COOKING WITH GAS

[Stanley]

COOKING WITH GAS

(4 January 2006)

I came across a wonderful observation by Talleyrand this morning in the Manchester Guardian, he said that Russia is always simultaneously too weak and too strong, discuss. Whatever your views on this I think that you might agree that President Putin has done at least one great service to Western Europe during the dispute with the Ukraine in that a lot of minds have been concentrated on national fuel strategies.
On BBC Radio 4 this morning we were treated to a discussion between two ‘experts’ who had diametrically opposed views. This was followed by an interview with two cooks on whether they preferred gas or electricity for cooking. The cook who preferred gas said that it was better for the young chefs because the excess heat made them sweat. To be quite honest, I’m not too sure about how far exchanges like this can forward any rational debate. However, it did remind me of one problem that has puzzled me for years.
I don’t know what the regulations are in the rest of the world but in the UK it is illegal to operate a domestic water heater or fire fuelled by gas unless it is vented to the outside and regularly checked for safety. Here’s my problem, why is it that given the strict rules for these appliances it is perfectly legal to have a gas cooker discharging the products of combustion into the kitchen. The noxious gases are exactly the same, in fact are probably worse because the burners are almost always badly adjusted. That’s it, as simple as that and I have never managed to get a satisfactory answer. I suspect that the core of the matter is that there is no way that cooker top gas burners can be made safe without the extra expense of an efficient hood and a large extractor fan. In practice the cooker would also have to be on an outside wall.
Carrying this line of thought a bit further, I can’t think of any other domestic appliance that has survived using the original technology for so long. There is no fundamental difference between the latest 21st century gas cooker and the first one ever invented. Apart from the emissions, could there be a more wasteful heating technology than a gas burner under a pan? My new wonder gas boiler runs at approximately 92% efficiency, a good standard. I wonder whether a gas cooker could get 40%? I doubt it. So the ‘obvious’ answer is to ban all gas cookers and make everyone use electricity for cooking. Here we hit another problem because by the time the electricity reaches your meter it has lost 70% of the original thermal content of the base fuel used to generate it. You then reduce this efficiency even more by using it wastefully. So it’s quite possible that in terms of thermal efficiency, and this is the key to the whole fuel problem, a gas cooker is better for the world in terms of efficiency despite it being 19th century technology. If you want an argument in favour of nuclear generation of electricity this could be it. The cost of the fuel is such a small proportion of the price of generating the power that the thermal efficiency doesn’t matter so much. So thank you Mr Putin, you made me think about all this again.
(4 January 2006)