[HN Gopher] New York City bans natural gas in new buildings ___________________________________________________________________ New York City bans natural gas in new buildings Author : mortonstreet Score : 45 points Date : 2021-12-25 20:57 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.reuters.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com) | heavyset_go wrote: | Didn't NY just shut down a few of their remaining nuclear plants | that need to be made up for with coal and natural gas plants? | imgabe wrote: | Instead of burning natural gas at the building, burn 5x as much | at a power plant hundreds of miles away to generate electricity, | then convert it back into heat at the building. Smart. | nine_k wrote: | According to my power bill, 50% of electricity in my Brooklyn | apartment comes from nuclear generation, about 25% from hydro | and solar, and the remaining 25% from fossil fuels, mostly | natural gas. | exegete wrote: | A lot easier to switch to renewals with electricity. I don't | know of a way to do that with natural gas. | glogla wrote: | There's [1] but I'm not impressed by the efficiency numbers. | | Also, no need to go through electricity. Significant part of | my city is heated by waste heat of power plant that would | otherwise go out the cooling tower. | | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas | vladvasiliu wrote: | Couldn't they just cut off the gas and switch to electric | once the power plants are clean(-enough)? | dml2135 wrote: | No, you need to transition over time. | | Your idea is to just cut off the gas one day, and expect | everyone to go out and buy new appliances at the same time? | I don't think I need to explain why phasing in such a | change is preferable. | vladvasiliu wrote: | I don't expect to just cut it off all of a sudden. They | could announce the cut some years in advance. | | Of course, if right now they already expect to cut off | the gas a few years from now, they may as well not build | new pipes. | matthewdgreen wrote: | NYC already has relatively low-CO2 electricity and is | signing an agreement with hydro Quebec to keep things that | way. | ikr678 wrote: | A lot of gas distribution networks are experimenting with | hydrogen blending (adding a % of sustainably generated | hydrogen to the methane blend), much the same as adding | ethanol to petrol. | | However, beyond the engineering issues (existing pipes not | always suitable for hydrogen blended gas) it just kicks the | can down the road and delays the structural changes needed to | get households away from using natural gas. | | Only a few are doing full % hydrogen conversions, City of | Leeds being the biggest project under way. | KptMarchewa wrote: | Power plants are way more efficient, transfer loses are way | exaggerated, and most of the energy will be soon provided by | only renewable sources. | | EDIT: and according to this [0], most of New York's electricity | is already carbon free. | | [0] https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NY#tabs-4 | beervirus wrote: | Power plants are more efficient at generating electricity, | mechanical work, etc. than small generators. They are | certainly not more efficient at generating heat than just | burning the gas is. | dml2135 wrote: | Why not? When you use a stove, look how much of the flame | is open, and take note of how much heat is being thrown off | and not going into your food. When gas is burned in a | plant, much more of that heat is captured. | | But it's really a moot point, because the goal is to change | the power plants to clean energy sources anyway. | imgabe wrote: | Quantify "way more efficient". How many cubic meters of | natural gas do I need to burn to produce a given number of | joules of heat at point of use vs. at a power plant? | | It's not just transfer losses. The power plant has to heat | water to steam, use the steam to turn a turbine. There's | losses all along that process vs. directly using the heat | where you want to heat something. | moooo99 wrote: | A huge power plant that burns 5 times the amount of gas also | generates more than 5 times the energy compared to you burning | it at home at your stove. Especially for cooking it really | surprised me that cooking with gas is still so common in the | US. Here, basically every new house has uses induction which | has become really accessible. | | When it comes to gas for heating I'm somewhat indifferent. Even | if the electricity is primarily from fossil source (which I | don't know, but it is likely) I'd imagine it is a whole lot | easier to continue improving the energy production to reach | net-zero than it would be to wait and replace the gas heating | in thousands of buildings. | imgabe wrote: | The power plant burns the gas to heat water, which creates | steam, which turns a turbine, which generates electricity | which then gets turned back into heat at my stove. | | The gas burned at my stove doesn't _need_ 5 times as much | because the heat from burning it goes directly into whatever | I 'm cooking on my stove. | kaibee wrote: | Have you ever tried to hold your hand next to the edge of | the pot..? A lot of the heat is not going into the pan. | imgabe wrote: | Yeah, the same thing is happening at the power plant. | macintux wrote: | I can't speak to the relative efficiency, but central power | generation is much easier to upgrade (both in terms of | scrubbing the emissions and switching to renewables). | gisely wrote: | It's deeply depressing that none of the comments here so far are | positive toward this move. The earth will be utterly transformed | by climate change in next century to detriment of nearly every | living thing on it. We have only one reliable mechanism to | mitigate to harm we are causing: ending fossil fuel use. To do | that everything that currently uses fossil energy needs to be | electrified. Every year we waste letting new buildings get built | with gas furnaces makes it that much harder to limit the damage | we've caused. | | Stop using the fact much electrical generation still uses fossil | fuels to argue against electrification. Petition to bring new | renewable generation online and close coal and gas powered plants | instead. Stop romanticizing a gas stove that pollutes the air in | your home as you cook at it. Get an induction stove heats just as | fast instead. | | Stop pretending we have time to "wait and assess" and starting | fighting for a livable future on only home we have. | pikma wrote: | Thank you for your comment. I myself have cooked on gas my | whole life, have learnt over years how each of my different | pans heats over gas (it sounds stupid but there are a lot of | subtleties when it comes to cast iron, carbon steel and | stainless steel, how they hear up at different rates and | develop hot spots, how the sides and the center hear | differently, and how that can result in burnt oil). I am | anxious to have to learn all of this again on induction, and | maybe even having to let go of my beloved carbon steel pan | (it's unclear to me how well it will work on induction and | whether it will warp or spin on the flat surface). | | But overall the reasoning of this change makes sense to me - | we'll all have to adapt and it'll be annoying but we can't | wait. The right time to start was 30 years ago - the second | best time is now. | whalesalad wrote: | You can pry my gas stove from my cold dead hands. | lotsofpulp wrote: | Same here. I have had the displeasure of experiencing multiple | multi day electricity outages in the Northeast, and having a | natural gas connection to the house was an immense lifesaver. | | Heat (from gas fireplace), hot water, and home cooked meals | were no problem. | galago wrote: | gas/electric/induction all co-exist for various reasons. i | liked gas until i realized that for heating a pot of water, | even standard electric is faster in the stretch because the | element is in contact with the pot. also electric/induction are | just a straight surface which is easier to clean. i currently | have gas in a rental, but i wish i had one of the other | options. if we have gas we can roast marshmallows, which fun... | but maybe it just seems fun due to the higher carbon dioxide | levels. | codedokode wrote: | I see comments saying that heating with electricity is more | efficient than with gas. So, will it cost less? | dxhdr wrote: | "There are exceptions for new buildings used for certain | activities, including manufacturing, hospitals, commercial | kitchens and laundromats." | | Want to take bets on who consumes the most natural gas, | households or the exceptions? | beervirus wrote: | Shhhhhh. Something must be done, and this is something. | Therefore it must be done. | [deleted] | vkou wrote: | In NYC, it's almost certainly households. | SECProto wrote: | On a per-unit basis, obviously the commercial users. But on a | per-building and city-wide basis, almost definitely residential | - huge amount of natural gas is used for residential space | heating. | lbrito wrote: | "New buildings in the biggest U.S. city with 8.8 million | residents will have to use electricity for heat and cooking" | | Hmm, I wonder where the electricity comes from. If it comes from | natural gas as well, then they're just adding another step of | energy transformation, which is aka more inefficiency, right? Or | worse, maybe some of the electricity comes from dirtier sources | than natural gas. | jkaplowitz wrote: | They're being smarter than that. The city also signed an | electricity supply agreement with Hydro Quebec, which is | supposed to be operational before the ban on natural gas in new | buildings comes into effect. [Minor correction: some smaller | new buildings may have the ban in effect for 2 years before the | new electricity becomes operational.] | | Hydro Quebec is, as the name suggests, hydroelectricity and | therefore cleaner and more sustainable/renewable than natural | gas. | dml2135 wrote: | No, even if power plants are still run by fossil fuels, the | electrification of the home leads to greater efficiency due to | the economies of scale that centralizing the power production | provides. | | Also, once everything is electrified, it's easy to switch out | the source of that electricity to something cleaner, at any | time. Whereas people purchasing new gas appliances now will | keep them in service for the next 10-20 years. | usrusr wrote: | My immediate reaction was the exact opposite, because | replacing natural gas with manufactured gas would be | comparatively easy. You can even push plain H2 into the mix | as long as the fraction is within a certain range. A gas | network can serve as a considerable sink for non-dispatchable | renewables to not go to waste. But it's the same (or better!) | for centralized natgas plants, so that's clearly better, at | least as long as there are no cheap compromises taken to go | electric (like installing cheap resistive heating, which is | actually a thing here in Germany, where an entire industry | pretends that we'd be fine in cold air as long as there's | some IR emitter pointed at our body) | prepend wrote: | Wow, this is oddly stupid. I thought just weirdos wanted this | kind of change and this is the first I've heard of a | municipality. | | Gas is so efficient for heating (and great for cooking), it seems | bad for climate change to not allow it. | | Theater seems to be catching on and I hope we don't see more | climate change theater regulations. | stefan_ wrote: | How is it "so efficient for heating"? It's much more efficient | to burn the gas for electricity then use the electricity to run | a heat pump. | usrusr wrote: | And it only gets better when you use the waste heat from the | powerplant for even more heating. | hunterb123 wrote: | No you lose energy in the transfer. | | While burning nat. gas is efficient, you do lose energy in | the process. | | A coal plant is 50% efficient, and CHP plant is 80-90% | efficient. | | A nat. gas heat pump is 80%-93% efficient depending on the | money you want to spend. | | A standard efficiency nat. gas furnace is at least 80% | efficient, they top out at 98% efficiency. | | Pretty obvious that converting from heat to electricity to | heat is going to be less efficient than just converting to | heat. | | Not to mention the furnace is more efficient than the gas | plant (max of 98% compared to a max of 90%). | | Also the transmission and storage of nat. gas vs electricity | is more efficient. | [deleted] | johncolanduoni wrote: | You're comparing Carnot efficiencies for heat pumps with | nominal efficiencies for natural gas heaters. Heat pumps | have nominal efficiencies well over 100%. They can move | more joules of heat from outside than the number of joules | of energy they consume. | hunterb123 wrote: | The efficiency depends on the temp. outside. | | That's why nat. gas is used for heating more in the north | and less so in the south. | | At a certain point it's more efficient to burn the gas | directly. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance | johncolanduoni wrote: | Unless you're heating your house in the arctic, a modern | heat pump is still going to have a nominal efficiency | well over 100%. So if you're claiming your heat pump | numbers above are nominal efficiencies, I'm really | curious as to where you're getting them. | hunterb123 wrote: | It's a simple formula, the CoP, I linked it in my above | post. | | The below PDF has a chart of temps to efficiencies. 37F | will have around an 80% efficiency. | | https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/04/f34/2_322 | 19_... | | That's a potential 40% energy loss. 20% at the plant, 20% | at the house. | | It all depends on the region's temperature. Electric | heating is more efficient in some places, less efficient | in some, and equal in some. | [deleted] | vkou wrote: | > Gas is so efficient for heating | | Heat pumps are multiple times more efficient than gas for | heating. | dml2135 wrote: | Heat pumps and induction ranges have changed the game. Dirty | gas does not have the same advantages over electric that it | used to. | tyronehed wrote: | aaronbrethorst wrote: | Per reporting from the beginning of 2020, fossil gas is far | worse than was previously suspected. | https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/super-pot... | brtkdotse wrote: | > Gas is so efficient for heating | | Nope. Put one kWh of gas in, get _maybe_ 0.9kWh of heat out. | | Put one kWh of electricity into a heat pump and get at the very | least 3 kWh of heat out. | lotsofpulp wrote: | > Put one kWh of electricity into a heat pump and get at the | very least 3 kWh of heat out. | | Even when it is below freezing outside? | tzs wrote: | Heat pumps such as Mitsubishi's "Hyper-Heat" models should | be above 3 to 1 down to a little below freezing, and better | than 2 to 1 down to around 0 (-18). They are down to about | 1 to 1 at -15 (-26). | brtkdotse wrote: | It's -10C here right now and my heat pump is pulling less | than 3kW to heat the whole house. | teaearlgraycold wrote: | It's a matter of the refrigerant you use. Don't worry about | the freezing point of water. | dpark wrote: | Heat pump efficiency drops as the difference between the | indoor and outdoor temperature grows. No one specifically | cares about the freezing point of water for this, but | it's a good proxy for "big temperature difference". | insaneirish wrote: | > Even when it is below freezing outside? | | Yes. For instance, one of the heat pumps in my house has a | coefficient of performance of 3.2 at 17F/-8C. | | Reference: https://ashp.neep.org/#!/product/51106 | hashimotonomora wrote: | Electricity is of (much) higher exergy than natural gas so | it's not a directly comparable measure. | SECProto wrote: | Even burning natural gas in a peaker plant to generate | electricity (nTh [?] 0.6), and account for transmission | losses(~0.9), and then using that electricity to run a heat | pump (~2.5) - is still more efficient than natgas space | heating | nine_k wrote: | Burning gas for heating is less efficient than burning gas to | produce electricity and use it to run a heat pump. | | Burning gas for cooking is more efficient than burning it to | generate electricity and turn it back to heat in an induction | stove. | | I can imagine banning natural gas from apartments to avoid | catastrophic explosions, but it's not about daily efficiency. | dpark wrote: | > _Burning gas for cooking is more efficient than burning | it to generate electricity and turn it back to heat in an | induction stove._ | | Is it? Induction cooktop heating is quite efficient. Gas is | extremely inefficient. Huge amounts of heat roll up the | side of the pot/pan and into the air, to be blown outside | by the hood vent. | | There's quite a bit of loss in generating and transmitting | electricity but I am not sure it's worse than gas cooktop | efficiency. | mangoman wrote: | Gas is actually less efficient for cooking than induction | https://www.treehugger.com/which-more-energy-efficient-cooki... | | however, for heating, it does seem like gas can be more | efficient depending on where it is installed. I don't think | it's quite right to call it stupid though. Gas is, on net, | worse for the environment. | RhysU wrote: | Cooking efficiency is an odd metric. Probably boiling (via | induction-heated water) or microwaving heats things best but | blech for taste. | redis_mlc wrote: | tyronehed wrote: | cascom wrote: | What's so stupid is this isn't the problem - the amount of fuel | oil heated buildings in Manhattan is astonishing | nine_k wrote: | Oil heating _and_ poor thermal insulation. Burn more oil in | winter, and more electricity in summer! | | I think adding good insulation would make the largest | improvement both for energy efficiency and quality of life in | such buildings. | dml2135 wrote: | Heating oil is one part of the problem. Natural gas is another. | dukeofdoom wrote: | Redundancy is a great thing. If the power lines ice over, or | there's a grid failure for another reason, heat goes, water pipes | freeze over, and people will literally freeze to death in winter. | There was power failure in the entire province in Quebec in 1989 | due to a solor storm. This is not hypothetical happening, but | something to be expected. Considering the age and general decline | of infrastructure in large US cities. | dml2135 wrote: | Agree with this, but the green solution for this is home | batteries, not fossil fuels. | | We do need to harden and invest in the electric grid though, | and I worry that climate activists may not be making it a high | enough priority. You'll lose support for electrification real | fast if people lose their heat in the depths of winter. | dukeofdoom wrote: | I've experienced power going out for a week. I don't know if | we have battery technology to heat a house for a week. The | tesla battery is 13.5 kWh and costs more than $10k. Just | rough calculation, a typical baseboard heater is 1k so thats | just enough capacity to run one heater for 13 hours. | | The space requirements and enough battery capacity for an | entire 50 story apartment building that would last a week, | would probably be prohibitively expensive. The alternative of | having to fix frozen pipes in a large apartment building, | even if nothing is flooded is probably months of plumbing | work. If you could even find the plumbers to do the work if | theres a large scale power outage in a city. | | My uncle is a plumber, plumbing a new condo building takes | months and even years. And thats without complications of | having to tear out walls to find where the pipes burst. I had | frozen pipes in a house and it was a nightmare to deal with. | They burst in multiple places and flood when temperature | heats up. | | I'm for green technology, but not when it will kill people. | Its important to make sound decisions, not based on ideology. | Especially if you want to achieve your goals. You don't want | the public to quickly turn against you. | yuppie_scum wrote: | Induction cooking is by all accounts awesome if you have the | right cookware. | | I think we will see some nice high end electric heating fixtures | as well. Plus more radiant floor heat. | dpark wrote: | I kind of hope not. Electric heat is far less efficient than | heat pumps. | runarberg wrote: | My mom got an induction stove not long ago and I tried it in my | last visit, and I was thoroughly impressed. You have really | nice control over the heat (even better then on gas stoves) and | it heats up really fast. | | The only problem is that if you have gathered an impressive set | of pots and pans you have to start from scratch. However that | can be remedied with an adapter. I've heard people complain | about the adapter, however I was able to cook icelandic | pancakes just as easily on an induction stove with an adapter | as I would on a standard electric stove. | Eric_WVGG wrote: | My landlord replaced my gas stove with an induction stove (with | convection oven), and it is without question the nicest oven | I've ever used. Even the broiler is somehow terrific. | | Most of my neighbors are clinging to their old gas ovens out of | nostalgic attitudes or skepticism. I've tried to convince them | that they're missing out. | dml2135 wrote: | wow your landlord sounds awesome, do you live in nyc? I think | I'm resigned to using gas until I buy a home (if that day | ever comes). | Eric_WVGG wrote: | I do live in NYC. "Awesome" isn't quite the term I'd use... | he's highly motivated to get gas out of this building (one | highly illegal piece of plastic ductwork from | Czechoslovakia was found in our system -- had there been a | fire and this piece melted, BLAMMO). | | Personally, I am convinced by recent studies that indoor | gas is just blanket bad for health, so I was quite happy to | cooperate. | | https://www.vox.com/energy-and- | environment/2020/5/7/21247602... | romwell wrote: | IMO a blanket ban like that is stupid. | | The amount of gas used for cooking is miniscule, accounting for | under 3% of consumption[1]. | | Cooking with fire is different than cooking on an electric or | induction stovetop. Banning the use of gas for heating would have | been more than enough. | | That's before we even get to the amazing fact that 40% of our | electricity comes from _burning natural gas_ [2], and that that | natural gas powerplant efficiency is about 40%[3]. | | Which means that with the existing electricity infrastructure, | switching from gas to electricity for heating results in _more_ | gas being burned. | | Talk about putting the cart before the horse. | | [1] https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/is-your- | cookin... | | [2] | https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-... | | [3] http://needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/energy-sources/fossil- | fuels... | noahtallen wrote: | > That's before we even get to the amazing fact that 40% of our | electricity comes from burning natural gas [2], and that that | natural gas powerplant efficiency is about 40% | | Like electric cars, a benefit would be that the energy source | is generalized. I like thinking of it as a good separation of | concerns. If nearly everything is electrified, then everyone | benefits as better and more efficient energy sources become | available over time. | aaronbrethorst wrote: | It would also be easier to employ hypothetical future carbon | capture systems at a small number of power plants compared to | a large number of homes. | asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: | Efficiency of cooking with gas is less than 30% so I'm not sure | your point about relative efficiencies is correct. But I agree | with the overall point. | gattilorenz wrote: | I guess part of the reason is that, in the long run, you don't | want to maintain the gas infrastructure for a whole city just | to let people cook with gas. | parkingrift wrote: | All existing residential is excluded. Any new residential is | mostly excluded for the next 6 years. Commercial, | manufacturing, and laundromats are excluded. | | The city will be maintaining the gas infrastructure for | eternity. There will just be a subset of unfortunate | residents that have to cook with electric while 99% of their | neighbors continue with gas. | Grakel wrote: | Yep. Practically everyone in New York has gas, and it is so | wonderful. When I left I had to get used to electric again, | it's like an easy bake oven. | dymk wrote: | An electric stovetop boils water faster than a gas | stovetop | matthewdgreen wrote: | I assume the goal here is to eliminate the expensive and leaky | natural gas delivery network entirely: nobody is going to build | something that complicated just so a few foodies can make stir | fry (and people who really care can purchase it in bottled | form.) So any world where the LNG delivery network exists is | going to be one where it's used for heating. Getting to CO2 net | zero involves moving those applications entirely to non-fossil | electricity. | MrFoof wrote: | > _I assume the goal here is to eliminate the expensive and | leaky natural gas delivery network entirely: nobody is going | to build something that complicated just so a few foodies can | make stir fry (and people who really care can purchase it in | bottled form.)_ | | There are inductive surfaces explicitly designed for woks, | with a very deep, concave "bowl" to accommodate the wok. | | I know two families (both Thai) that have bought them with | zero regret and no complaints. Not cheap and certainly niche, | but they do work as expected. | | UPDATE: There are also adapter rings designed to work with | woks. These aren't "half-assed, _maybe they work_ " items. | They are made for commercial kitchens, as in _actual_ | restaurants. Restaurants don 't pay Gaggenau for _hoping_ | something works and doesn 't disappoint customers -- they pay | them because it does. | romwell wrote: | >Getting to CO2 net zero involves moving those applications | entirely to non-fossil electricity. | | The necessary and sufficient condition for that is the cost | of electric heating to consumer being lower than the cost of | gas heating in both short and long term (i.e., a 5-year | subsidy isn't it). | | This requires a significant reshaping of our electricity | generation. Everything else is a band-aid on an axe wound. | | A federal tax on burning natural gas can make that shift | happen, but will hit the poor people. | | Finally, again, you can't shift to non-fossil electricity | because you don't get to choose which electricity you shift | to. As is, you're just going to burn more gas in a different | place. The benefits of this rearrangement aren't obvious to | me. | bryanlarsen wrote: | It's more efficient to burn gas to make electricity (45% | efficient), transport it over the grid (95%), and then run | a heat pump (250 - 600% efficient) than it is to burn the | gas for heat (80 - 95% efficient). | | And renewable electricity is cheaper than gas electricity, | if it is available. | adeelk93 wrote: | You have to factor in the energy efficiency of heat pumps, and | if you do, burning gas to produce electricity to run a heat | pump can be comparable in efficiency to burning gas directly. | gisely wrote: | This is about heating more than cooking as heating is a way | bigger energy use for most households, but you are seriously | proposing it would a smart move to build out gas delivery | infrastructure just so people can keep cooking with gas? | | More importantly, please stop using the tired old excuse that | we should wait to electrify until all electric generation is | renewable. Converting domestic heating infrastructure to | electric is a massive project that will probably take decades | and represents billions of tons of CO2 emissions already baked | in. We need to start now. Deciding to build new gas | infrastructure today is committing to burn more gas for | decades. | parkingrift wrote: | These restrictions are arbitrary and nonsensical. No new gas in | buildings under 7 floors after 2023. No new gas in buildings over | 7 floors after 2027. ...unless it's a kitchen, laundromat, or | manufacturing. | | So... we're going to have 99% of buildings wired for gas for many | decades to come. We will continue maintaining the infrastructure | with no end in sight. | | Is this the biggest display of virtue signaling in US history? | How will this accomplish anything at all? | | As a NYC resident I want to be annoyed by this, because I prefer | cooking on gas, but if I die of old age in NYC I won't ever be | impacted by this. | dml2135 wrote: | Would you be happier if they banned all gas outright? This is | how you make change, in small steps. | parkingrift wrote: | If they actually banned gas I would just leave. | | Fortunately, they can't do that. Instead, they focus on | writing rules that will have zero impact. | decremental wrote: | We should keep electing these forward thinking pioneers. It keeps | working out so great in all the places they're in charge of. You | will keep electing them who am I kidding. They said anyone who | doesn't agree with them is an anti-vax climate denying racist. | Can't have those mean names on our record. | sbuccini wrote: | It seems like a lot of folks think of this ban as a way to tackle | climate change when I always thought it was primarily a public | health issue[0], with a second-order goal of eventually | preventing natural gas explosions[1]. | | [0] https://www.vox.com/energy-and- | environment/2020/5/7/21247602... | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion | MomoXenosaga wrote: | At first I didn't really understand but then I realized this is | America. Funding and maintaining infrastructure is not exactly | a priority... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-12-25 23:00 UTC)