Getting past the heated rhetoric around electric stoves from American public media, this

is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

Like the rolling stones versus the beetles, star wars versus trek, or cats versus dogs,

the question of gas versus electric has somehow become a character-defining one.

The discourse was ignited last week by a commissioner from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety

Commission, Richard Trumpka, who suggested his agency was considering a ban on gas stoves,

it since stepped back a bit, but the debate continues to simmer.

Electric partisans say their ranges are healthier for people in the environment, while gas stove

lovers say flames are just better to cook on, and resilient, and power outages.

So how do modern electric stoves work, and would we have the infrastructure to support

them?

Ethan Elkind is director of the climate program at UC Berkeley Center for Law, Energy, and

Environment.

He said there are a lot of misperceptions based on outdated models.

Well, we're talking about the cooktop, not the oven, so the type of technology that

is less common in the U.S., it's much more common in Europe, is a magnetic induction

range, which is powered by electricity, and uses magnets, actually, to heat up the

pan.

And so it doesn't actually have direct heat.

It's very powerful, very energy efficient, and that is, I think, the real alternative

that most people are talking about when they're talking about transitioning off of gas ranges.

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