2-stroke engines in general are awful for air quality.

https://phys.org/news/2014-05-two-stroke-scooters-super-poll...

I believe that! I am curious as to how big the difference the power source makes for a machine that’s purpose-made to kick up particulate matter up into the air from the ground though.

Did anyone imply there was a difference (besides electric ones possibly being less powerful)?

If you scroll up this thread you will see where the discussion began.

Purely anecdote, but my neighbor uses a gas leaf blower and we use an electric one, and our yards are broadly similar. The difference is notable.

How?

The electric blower yard probably still has leaves on it.

I'm all for electrifying yard tools, but electric blowers still aren't anywhere near a high end Stihl or Husqvarna in performance.

We both kick up a fair amount of fines, but there's also a noticeable amount of fairly dirty output from the gas blower.

It's in that CARB report posted above: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/Health%20...

Compare Table 3 to Table 5. PM emissions from exhaust are on the order of 1 gram per hour. Whereas fugitive dust emissions, depending on the surface, are 100s or 1000s of grams per hour.