I've cooked with electric coil, gas, and induction. Each for at least a few months' time, so it's not just that I never had the time to learn with each. I can honestly say I hate gas stoves. They heat up the surroundings so much. Those old, plain electric coils suck, but in a slightly different way. Modern electric coils under that glass/ceramic smooth surface are pretty decent. Induction is god-tier, though. When I have own my own home, I'm 100% getting an induction stove.
I wasn't convinced before I used them, but induction stoves perform almost on par with gas stoves while not burning my house down. It's a different game from electric stoves.
Om my experience they heat faster than gas for stuff like boiling water. The only thing has is better at is cooking with a wok because you want the sides to get as well and lighting alcohol on fire to burn it off but I do that maybe once every 2 years so..
Could it be a calibration issue? My experience with modern stoves (for me, the oven) is that it was badly calibrated, so they oven never got properly hot
It's not about how long it takes, what matters is constant, even heat. Electric coil stoves turn on and off to regulate heat so you get crazy fluctuations.
Gas doesn't have that problem. Good induction stoves don't, either, but they're still hella expensive. And you need the right pots and pans or you will have a bad time.
There's a reason basically every restaurant in the world uses gas cooktops.
To be fair and induction stove costs roughly double want an old school electric does but if you're concerned about good cooking and you're not just a bachelor boiling water for survival food it's probably going to be worth the extra cash, and they both plug into the same Outlet behind the oven range combo so it's an easy and painless switch if you want to have the best experience
That's only because the USA is behind on cooking tech.
The cheapest range in the US on the IKEA US site is a $699 gas range (excluding tax). Ceramic is $749 and induction is $1399.
Meanwhile, onI the Dutch ikea site a cooktop (excluding oven, since we decided to get rid of the whole range concept in Europe), the cheapest gas stove is €119 while induction is €269. We don't do ceramic anymore. Prices including tax.
So yes, induction is still expensive in the US. but ceramic is not and spending $50 to not inhale gas fumes and having an easy to clean surface is worth it. I used one for a year, it's great.
But if you do have the money, I'd go for induction. And when the US catches up in technology, "double" won't really matter when it's just €150 more.
And if you really want to be cheap, those Tillreda single units cost $80.
Production and transport of fossil gas actually often does exactly that and there are/were satellites tasked with tracking methane emissions (there are also loads of natural fossil sources, sometimes their leaking is anthropogenic).
If you look at global warming potential over a 100 year tome period, methane emission is 36 times that of an equivalent mass of CO2. Methane comes out of the atmosphere by reacting with hydroxyl radicals, oxidising to form CO2. 88% of the methane reacts this way, meaning that one gram of methane will form 2.4 grams of CO2.
The mass doesn't care where the gas comes from and it's spooky indeed. I'd also vote to boot out the "organic" on supposedly environmental friendly products because, well, fossil oil is organic too.
There's a shit ton of it about to bubble up from the oceans as it's currently in frozen clathrates and when it melts warming will be even more accelerated