[HN Gopher] New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in ne... ___________________________________________________________________ New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings Author : ajay-d Score : 209 points Date : 2023-04-28 19:30 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com) | someonehere wrote: | Berkeley attempted this and it was recently overturned: | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/court-overturns-berkeley-califo... | | California's electric grid is in horrendous shape. We can barely | keep the power on in the summertime, especially when wildfires | happen. When the power is out, am I expected to start a fire in | my yard to cook food? Fire up my JetBoil? My BBQ? | 0xdead8ead wrote: | Eugene tried this as well. City council passed it without input | from the community and is facing backlash. Since the 9th | circuit decision, the ordinance has been called into question. | | https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/eugene-s-natural-gas-b... | | The community has since generated enough signatures to put the | ban to a public vote that will be voted on in November. | Anecdotally, I'd say, most my neighbors are against the ban, | judging from the names on the petition that I signed when they | dropped through. | | Personally, I believe folks should have the liberty to choose | the best solution for their energy needs. I do a bit of home | brewing, and I can say, without question, gas is superior for | heating a large quantity of water quickly and keeping it at | temp throughout the process. I even looked into electric brew | kettles and >10G vessels require a dedicated 240V circuit. | | Taking this all into account, I'm not sure I'll be buying / | building within city limits. That or I'll just move to using my | own methane composting biogas bladder. I'd love to see the | greenies tell me I can't make my own gas in my back yard via | composting. | 8note wrote: | If the 240v circuit is your problem, then this ordinance | helps solve it, no? Future houses will be better set up to | handle your task using electricity than hooking in a gas pipe | to your boiler | peteradio wrote: | Eugene is way past its prime unfortunately. There used to be | a giant festering pit in the middle of downtown, now it looks | worse. | brianwawok wrote: | My best source of heat is burning animals bones, can I be | your neighbor? | Symbiote wrote: | (The site is blocked in the EU.) | | Since the NY ban is for new construction, wouldn't the | obvious thing be to install more 240V circuits in the new | buildings? | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Have you tried induction? A kettle on an induction stove will | boil pretty quickly and evenly, induction stoves are superior | to gas stoves for most tasks (the exception being wok | cooking, but you can get curved induction stoves for that). | When we rewire our kitchen, I want a 220-40V plug for a | separate kettle as well, just because water boiled so much | faster in China than when we moved to the states. | gnopgnip wrote: | Most modern gas stoves require power as well, look at the most | popular GE or Samsung models | mschuster91 wrote: | > When the power is out, am I expected to start a fire in my | yard to cook food? | | You can't assume that gas supply works in a power outage. Some | modern gas stoves depend on external electricity for active | power regulation or flame surveillance, and the compressors | along the line require electricity as well to function - which | was one of the problems in the Texas power outage IIRC, as the | gas peaker plants couldn't get powered on because the gas grid | compressors were offline. | | Keep a camping stove for emergency scenarios, way more reliable | and if you're running out of gas you can always walk to the | next open hardware store. | jrockway wrote: | A bigger problem is getting a feed to your house that can | handle your hot water heater, stove, washing machine, and | electric car charging all at once. That's rather impractical in | some areas, so there is some work to coordinate between the | appliances so they can share a smaller feed. The way some | stoves are participating is that they charge a battery at | relatively low current all the time, and then cook from the | battery at high current when the half-hour a day that you cook | comes. That way you don't need a special circuit, and can cook | while your hot water heater or washing machine is running. The | added benefit is that your stove is now a UPS basically, so you | can cook while the power's out. (I believe some can share power | with other appliances, i.e. keep your refrigerator running for | a while.) | | I have a gas range and it doesn't work when the electricity is | off. If that's your contingency plan, check that a safety valve | doesn't close when power is lost. | nostrademons wrote: | (Heat pump) Hot water heaters and washing machines are not | major power draws. Some rough figures on power consumption of | typical appliances, from most to least: | Continuous-flow electric water heater: 20 kW Heat pump | or central air, big home: 12-15 kW EV charger: 7 kW | Electric tanked water heater or hybrid water heater in | electric mode: 7.2 kW Clothes dryer with heating | element on: 5 kW Heat pump or central air, small home: | 3-4 kW Electric oven: 3-5 kW Induction range: 1.8 | kW Instapot: ~1.5 kW Toaster oven: 1-1.5 kW | Electric kettle: 1 kW Microwave: 1.2 kW | Dishwasher: ~500-1000 W Heat pump water heater: ~600W | Washing machine: 500 W Vacuum cleaner: 200-300 W | Home server or desktop: 100-200 W Box fan or air | purifier: 100 W Laptop on fast charge: 65W Laptop | on slow charge: 30W LED light bulb: 12-15W Cell | phone charger: 6W | | For reference, 200A electrical service can supply up to 24 kW | of power, and even 120A service in older houses is good for | about 14.4 kW. | | Individually coordinating appliance loads or including a | battery with each appliance seems like an inefficient, | expensive and unnecessary extra step. Basically, all you need | to do is a.) charge your EVs at night when nothing else is | running b.) don't use electric water heaters unless they're | heat pumps and c.) insulate your home if you're using heat | pump HVAC. All of which you should be doing anyway. The | kitchen appliances are easily manageable if the EV and HVAC | are not running at the same time, and everything else is | rounding error. | | There might be some benefit to grid-coordinating EV charging | and heat pump HVAC operation, particularly since these are | the cases where naive loads all hit the grid at the same | time, and they already come with batteries included (literal | ones for EVs, thermal batteries for HVAC). For smaller | appliances it's totally unnecessary though. | gladiatr72 wrote: | No matches? | SigmundA wrote: | Worst case at 240v : | | Electric hot water heater = 20 amps | | Electric stove = 50 amps all burners on and oven | | Washing machine = 15 amps | | Car charger = 50 amps | | Total = 135 amps | | Standard residential service in the US = 200 amps split phase | @ 240v | | Whats the problem? | somethoughts wrote: | For a new build - the building code should suggest/require | that a battery backup/Powerwall circuit be added that only | supplies the essentials. | | If you can stick to plugin hybrids and go without AC during | a power outage... | | Electric hot water heater = 20 amps | | Electric stove = 50 amps all burners on and oven | | Internet, Misc = 1 amps | | Total < 75 amps | ou8_1_2 wrote: | All the other 15 amp circuits people take for granted for | things like lights, the clothes dryer and the heat/cooling | system you left off your list (heat pump + air handler + | emergency heat coils)... | | Add in the 80% rule and 200amps doesn't go as far as one | might hope in a gas free-house. | radicaldreamer wrote: | There are some induction stove startups that are using | batteries to not only not require 240v hookups but | perform even better than a standard induction stove... | the idea is that with cheap battery technology you can | take advantage of the fact that not everything in your | house will be running and charging at the same time. | rcme wrote: | I run my washer and dryer on a single 15 amp circuit. | Heat pump dryers are very efficient. | greenthrow wrote: | The 80% rule is for running circuits and for breakers. It | has nothing to do with actual load capacity. I.e. with | 200A service you can have well beyond 200A nominal worth | of breakers in your box (250A), but when all those things | are running it should still use 200A or less if the 80% | rule was followed. | SigmundA wrote: | I did not make the list, I was replying to the list | given. | | None of those devices pull the rated amount continuous | except may the car charger which can be adjusted for less | draw / longer charge time if needed. | | Simply scheduling car charing for overnight would | eliminate any issue, even so there is plenty of headroom | on a typical residential system. | rcme wrote: | You didn't include air conditioning, vacuum, power washer, | power tools, etc. It's not that you'd be running all these | things at once (although AC run a lot), but it's pretty | crazy that you could even come close to tripping your main | breaker. | SigmundA wrote: | The post I was replying to did not specify those devices. | saiya-jin wrote: | Pretty crazy? Not sure I follow, if you push anything | fancy to the limits shit will happen, and over the limits | there are some guarantees you will not like the result. | | Its not like its year 10'000 and we polished technology, | infrastructure and everything to the max physics allow. | For example you can easily break whole internet if | significant portion of its users decide to download | something relatively big at the same time. | orra wrote: | > If that's your contingency plan, check that a safety valve | doesn't close when power is lost. | | And for good reason. Gas cookers require ventilation, to | prevent carbon monoxide build up. An electric extractor fan | won't work during a power cut. | im3w1l wrote: | Well you could open a window. | galleywest200 wrote: | In the middle of the night while you are asleep? | xboxnolifes wrote: | Why is your stove on while you sleep? | WalterBright wrote: | It's probably connected to the internet, downloading | critical updates to the burner software and ads to | display while you're cooking. | orra wrote: | Sure, but my point is to remember to do that. Extractor | fans are for more than extracting the smell of onions or | fish. | earthling8118 wrote: | It's very bold of you to assume that my kitchen has | ventilation at all. There's an electric extractor fan that | just blows the air back in your face. I've seen other | people's place where they don't even have that charade. | | I'd love to have a real setup. Unfortunately I've not been | given that option and it is the same for many others. | jaclaz wrote: | I don't know how the codes are where you live, but in EU | the norms are for natural ventilation in kitchens where gas | stoves are used. | hedora wrote: | I don't think it's impractical to upgrade service lines. It | is, however, impractical to get PG&E to approve the upgrade. | (For us, that process cost about 3 years and $10K. They ran a | wire 6 feet from an existing transformer to a pole we had to | install ourselves). | | When they pass these laws, they should come with an SLA for | the utility provider to approve "engineering" plans for the | utility hookup and whatever transformer upgrades are required | utility-side. | | There should be a ~ $250 per day fine, payable in cash to the | homeowner once the SLA is exceeded. That's roughly 2x normal | homeowner costs due to delay of construction approvals (and | therefore financing / alternative housing costs for those | days) and using gas generators to power the site. | danans wrote: | > (For us, that process cost about 3 years and $10K. They | ran a wire 6 feet from an existing transformer to a pole we | had to install ourselves). | | Must have been a while ago because in 2021 they charged me | $0 (not a typo) to go from 100A to 200A. It took just a | month or so to arrange. | nuancebydefault wrote: | It's really amazing how people can talk about 200 amps as | if it's nothing. We have a household installation of 40 | amps (220) and last year there were months that cost 400 | euros per month on electricity, and we are not heavy | electricity users (we have no electric cloth dryer but | have a small robot mower tho) | | It is almost like talking about 400HP cars/suvs, my 3 | cylinder car is doing just fine at 84 kW max. | | Am I being pedantic? | Symbiote wrote: | American houses mostly have air conditioning, which is a | huge load. We don't, and make better use of shades, | awnings etc. | | European houses have had two or three decades of | efficiency improvements made to everything, so we don't | have the 5kW clothes dryers mentioned above. | nuancebydefault wrote: | Maybe this is a bit of a tangent but... shouldn't the | world as a whole not be thinking about how to consume | less in stead of obsessing with how to do the clean | energy transition, without changing our habits a bit? | | If you think about it, there is still plenty of room for | optimizing our energy consumption. | | The trend seems to be, replace the gasoline car not with | a more fuel efficient one but rather with a car weighing | almost double because it has to drag along a huge | battery. Then replace all copper wires with double the | section (copper mining, plastic production, tearing open | perfect roads, ...) | | Some ideas, not very far fetched I would say, combine a | few of these will get us a long way: | | Car pooling. | | Electric bicycles. | | Insulate your house better? | | Taking turns with neighbours to do grocery shopping or | bringing kids to school. | | Try to repair stuff in stead of bying new. | | Drying clothes with renewable wind energy. (a hanging | rack) | danans wrote: | > Car pooling. | | > Electric bicycles | | > Insulate your house better? | | > Taking turns with neighbours to do grocery shopping or | bringing kids to school. | | > Try to repair stuff in stead of bying new. | | > Drying clothes with renewable wind energy. (a hanging | rack) | | People do these things anyways with the right incentives, | just to save time and money. | | But we still need to get off of fossil fuels for | transportation and electricity generation if we want to | avoid the worst climate change scenarios. | | The reality is that people really value convenience, and | we have to find sustainable ways of delivering that. That | might mean a great electric bus system, EVs, community | thrift exchanges, etc | nuancebydefault wrote: | I agree, but it needs to be a combination of change of | infrastructure and people's habits. After all it is just | culture and culture evolves,so let it evolve in the right | direction. 200 amps to every household seems not to be | the right direction. | mschuster91 wrote: | You're talking in Euros... we have 230V power, while | Americans and a few other holdouts still use 110V. The | problem is, the lower the voltage the more current you | need - an 1 kW vacuum draws 9 amps in the US, but 4.5 in | Europe. | | The unit of billing - kW/h - however remains the same. | mamoswine wrote: | This sounds plausible but is subtly incorrect: the US | uses split phase power and 100A means 100A on each of the | two legs (+/-120V). So if you balance the legs correctly, | you can get 240V*100A on 100A service. This is important | for example for car charging where both legs are used and | balanced. | implements wrote: | America is 120v now, I believe - and many houses have a | centre-tapped neutral supply [1] which means they | actually can have 240v outlets in garages, workshops, | utility rooms (etc) for high power devices. | | [1] https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/48783 | 6/how-d... | nuancebydefault wrote: | So this is different from a 3 phase system (N L1 L2 L3) | with 120 degrees shift between the lines? It is instead | basically a 2 phase system N L1 L2 with a 180 degree | phase shift between L1 and L2? | | I was already confused with the 240 being mentioned | somewhere in this thread... it becomes a bit clearer now. | implements wrote: | Not an electrician, but yes (I think). | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-phase_electric_power | Gibbon1 wrote: | Most US residential housing is fed off a 240V center | tapped transformer. Center tap is connected to ground and | neutral at the breaker panel. That gives you two 120V | phases to neutral. And 240V from phase to phase. | | In the breaker panels the phase alternates as you go down | the rows of breakers. So you can install a dual breaker | for 240V. Typically only large appliances like stoves, | water heater, driers, and air conditioners are 240V. | Everything else is 120V. | baq wrote: | I heartily recommend a three phase induction stove. 400V | of cooking power (mine is rated at something like | 8kW...?). Carbon steel pans get ready in seconds. | nostrademons wrote: | It depends a lot on your existing service. For many homes | the wire is already rated for 200A, and you just need a | new main panel. In those cases the utility charges you | $0. On the other end of the spectrum, some homes have | buried power lines where they need to dig up the street | and driveway to run a new higher-rated cable to your | home, and I've heard of those costing upwards of $50K. | danans wrote: | In my case I needed a new wire drop, but it's still | didn't cost me anything. The panel upgrade was very | pricey though. | mschuster91 wrote: | It's different depending on the line that runs to your | home and the transformer serving your street. If the line | to your home has enough diameter to carry 200A and the | transformer and the main line have enough spare capacity, | all it needs is to exchange the main fuses/circuit | breakers on the utility side. Most new constructions | these days are severely overbuilt to accomodate the rise | in electric car chargers. | | For _older_ constructions however, it can be more | involved - the line from the main line to your home might | need an upgrade, the main line might need an upgrade or | in the worst case the transformer might need an upgrade. | The further up in the grid you go, the more expensive it | gets for the utility - and some measures might even | require significant work involving construction permits. | hedora wrote: | In our situation, the issue was that the service had been | disconnected, and we needed to move the meter about 20 | feet (no obstructions, no buried lines). | Waterluvian wrote: | > ... getting a feed to your house that can handle your hot | water heater, stove, washing machine, and electric car | charging all at once. | | This wasn't on my radar as being a thing. What type of | service is typical out there? Where I am, 200A is fairly | normal and I haven't really perceived of the concept of not | having enough electricity to run a family as a thing. | | Do people trip the main breaker more than "almost never" out | there? | hedora wrote: | Most people around here buy enough battery or generators to | keep the power on. PG&E is way below one nine of availability | this year, but the outlets inside our house are at 6 nines | followed by an eight. | | Granted, once the propane rationing started, a few of our | neighbors lost power for extended periods of time (weeks). The | phone company doesn't maintain internet if the power is out, | but there is starlink, and fiber co-ops are starting to spring | up. | | This is the SF Bay Area, so it's pretty much a third world | country if you measure things by quality of government | services. I assume this isn't typical for most other parts of | the country. | sokoloff wrote: | > PG&E is way below one nine of availability this year | | You've been without utility power for two full weeks in | 2023?! | nucleardog wrote: | Can't speak to California, but where I am in Canada | (national capital region) I've been without power for over | 14 days total in the past 12 months and we don't have half | the problems they do. | | There was an eight day outage, a four day outage, and a | couple ~24 hour outages. | | Surprisingly very few short outages or brownouts or | anything. | | I'm sitting at having utility power ~95% of the time over | the past 12 months. I'd have no problem believing two | weeks... or more. | OkGoDoIt wrote: | Yes. There's been a lot of storms this spring and the wind | has brought down power cables left and right. That's in | addition to whatever other crap is up that's causing power | and even occasionally gas to be shut off for days at a | time. Depending on where you live in the bay area, you | might've had a few hour long shut offs, a few day long shut | off's, or worse and that's just this year. I personally | have had almost 3 total days without power where I live in | the inner sunset of San Francisco, including 6 incidents of | between 1 and 5 hours, and 1 period of two whole days. I | have friends elsewhere in the city who've had it a lot | worse. I don't personally know anyone who has had 14 days | total outages, but I would absolutely believe it given what | I have seen. Also my personal PG&E bill for my home of two | people and a baby is over $500 a month between electric and | gas. I also run a small-midsize 400 seat theater in SF | Chinatown and the monthly power and gas bill for that is | almost $3000 a month even though we only run events two or | three days a week. It's absolutely ridiculous. | throwaway892238 wrote: | Everybody should listen to The Dollop's episodes on PG&E. | It's pretty nuts. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDollop/comm | ents/11e1c8u/the_doll... https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDoll | op/comments/11kmmsk/the_doll... | | Amazingly this is not the worst US utility company. They | are all pretty horrible. | DangitBobby wrote: | Wow now I feel really grateful to have maybe one or two | outages (that last maybe an hour) per year! | danans wrote: | > This is the SF Bay Area, so it's pretty much a third world | country if you measure things by quality of government | services. I assume this isn't typical for most other parts of | the country | | You would assume wrong. California's grid reliability | statistics are actually better than the national average: | | Electric Utility Performance: A State-By-State Data Review | https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/wp- | content/uploads/2021... | | The only statistic where it falls last is "AVERAGE AMOUNT OF | TIME TO RESTORE POWER PER CUSTOMER, IN MINUTES (CAIDI) WITH | MAJOR EVENT DAYS" | | Compare the California's power reliability with West | Virginia's before making any assumptions. | armatav wrote: | Pretty big miss on that particular statistic don't you | think? | | It's like if your a top basketball player but you come last | in movement speed. | andbberger wrote: | > This is the SF Bay Area, so it's pretty much a third world | country if you measure things by quality of government | services | | delusional | whitemary wrote: | Not delusional at all. I appreciate that this acknowledges | it doesn't have to be this way. Governments don't have to | be dominated by the private market's profit motive. | [deleted] | zmgsabst wrote: | That's true: | | Most third world countries don't allow organized crime and | persistent retail theft the way SF does. Theirs governments | take harsh measures to crack down on such lawlessness. | dragonwriter wrote: | > Most third world countries don't allow organized crime | | Depending on whether you mean _de jure_ or _de facto_ | when you say "allow", this is either not a difference or | not true. | zmgsabst wrote: | > organized crime and persistent retail theft the way SF | does | | Those were in a single grouping. | | I'm currently in SE Asia: factually, they don't allow | organized retail theft akin to what I've seen in Seattle | or SF. | | Their downtowns also aren't littered with drug zombies. | nickstinemates wrote: | I love SE Asia, spend a lot of time there. Your | characterization is incredibly misleading. | | There's different tradeoffs between, say, Bangkok and San | Francisco in terms of what is tolerated (i.e, drugs) and | what isn't. | janalsncm wrote: | To add some nuance, third world countries can be very | different. Crime isn't just a matter of "3rd world" or | not (I don't even think that's a meaningful term). | Guatemala City felt extremely dangerous even during the | day. In contrast, Fez felt very safe from crime. In | contrast, Singapore might be considered "3rd world" by | some definitions but it is by far the safest place I've | lived. | WheatMillington wrote: | Where I live in New Zealand, I haven't experienced a power | cut in years, and in my entire life I've only ever | experienced a handful of short power cuts. So when I hear | about the California experience, it feels pretty third | world to me. | 8note wrote: | You hear about a whole state's worth of local power | outages. If you instead compare to when anyone in new | Zealand has a power outage, you'll be closer in | comparison | andbberger wrote: | blackouts are once yearly occurrences, almost always | caused by natural disasters. roads are high quality and | abundant. we have some of highest quality tap water in | the world, which meets drinking standards even before | being treated. three airports. seven major bridges. way | too many highways. three world class universities. and | despite what you might hear, san francisco remains one of | the safest cities in the country. | | as it turns out, cloistered and fear-mongering tech bros | don't really have an accurate bearing on reality. as a | relatively normal person I am happy to report that | despite being a suburban car-dependent hellhole, the bay | area is very much a "first world" metro. | [deleted] | hx833001 wrote: | In the Boston area, I almost never lose power, at all, ever. | One hour five years ago in an ice storm was an aberration. | Something is very wrong in Cali. | blisterpeanuts wrote: | We're in the Boston area (west suburban town) and there are | outages about every 4-5 months (Eversource). It's quite | annoying and I'm contemplating getting a whole house | generator. My solar panels do nothing during an outage. | Would love to get a couple of Tesla Powerwalls but too | expensive and long waiting list. | azinman2 wrote: | California is a far bigger state in both population and | area. Much of that area is also uninhabited, but power | lines cross it. Many are quite old and not well maintained, | and either start fires or are subject to other climate | issues (fires, snow, high winds, etc). It's a more | challenging environment, plus PG&E is basically | incompetent. | WalterBright wrote: | > a third world country if you measure things by quality of | government services | | And yet Californians pay enormous taxes. | anonymouskimmer wrote: | > And yet Californians pay enormous taxes. | | Part of this is because California is the most populous | state with a high average personal income. | | When talking about actual tax burden averages the best way | to calculate is by dividing the total state and local taxes | by the total income in the state. | | https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/state-and- | local-t... | | In 2020 the total tax rate in California was 10.01% of | total personal income. This put it at 37th place among the | US states, and 0.52% above the US average. | | For the other most populous states, Texas was at 8.56%, | Florida at 7.21%, and New York at 13.92%. | | The cheapest state was Alaska at 7.13% (with Florida the | second cheapest), and the most expensive state was New York | (with Hawaii the second most expensive at 13.16%). | | Some of this data is confounded by state revenues not being | solely from taxes (or especially from personal taxes). | Regardless though, California isn't that much above | average, and is one of 30 states with a graduated state | income tax that hits higher earners harder than lower | earners, whereas 11 states have a flat tax structure. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Your tax burden in California is also less if you are | poorer. For example, you'll pay more income tax in | Alabama than California if you just make $40k/year, since | AL taxes are more regressive in general. | armatav wrote: | That's what causes the problems. | peter422 wrote: | Californians actually pay lower overall taxes compared to | other states due to low property taxes. | | Also, my power in San Francisco has probably been out for | no more than 6 hours over the last 10 years. I don't know | how many 9s that is, but it's more than 1. | giantg2 wrote: | This seems to indicate otherwise | | https://www.prudential.com/financial-education/tax- | burden-by... | anonymouskimmer wrote: | Mileage varies a lot in California. A high-income single | person who just bought a place is paying a lot more than | an older couple who have lived in the same home for 4 | decades. | | To critique your link based on its footnotes: | | > 1 Calculated based on "State Individual Income Tax | Rates and Brackets for 2020" from the Tax Foundation and | "Median Household Income by State: 2018 and 2019" | according to the U.S. Census Bureau. | | What is the distribution of households in each state by | marital and dependent status? | | > 2 Calculated based on "Property Taxes by State" from | WalletHub and "Median Home Values Across the U.S." from | Experian. | | Various propositions in California affect actual property | taxes. In the chart in your link the property tax tax | burden is shown the same for California and Texas based | on Median income, but the actual property tax rate in | Texas is almost double that in California (at least last | I checked, a couple of years ago). Housing in California | has just been more expensive compared to income, which is | a con in affordabilty, but a pro in net worth for | property owners (especially those who have owned for a | long time, and thus pay lower taxes on their primary | residence). | | I've got nothing to say about the sales tax burden, | except to wonder how much of the "per capita personal | consumption expenditures" are taxable transactions, and | how much aren't. I've got no clue here though. | WalterBright wrote: | This article disputes your claim: | | https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax- | bur... | mcculley wrote: | > Most people around here buy enough battery or generators to | keep the power on. | | This is a surprising assertion to me. How can "most people" | afford batteries and generators? | hedora wrote: | $50-60K is enough to buy a backup system, and not much | compared to the price of a house in this area. | toxik wrote: | $50-60K is more money than most people I know make per | year. | anonymouskimmer wrote: | Which is why "around here" is 65% renters, when "here" is | San Francisco: https://thefrisc.com/sf-is-65-rental- | households-but-knows-al... | toxik wrote: | You mean almost half SF owns _and_ it 's incredibly | expensive? | anonymouskimmer wrote: | If I read the criticisms correctly another 34% is | homeless. But that 1% who owns can afford battery | backups! :P | hedora wrote: | Circling back, I _did_ say government services are | reminiscent of the third world. | brianwawok wrote: | My whole house natural gas generator was closer to 10k | and 5-10k install. Provides like 90 amps. Good for all | the storms around here. I just turn off my hot tub and EV | charging and I can do anything else including AC. | hedora wrote: | That works if you have natural gas service. My estimate | assumes solar panels, batteries and a generator that tops | the battery off in emergencies. | | This year, most people with just batteries lost power due | to no sun, and people with just generators lost power due | to no propane delivery service/supply. | toast0 wrote: | Most natural gas generators are orderable for propane. | Propane delivery is available most places, although you | also need to find a place for the tank. It's more | convenient to have fuel delivered via pipeline, but | somewhat less resilient (although I personally don't have | any experience with outages of utility natural gas, it is | a possibility). | | Based on the one ~ 3 day outage I had, my whole house | generator's tank is good for probably close to two weeks, | although if it were very hot or very cold, that might | change. I have a portable generator for my well, that one | runs on gasoline and doesn't sip fuel, I'd probably just | run it for a few minutes twice a day (did not have that | generator during the 3 day outage... we were just stinky) | 8note wrote: | Pipelines everywhere is also bad for leaking methane from | a billion tubes | Waterluvian wrote: | Depends on what "here" means. If it means California I'm | going to guess 99% of homes don't have battery backups. | gladiatr72 wrote: | Grilling over slagged e-waste | devmunchies wrote: | > When the power is out, am I expected to start a fire in my | yard to cook food? | | I tried this and a neighbor called CalFire on me since its | illegal when its not a "burn day". | | It seems the solutions are to have: | | - a 5 gallon propane tank in the garage | | - a BBQ in the back yard | | - your own batteries | | - a generator (also useful for refrigeration) | | I have about 20 gallons of gas in my garage that is good for my | generator. I use the gas for my motorcycle so they get | refreshed regularly. | youngNed wrote: | > I tried this and a neighbor called CalFire | | > I have about 20 gallons of gas in my garage | | I'm with your neighbor on this one | CircleSpokes wrote: | >Berkeley attempted this and it was recently overturned: | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/court-overturns-berkeley-califo... | | There is a legal difference between a state banning it and a | city. States have far more powers that cities don't (unless the | state delegates that power which they often do) | DannyBee wrote: | In this case it would not matter, the ruling says it's pre- | empted by federal law. It would still be pre-empted by | federal law even if the state did it. | danans wrote: | > When the power is out, am I expected to start a fire in my | yard to cook food? Fire up my JetBoil? My BBQ? | | How about a little butane stove? They work great at hotel | omelette bars! Or a Coleman stove? It's not that big a deal to | cook when the power is out, really. | throwawaymaths wrote: | People downvote but I went to REI to get a dual purpose | propane stove for both camping purposes and emergency | purposes. At that moment there was another person in the | store that was buying one just for backup. Luckily, haven't | had to use it for emergencies yet (and successfully deployed | it car camping). | nonethewiser wrote: | Well you prove the point. Gas is necessary when the power is | out. | galleywest200 wrote: | Most states in this the country has less than 50% gas stove | usage. This would not be an issue in most states. CA, NY, NJ | can catch up to the rest of us. | | https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2020/state/... | ricardobayes wrote: | Ask the Lebanese, I guess. They have electricity off more than | have it on. Every house there has a generator and some have | solar panels. | nonethewiser wrote: | A generator running on gasoline | 71a54xd wrote: | The irony is most of the industrial energy used in NYC to spin | the pumps and fans in HVAC and thermal energy provided for | heating water in boilers / air in NYC comes from steam generation | plants. I used to live next to one near w58th street. For those | who don't know, these massive facilities as large as power plants | (some historically protected) run on natural gas! | | Although, it did boggle the mind how my luxury 2br apt (built in | 2018) had a gas stove with only a small "suck" vent (return air | of sorts that just vents to the roof)in each bathroom. If I ran | the stove too long I'd set the fire alarm off from carbon | monoxide and particulate in the air. So I'm actually a big | proponent of doing this for indoor air quality. | hotpotamus wrote: | Is that to say there's a municipal steam power system of some | sort? That's pretty alien to me, but it reminds me that there | was a municipal hydraulic system in London before the advent of | electricity that industrial users used for energy. | 1023bytes wrote: | It's pretty common in other parts of Europe | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating#Market_penetr. | .. | none_to_remain wrote: | I think that comment is just referring to power plants using | steam turbines to generate electricity. But there is also a | stream distribution system in NYC. My apartment complex has | heat and hot water from Con Edison (power company) steam. | 71a54xd wrote: | I was referring to a steam distribution system, burning nat | gas to produce steam which then powers HVAC / heating in | the city. | rahimnathwani wrote: | SF also has steam generation downtown. I learned about it 5 | days ago here on HN: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35676878 | oakwhiz wrote: | If buildings were required by code to have a more "fume | hood"-like setup for capturing exhaust (with supply and return | paths maintaining flow) then it would lead to better indoor air | quality. As a bonus this is even a good idea anyway for | electric stoves since it keeps any smells and smoke from | leaving the kitchen area. | 8note wrote: | Also bad for insulation, since it's mostly an open hole to | the outside in your kitchen | john_shafthair wrote: | They ARE required by code and have been for years. Parent's | "luxury" apartment was not built to code. Probably one of | those illegal NYC apartments where you tear open the walls | and there's a whole other furnished room inside that isn't | shown on the blueprints. | [deleted] | oakwhiz wrote: | Is there a possibility that very old buildings are | grandfathered in with existing ducts? Maybe they should be | required to upgrade that. | john_shafthair wrote: | It's very possible, and might be impossible to upgrade a | large multi unit building. In most jurisdictions a large | renovation would force you to upgrade such things. In | this case I would assume simply disallowing a gas stove | without proper venting. Though I suspect the permitting | process in NYC resembles something out of The Sopranos, | assuming the proper permits were obtained. | oakwhiz wrote: | If the videos that Louis Rossmann makes discussing New | York's government mirror others' experiences, you are | probably right. | bradlys wrote: | I used to not really be for these bans but - the big issue that I | find is that due to the gas lobby, we're not going to make | progress on this front until hard hitting regulations come in. As | long as you have a pipe that is being serviced going to your home | - how many people can justify the hookup fee every month along | with all the infrastructure to give you gas _just_ for cooking? | It 's nonsensical because the amount of gas used is trivial. | Therefore, the push will always be to use gas heating and other | gas appliances as much as possible because the infrastructure for | the building is still there. That's what the gas lobby relies on | - using your emotional attachment to gas cooking (which has been | a long effort by theirs for the last 50+ years) to make sure that | they keep getting you to pay them money for gas for heating, | drying clothes, etc. even if alternatives exist that are plenty | suitable/better-for-us-all. | | Also - this is going to be a miniscule amount of difference in | the lives of us all. If you're so concerned - buy an old home. | Good thing we basically don't ever build anything new. This is a | non-issue. | stathibus wrote: | Everyone is worked up about losing their gas stove, but natural | gas heating is far more reliable and efficient than any electric | option right now. This will create a lot of issues until heat | pumps catch up. Northern New York is very cold. | greenthrow wrote: | This is completely false. Gas heating is way, way less | efficient than a heat pump. And don't bring up low | temperatures, modern heat pumps can have back up resistive | heaters and combined use will still be far, far more efficient | than gas heat. If you can install geothermal that's better | still. Stop spreading fossil fuel industry lies. | r00fus wrote: | At very low temperatures? I think if you're above zero F, you | should be ok, but below zero it gets expensive. | | They're not talking about taxing gas - they're talking about | banning it. | greenthrow wrote: | > At very low temperatures? I think if you're above zero F, | you should be ok, but below zero it gets expensive. | | Did you read my comment before replying? I already | addressed this. Yes I am talking about well below zero F. | | > They're not talking about taxing gas - they're talking | about banning it. | | Yes and they should ban it. Electric heating is way more | efficient, doesn't poison the occupants and can be powered | from renwable sources. | r00fus wrote: | Sure, in CA a ban makes sense (though Berkeley law was | overturned). But in a polar vortex winter storm, how do | you have enough power to keep the building warm if | there's no power, and the minimal reserves you may have | with battery backup are not enough to run the heat pump? | | I think this ban is too bold and will result in political | backlash that will end up doing worse than if something | less drastic was proposed. | | Hochul was 10pts away from losing the last race to a | complete RW zealot. | missedthecue wrote: | I wouldn't say it's "completely false", it depends on the | temperature. Heat pump efficiency drops as the temperature | drops. If you live in a place with very cold temperatures for | prolonged periods of time, gas may indeed be more efficient. | cubefox wrote: | ... gas heating is more cost efficient (heat per currency) is | probably what he meant. | aobdev wrote: | They probably mean cost efficiency rather than thermodynamic | efficiency. It would cost a lot to install those systems in | addition to the electricity storage necessary to run during a | blizzard. I'm not disagreeing that electric is better but | there's a lot more to consider than just "modern systems are | better so you should install them" and it's not a lie to say | so. | rcme wrote: | Heat Pumps can run in very cold temperatures, but it's just not | worth it, economically, because their efficiency drops and gas | becomes a cheaper option. | binarycrusader wrote: | It is not always a cheaper option. Especially, if for | example, you don't have natural gas service at all currently. | In some areas of Seattle there is no natural gas service and | so homes may be all electric if newer, or if older may only | have oil heating. | | Also, I know you likely didn't mean to exclude this, but in | cases where gas service might be cheaper in the short term | that's only because it's effectively heavily subsidized and | many of the costs are externalized. | feedsmgmt wrote: | In almost all of the continental USA the number of days that | cold are more than offset by the savings during the rest of | the days of the year. This YouTube channel covers the topic | extensively https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI | nonethewiser wrote: | > Northern New York is very cold. | | Lots of houses burn oil in NY. That will still be possible. | tombert wrote: | Can't modern heat pumps work even in crazy cold climates now? I | seem to remember seeing that some are rated for -20F nowadays. | stathibus wrote: | Some are, and some of those even live up to their temperature | rating, but they are subject to wind chill and can also fail | due to ice and snow build-up, so its not as good as it | sounds. | tamaharbor wrote: | What is the backup, resistance heating? | john_shafthair wrote: | Electric resistance heat is super inefficient. That's why | it's often referred to as "emergency heat". | | Ironically the best combo is a heat pump + natural gas | furnace as a backup. Best of both worlds. But here we are | making those illegal so we can pretend to save the | planet. | ryukafalz wrote: | > Electric resistance heat is super inefficient. That's | why it's often referred to as "emergency heat". | | Yes, which is why it only kicks in when the heat pump | isn't enough. Which is not most of the year! | rayiner wrote: | The problem is when it kicks in for everyone in the | neighborhood at the same time on an especially cold night | and causes a brown out. (Happened to me this winter.) | osigurdson wrote: | >> Electric resistance heat is super inefficient | | I know what you mean but it is actually nearly 100% | efficient. The inefficient part is converting high | entropy heat to low entropy electricity. | GeneralMayhem wrote: | Heat pumps are significantly >100% efficient, if measured | as (heat energy brought inside)/(electrical energy | consumed). | osigurdson wrote: | Yes, because you are moving heat from one location to | another. Same thing with a refrigerator. | CydeWeys wrote: | > Ironically the best combo is a heat pump + natural gas | furnace as a backup. Best of both worlds. But here we are | making those illegal so we can pretend to save the | planet. | | How does this work in practice though? The natural gas | distribution lines don't pay for themselves. If they're | only gonna be used in emergencies then they'll be crazy | expensive. You have a lot of money by not having to run | natural gas through a neighborhood at all. | | A more realistic backup in these types of places (which | is used widely in the northeast) is heating fuel oil in a | tank. | john_shafthair wrote: | I agree with everything you said except there has been a | war on heating oil since before this tiff with natural | gas. So even suggesting that is anathema because it would | be career suicide for the politicians pushing this. You | can certainly use an oil furnace as a second stage, | though oil is more often used as a boiler for steam or | hydronic. | 8note wrote: | Without said "war on heating oil" suddenly it becomes | cheap to install multiple heating systems in your house? | | What changes with it not being political suicide? | Government subsidies paying to add oil infrastructure to | houses and to pay for unused pipelines? | simfree wrote: | Storing heating oil is risky, expensive and is a dirty | use of a property due to the need for an underground or | above ground tank. | | Abatement of tank leaks can run into the millions as you | have to dig up all soil contaminated by heating oil when | the tank is retired, and tank retirement is a cost that | holds up many property sales and redevelopment here in | the Pacific Northwest. | john_shafthair wrote: | That's not really true elsewhere. Using in-ground oil | tanks is an antiquated practice that isn't used anymore. | Any modern heating oil installation has the tanks either | in the cellar or in the yard behind the house. Either one | would immediately reveal a leak so it could be remedied | quickly. Yes Seattle is full of shitty bungalows with in- | ground oil tanks that have to be condemned, it is a | problem and one of the many reasons Seattle sucks. I did | a stint at AWS so know the area. You can get away with a | heat pump or baseboard electric in Seattle because the | outdoor temperature rarely dips below 30F in winter. Go | to a place like Maine where the vast majority of houses | use oil. There is no natural gas infrastructure and | heating with electric is impractical. 30F is a 'warm' | winter day. A heat pump cannot effectively deal with the | frigid climate in the NE and electric space heating would | be insanely expensive. Many thousands of homes are | heating with oil in the northeast everyday and not | turning their yards into superfund sites. There are many | compromises that work for the milquetoast PNW that won't | work elsewhere. | 8note wrote: | If you actually had to pay for the methane leakage from | having the interconnect, it would be cost prohibitive, | even if they were legal. | john_shafthair wrote: | Not when the power's out for days - as often happens in | winter storms. | | You can run the blower and electronics of a natural gas | furnace or boiler off a little camping generator for a week | or even better a natural gas whole house unit in perpetuity. | | So you don't, you know, freeze to death. | greenthrow wrote: | What nonsense. If you ha e a backup generator your power | isn't out. Gas heat doesn't work with the power out. Why | are you resorting to lies to push fossil fuels? | WalterBright wrote: | Backup generators are not usually large enough to power | an electric furnace. But they'll power the fan for the | gas heat just fine. | | Source: I used a little gas generator many times to power | the gas furnace when the electric grid was down. | smileysteve wrote: | If you take the investment that is the infrastructure for | gas lines (all underground) and do similar for most | electricity then storms don't take out electricity and | people don't die. | | Best of all, the total investment and maintenance actually | decreases. | nonethewiser wrote: | But gas lines are already down. If it were as easy as you | said then NY would already have no grid problems. | tomohawk wrote: | How about you get that done first, prove that its at | least as reliable, and then start banning things? | greenthrow wrote: | Other countries have buried their power lines ages ago, | and yes it is as reliable as gas, more so. | JamisonM wrote: | "You can run the blower and electronics of a natural gas | furnace or boiler off a little camping generator.." | | Likewise for a heat pump, right? | | Does this "power out for days after a winter storm" thing | actually happen very often? I am from Manitoba and my | worst-ever experience was 10-11 hours when it was very, | very cold out in 35+ years. | john_shafthair wrote: | No. A heat pump requires a significantly higher amount of | electricity to function. | | An average gas furnace blower motor draws around 7A at | 120V. | | A heat pump can require between 20A-40A at *240V* PLUS | the air handler which is the same as above. A heat pump | air handler is just a furnace without burners. If | supplemental heat strips are needed they can be on a 50A | breaker at 240V. | nucleardog wrote: | > Does this "power out for days after a winter storm" | thing actually happen very often? | | Near Ottawa--in the past 12 months I've had an eight day | outage, a four day outage, and a few day long outages. | | We don't need to survive the -40 or -50 of the prairies, | but even with good insulation a -10 day in the spring | makes the house pretty cold after a couple of days. | WalterBright wrote: | It's been out for 10 days at a time in Seattle. | operatingthetan wrote: | Not for me it hasn't, you seem to be describing a very | specific edge case, which doesn't seem that honest of an | example. | nonethewiser wrote: | I don't see him overstating anything. He didn't say | everyone experienced it. | operatingthetan wrote: | >He didn't say everyone experienced it. | | They clearly over-generalized. I didn't say they | "overstated." They didn't say "in some parts of Seattle" | they said "in Seattle." | | I'm sure there have been edge cases in every state of the | country where the power has been 10 days at someone's | house because of unique circumstances. That doesn't | meaningfully change the risk profile of a heat pump over | gas furnaces. | WalterBright wrote: | It wasn't a unique case. It happens about once every 20 | years. The time before the 10 day event it was 4 days. I | live in the middle of the Seattle metropolitan area, not | out in the country. The powerlines were down for miles | around. The powerlines thread through the trees, and the | trees fall on them during a windstorm. | operatingthetan wrote: | >It wasn't a unique case. It happens about once every 20 | years. | | Alright, that's so rare it's hardly a data point. | | >I live in the middle of the Seattle metropolitan area, | not out in the country. | | Wait, so you aren't even talking about the city of | Seattle? Never mind... | john_shafthair wrote: | [dead] | rcme wrote: | You need way to power to drive the heat pump than you do | to run the blower. But I agree, it's stupid to act like a | natural gas furnace is a good choice for long-term power | outages. | nucleardog wrote: | Depending on your definition of long term... I've got | ~900lbs of propane tanks sitting beside my house, a | propane forced air furnace, and a dual fuel generator | that can run on propane. | | Assuming I run the generator for 12 hours a day at half | load (powering my whole house, still firing my equipment | up and working remotely...) and the furnace runs for | three hours a day throughout that time... I can keep | going for a couple of weeks. If I _can_ get gas to fuel | the generator with that can be extended pretty | substantially--the generator is really what's using up | all my propane. | | So in the realm of the kind of power outages where you | reasonably expect society to recover and continue... | works pretty well for me. | | But yeah, in the future I would love to move over to a | heat pump and solar generation / local storage. That | extends your potential runtime pretty near indefinitely. | (We're talking lifetime of batteries and solar panels at | that point instead of "when the propane truck can come by | next".) | local_crmdgeon wrote: | I've never lost power in NY. Lived all over the state. This | isn't California. | [deleted] | reisse wrote: | I lived in a building with heat pumps in Europe. In colder | climate, they're loud. As in, LOUD. It's likely fine when you | can install the external module somewhere on the roof (poor | birds though), but in many apartment buildings you can only | put it on the outer walls, and you can clearly hear the sound | inside the flat. Internal modules that cycle air are also | noisy, though less. | | I'm glad to pay the premium for silent heating. | Maximus9000 wrote: | There are quiet heat pumps available: | | https://homeinspectioninsider.com/are-all-heat-pumps- | noisy-1... | maccard wrote: | I'd hardly classify my gas boiler as silent. | 8note wrote: | Americans already have heat pumps installed "air | conditioning units" | | Burning stuff is also loud, but resistive heating is mostly | quiet other than fan noise and metal containers creaking as | they heat up/cool down | cwillu wrote: | My city was only a couple degrees short of -40 this last | winter. | [deleted] | 8note wrote: | The 100% efficiency for the worst case electric heating is | still 100% efficiency. | | Burning gas is inherently more complex to transfer heat, and | has more losses as a result. | jillesvangurp wrote: | Heat pumps are about 250-300% efficient. Relative to resistive | heating which is of course 100% efficient. Gas is about close | to 100% (you loose some via exhaust). Ground source heat pumps | work pretty much anywhere. Air source heat pumps can be more | challenging but can also work at more extreme temperatures. | They don't stop working but their efficiency drops a bit. And | of course resistive heating doesn't stop working. | | Heat pumps are used all over Scandinavia and well into the | arctic circle, including rural areas in the parts of | Scandinavia (i.e. the polar circle) that see extreme | temperatures far more regularly and for far longer periods than | NY. Of course relative to NY, they do have a more reliable | power grid and excellent building standards. Triple (not | double) glazing is the norm there, for example. | | And of course more rural places would also feature wood stoves | as a backup. There is mostly no gas network there; especially | not in rural areas. Before heat pumps became popular about | thirty years ago they would have used that or oil based | systems. | nonethewiser wrote: | > And of course more rural places would also feature wood | stoves as a backup. | | Sure, but that's worse than natural gas | [deleted] | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | > Heat pumps are about 250-300% efficient. | | Sure. When we're talking about the temperature band they work | in. Once it hits 0C the efficiency is very low, and by -10C | is almost doing nothing at all. At that point you have two | things happening... | | 1. You are using electricity to warm your coils outside to | keep frost and snow off them. | | 2. You are using drastically inefficient heat for your home. | | 200-300% in their band under ideal conditions, maybe. Seems | like cherry picking. | wtallis wrote: | 200-300% efficient is what a _very bad_ heat pump would do | under ideal conditions. Good heat pumps have a coefficient | of performance above 3 for temperatures above freezing (and | above 4 for only mildly chilly outdoor temperatures), and | still well above 2 at temperatures around 15degF /-10degC. | | My 10 year old apartment has a heat pump rated for a CoP of | 2.3 at a temperature of 17degF/-8degC, which is actually | below the record low outdoor temperature for this area. | This isn't some exotic new equipment or a model designed | for cold climates; it's what was cheap and mainstream a | decade ago. | SV_BubbleTime wrote: | Cool. But, how much of the US gets below 17F? I think | it's a lot. | wtallis wrote: | 17degF isn't the point at which my heat pump stops | working. It's just the lower temperature conventionally | used as a point of comparison on the spec sheets for such | devices. There's another column on the spec sheet for | 47degF (where my heat pump model is listed as having a | CoP of 3.6). | | And as for the question about colder climates: it's not a | matter of whether an area can occasionally experience | temperatures below eg. 17degF. What matters is whether | you'll ever experience daily highs that are cold enough | to prevent heating the house. | 8note wrote: | The question is what the cop is at -20C though, which is | a fairly common winter temperature, and you really need | heat at -40 | wtallis wrote: | I was responding specifically to this bit: "Once it hits | 0C the efficiency is very low, and by -10C is almost | doing nothing at all." I've refuted that. If you want to | discuss some more distant goalposts, I won't be able to | offer firsthand evidence. | magicalhippo wrote: | This guy[1] ran a test on his home during last winter, and | found that his mini split had a COP of around 1.5-2.5 down | to -10C. | | The data wasn't terribly correlated to temperature, though | he didn't have a mini-shed for the outside unit to protect | it from snow, so it probably had to defrost more often | during the less-cold, snowy days. | | FWIW here in Oslo, we've been using a mini split as the | main heat in our home, where it's often -15C for long | stretches during winter, and can get down to -25C. It's in | the main livingroom, and we do supplement the upstairs | bedroom with resistive foil floor heating during the | coldest periods. Other than that it's doing great, and | comparing the electricity bills with friends and colleagues | who don't have a heat pump it's definitely helping a lot. | | [1]: https://youtu.be/fxEqVuiHhM0?t=523 | abigail95 wrote: | What heat pump model are you using for your numbers so I | can confirm its specs? | 8note wrote: | For pretty standard specs, you should be able to look at | any old heat pump | jillesvangurp wrote: | I'm not cherry picking, I'm merely describing the status | quo in a place of the world that can be pretty extreme | compared to NY. | | You are talking about air source heat pumps. There are | actually variants of that technology that work fine at -20 | and below. -20 is actually quite far above absolute zero. | The challenge is not that there isn't enough energy but | finding and pumping liquids around that can absorb that | "heat" and actually stay liquid. Efficiency indeed drops | below zero. But it still works. | | However, ground source heat pumps are not dependent on the | air temperature at all and work anywhere you can get a | decent temperature gradient from the ground. Which is | pretty much anywhere except maybe on top of the arctic ice | sheet in e.g. Antarctica.. Stick a few pipes in the ground | and get them deep enough and you can have an nice cozy | house pretty much anywhere that is not located on a few | miles of ice. NY is perfect for that. No permafrost there | and stable temperatures below ground throughout the year. | | And again, they have been doing this for decades in places | like Finland, Sweden, Norway, Greenland, etc. That's | because this stuff works and is reliable and efficient | enough. This is not some new kind of science fiction | technology. Millions of households depend on this when it | gets to minus 40C and below (about the same in C and F). | And having lived in Sweden and Finland, I can tell you that | they like their houses heated properly there and it really | gets that cold up north. They don't use gas in houses there | at all and never have. There are no gas distribution | networks there. Oil based heating has been phased out in | most places there a long time ago. But people forget that | that stuff has to be trucked in and trucking anything in | gets tricky when there's a few meters of snow on the roads. | Heatpumps, resistive heating, district heating, and wood | based stoves is pretty much all they use there. District | heating is not common outside the more populated areas | (i.e. most of the Arctic region) with the exception of the | larger towns and villages. | nucleardog wrote: | > And of course resistive heating doesn't stop working. | | Well except... | | > Of course relative to NY, they do have a more reliable | power grid | | Okay, yeah. That would pretty much be my concern. | | Having been without power for over two weeks in the past 12 | months the propane tanks and propane stove / furnace / water | heater have been a lifesaver. | | Powering the control boards / fans with a generator (or even | UPS in a pinch) is a lot simpler proposition than trying to | generate enough power to heat my house, water, and food with | resistive heating. | UncleMeat wrote: | Gas furnaces don't work without power by default. The fan | that pushes the hot air through your house won't work. Many | gas furnaces have electrically powered safety features that | won't allow the furnace to function if the power is out. | rgmerk wrote: | Yes, but the vast majority of the population of New York State | lives in places where air source heat pumps work just fine. Air | source heat pumps can be built to work down to at least -20 | Fahrenheit[1]. That's equal to the coldest temperature on | record in places like Buffalo and Albany. | | For those relatively few people living in places which get even | colder than that, there's the option of either ground loop heat | pumps, or more pragmatically propane burners for the very few | nights of the year that are super-cold. | | [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rheem-heat-pump- | sur... | 11235813213455 wrote: | can heat pumps use underground sources as a cold (summer) / | hot (winter) source? | mschuster91 wrote: | Yes, of course if they're bi-directional. And | theoretically, you can also use excess renewable power to | heat up the soil in summer and draw on that stored heat in | winter. | fwungy wrote: | Yes, but at that point it's like running an AC during a hot | Summer day. The compressor will be working very hard to keep | up with -20. | | Our leaders have lost their minds pursuing green purity. It's | a religion at this point. | rgmerk wrote: | -20 - at which point the COP of the heat pump I linked to | is still well above 1 - is equal to the coldest temperature | on record in the locations I mentioned. Not the coldest | daily maximum. The coldest temperature ever recorded, and | the heat pump still wouldn't require any backup system. | Yes, it's probably working hard at that point, but so? | We're talking exceptional conditions for the location. | | And for the other 99.99% of the time the heat pump is so | much cheaper to run it's not funny - and in the long run | you save even more when you're not paying for all that gas | infrastructure to be installed and maintained. | its-summertime wrote: | But is it more efficient overall? Gas to elec, infrastructure | losses, etc. vs just gas to heat? | scatters wrote: | Sure. A heat pump only needs to be 170% efficient to make | back the generation losses. As for infrastructure losses, | natural gas distribution has leaks as well. | | Also, if the power plant is integrated into a CHP system to | heat nearby households then generation gets back some | percent. | rgmerk wrote: | Good point. | | Methane leaks are much more environmentally damaging than | often appreciated because methane is such a potent | greenhouse gas. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | Heat pumps are dramatically more efficient. A good gas | furnace is 95% efficient. Meanwhile, a ductless heat pump | can be 300%. They more more energy than they consume. | That's the huge advantage. | | Converting gas heat to heat pumps, even if they have a gas | heat backup for worst case days in northern latitudes, | would still be a big win in the net environmentally. | aaomidi wrote: | This is a stupid idea for rural NY. Way to increase the cost of | living here... | | Like, this is why people in rural areas hate big cities. This is | completely fair for NYC. Not for the rest of NY. Not without a | lot of investment from the government. | | You're effectively left with oil, wood, and electric heat. All | three have a lot of their own problems and difficulties. | mikeg8 wrote: | Just curious, as I'm not in the NY area but are most rural | homes over there on natural gas or propane? In rural parts of | CA, people have propane tanks in the yard which wouldn't be | effected by this. Natural gas infrastructure seems to diminish | further from cities, so I'm wondering how much this actually | effects rural residents | adolph wrote: | Given one of the health-deleterious of gas cooking come from the | nitrogen in the atmospheric gasses used for combustion: maybe it | would make sense to have stoves that used a pure oxygen source | alongside the methane. This would be more expensive and hazardous | but as a result lead to stronger controls over the combustion | process. | briantakita wrote: | Why not ban, or at least seriously curtail the emissions of the | organization responsible for the most toxic pollution & whose | mission is literally to kill people, the military, instead? How | about the multitude of other government agencies responsible for | pollution? | rayiner wrote: | And NPR told me that the possibility of gas stoves being banned | was fake outrage: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/20/1150228734/the- | facts-and-stra.... | wolverine876 wrote: | What gas stoves are being banned or seized? | nonethewiser wrote: | All of them in NYs new construction. You're trying to hide | behind a hair. | CardenB wrote: | There's a difference between "no new construction with gas | stoves" and "seizing all gas stoves" lol | PM_me_your_math wrote: | No, you're just saying "you can't have a gas stove, gas | heater, or gas water heater because we said so." | nonethewiser wrote: | Read the article. They arent just "debunking" the seizing. | | How can people arguing for the merits of banning gas and also | pretend they don't want the government to do it? | ihatepython wrote: | It's basically the boiling-frog strategy if you can't figure | it out | icehawk wrote: | The boiling frog strategy only works on frogs when the | frog's brain is removed. | | https://archive.org/details/studiesfrombiol00martgoog/page/ | 3... | CardenB wrote: | That's a fallacy. You can make anything into a slippery | slope. | AbrahamParangi wrote: | It seems to me that every time people reference the | slippery slope fallacy, the people claiming slippery | slope get proven right 10 years down the line. Even in | this case, banning gas in new buildings implies that gas | will be banned in the future! | localplume wrote: | [dead] | nonethewiser wrote: | It makes no sense to call the slippery slope a fallacy. | Some things are a slippery slope, others are not. But | it's not fundamentally impossible to have a slippery | slope. | bhk wrote: | Not just NPR. | | Republicans Mocked Over Outraged Claims Government 'Coming for' | Gas Stoves https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-mocked-over- | outraged-cl... | | "... the rightwing immolation at the mere suggestion of a gas | stove ban is just one more line on a long list of rightwing | lies made for political gain." | https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/18/how-di... | | As usual, "That's not going to happen!" gives way in short | order to "It's a good thing that it is going to happen!" | seneca wrote: | It's called The Law of Merited Impossibility. It's a popular | tactic for authoritarians in the last 30 years or so. Deny | something is happening, and anyone who claims it is is | paranoid. Then quickly do the thing, and smear anyone who | says it's a bad thing. The point is to avoid ever actually | debating the ideas they're pushing by denying it. | topaz0 wrote: | There are many ways that outrage can be fake, and a variety of | them apply to this situation. For one thing the conservative | talking points were all about a sense that the feds were coming | for your freedom, and not in any way about the merits or | otherwise of being able to burn gas in the place you live. For | another, this was being talked about as something that would | impose a heavy burden on normal people, which is simply not | supported by the facts, both because none of the plans that | have been put forward involve forcing you to buy a new stove, | and because most normal people already have electric stoves. | | By the way, I don't know if you actually read or listened to | that segment, but it makes clear that there is a real | possibility that this could be regulated. Calling it "fake | outrage" is not to say "they're making up the possibility that | it could be regulated", but "they're blowing this (real) | possibility out of proportion, ignoring the reasons it might be | a good idea, and instead making up vague and manipulative | reasons to object to it". | whiddershins wrote: | You are wrong. Most normal people in nyc have gas stoves and | they are massively superior in every way to a typical | electric range. | | Induction cooktops can be nice, but they are more expensive | last I checked, and impose lots of limitations on what | cookware you can use, including making it infeasible to use | high end copper bottom French saute pans, which also happen | to be very hard to match the performance of. | | It is absolutely a burden, and meddlesome, and a reduction in | freedom of choice, and gas stoves use minuscule amounts of | gas. | whiddershins wrote: | And I also used my gas stove to prepare meals during at | least three nyc blackouts. | topaz0 wrote: | If you try to do exactly what you were doing on the gas | stove in the same way, you will have a bad time, but my and | many other people's experience is that a decent electric | stove is perfectly capable of making good food once you | figure out how to use it. Electric stoves in general can | heat faster than gas, and in my experience heat more evenly | (no hot spots), so you don't need the crutch of a copper | bottom to conduct that heat across the surface. It's | certainly true that there are a lot of crappy cheap | electric stoves out there that are not nice to cook with, | but there are also plenty of crappy gas stoves that don't | work well too. There's a ton of propaganda out there about | how cooking with gas is better (much of it funded by the | gas producers and distributors), but it doesn't hold up | well under inspection. | | You are right that most people in new york have gas, but | new york is an outlier in that -- one of only five states | that are majority gas. Most of Tucker Carlson's audience | have electric stoves. | whiddershins wrote: | It's not propaganda. I've cooked on all sorts of stoves. | | Electric is way worse than gas. It's not even up for | reasonable debate. | topaz0 wrote: | Here's some reading about how much propaganda there has | been for gas in the last century or so: | https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/how-the- | foss... | annexrichmond wrote: | And there's no such thing as propaganda for electric | stoves in your view? It's always the "other side" that's | a victim of propaganda? | topaz0 wrote: | To be clear, I used to believe the gas stove propaganda | myself. I too, like GP, had the feeling that gas was | self-evidently better than electric, and that it wasn't | possible to have an argument about it. Then I tried being | open-minded about it and found the arguments for electric | (and my experiences, once I gave it a chance) to be very | convincing. | nonethewiser wrote: | > For one thing the conservative talking points were all | about a sense that the feds were coming for your freedom, and | not in any way about the merits or otherwise of being able to | burn gas in the place you live. | | Well if the federal government's opinion on gas is operative, | and not your own, how is that not coming for your freedom? | | You may think they have good cause, but that doesn't change | the nature of a law that bans you from doing or having | something. | topaz0 wrote: | I want the government to always be balancing the good of | society against my individual freedom. These people are | saying "this limits my freedom" and ignoring the societal | benefits. That's disingenuous. And you can tell it's | disingenuous because the next thing they say is "we need | government to ban books about gay people", or "we need | government to ban abortion". I'm not saying your freedom | shouldn't be a consideration, I'm saying it should be one | consideration that is balanced against others. | ourmandave wrote: | Damn, if only Tucker Carlson were still around to tell me how I | should feel about it. | | And where to send the check. | lesuorac wrote: | > And NPR told me that the possibility of gas stoves being | banned was fake outrage: | https://www.npr.org/2023/01/20/1150228734/the-facts-and-stra... | | No they didn't. | | > MARTINEZ: Look, Jeff and Lisa, I don't know what's going to | happen with gas stoves. | | Also NPR was talking about the Federal government. While the | article above is talking about the New York _State_ government. | rayiner wrote: | Why are you ignoring the title and first paragraph? | | > The facts and strategy behind the outrage over rumors of a | ban on gas stoves | | > The conservative media was in uproar last week over | speculation that the federal government planned to ban gas | cooking stoves and possibly seize them. | | The aim is clearly to dismiss the concern as manufactured | outrage--note the words "strategy," "speculation," and | "outrage"--rather than a concern about something that may | happen because it's an aim liberals definitely have. | hotpotamus wrote: | I seem to remember at one point that conservatives | celebrated federalism - something about the states being | the laboratories of democracy. Who knows, maybe New York | will show how successful such a ban can be and the federal | government can take that into consideration, but for now it | seems like this is just New York. | PM_me_your_math wrote: | Having lived in the metro area for quite a long time, I | am qualified to tell you that few things NY does is | exemplary of success. Most energy or public works | projects turn into a total debacle. Shoreham Nuclear | Power station is a good example. Billions spent, and they | never even turned it on. Residents are still paying that | down. Endless road project cycling. I'm not sure there | has been a single transportation project that wasn't at | last 3x over budget. Public corruption, kickbacks, | bribery, influence peddling, patronage... The entire | state apparatus is rotten to the core and rife with | incompetence. I'd like to believe in the state's | benevolence and concern for the well-being of its | residence, but then I'd have to start or join a new | religion (on blind faith alone) with its dogma being the | bullshit that the state feeds to its residents. | hotpotamus wrote: | And yet I believe it is considered the capital of the | modern world in some sense, isn't it? (My perception as | someone who's never visited the NE US). You choose to | live there, or at least chose to live there for quite a | long time as you said, so there must be some reason. | rayiner wrote: | [flagged] | hotpotamus wrote: | If that's the case then I assume you should prepare for a | ban. | john_shafthair wrote: | Literally the first sentence of their rebuttal admits it's | all performative: | | > Well, the risk for the environment, _it 's more about what | gas stoves have come to represent._ And that's the practice | of burning natural gas in homes. | lesuorac wrote: | Stay on topic champ. | | rayiner's comment is that NPR told him "the possibility of | gas stoves being banned was fake outrage". | | Whether or not gas stoves _should_ be banned is irrelevant. | NPR clearly stated that they could become banned and that | they don't know if they will. | [deleted] | aaron695 wrote: | [dead] | [deleted] | unethical_ban wrote: | The ... ahem, administrators of Fox News and the Conservative | media bubble told their flock that 87,000 IRS federal agents | were being hired to come to everyone's houses (Conservatives | first though) to remove all AR-15s and gas appliances as soon | as possible, probably after Kamala Harris orchestrates Biden's | removal from office via the 25th amendment so she, famous trans | progressive, can implement the true LiberalTM agenda. | | Fossil fuel use for energy (in the long term) should be | centralized, then replaced. Building gas lines to new buildings | should therefore be less preferred than running all-electric. | Then of course, there is the reason gas stoves got brought up | recently, which is concern with interior air quality and its | long term impact on families. | | The reality is that eventually, gas appliances will probably be | restricted/phased out of use in new installations for several | reasons. This shouldn't be surprising, sensational or | controversial. The fiction is that they will be forcefully | removed from existing installations. See electric vehicles, | where my Fox-ian father thinks all gas cars will be banned in | 2025 or some shit, when in reality new sales won't even be | meaningfully restricted for another 12 years. | carlosjobim wrote: | When the day comes that gas stoves actually get banned | (either forcefully removed or by banning the distribution of | gas), your comment will again be: | | "This shouldn't be surprising, sensational or controversial." | unethical_ban wrote: | >banning the distribution of gas | | At some point that will happen, or else it will simply be | so inconvenient to use gas it will be impractical for | anything except remote places with propane tanks. | | Why is that shocking? Are you also upset that you no longer | have easy access to whale oil for your lighting, or a | market for steam-powered sedans? Yes, someday in the | relatively far future (decades) gas stoves will be a | novelty, something small kids look at like they look at CRT | televisions or ham radios today. | | Who cares? My point is that the outrage on conservative | media was built on lies and exaggerations about the _now_ , | as if in 2024 gas stoves would be banned. You You moved the | goalpost in your comment. | annexrichmond wrote: | > Conservative media bubble told their flock that 87,000 IRS | federal agents were being hired to come to everyone's houses | | Did they actually say that, cause that sounds pretty | hyperbolic to what their narrative actually was, which is | that 87k agents were being hired which would effectively be | targeting middle class and small businesses, instead of big | corps. | | I have friends who were were wrongfully audited, and it's a | huge costly, stressful burden. | | I don't think it's wrong to question how the IRS is managing | its budget. | pgodzin wrote: | Part of the narrative was how they would all have guns too. | | It ignored the fact that most of those employees were | actually customer service representatives, and you can see | this year the huge increase in number of tax filers who | were able to actually speak to someone from the IRS on the | phone. | unethical_ban wrote: | I was being hyperbolic. I didn't pay attention to the 87k | news, since Fox News and Ted Cruz talked about it I assumed | it was meaningless distraction. | iamdamian wrote: | This regulation feels quite frustrating to me, and several | comments in this thread illustrate why. | | This change is being promoted as a critical step in the fight | against climate change. (See most news articles over the past two | years covering this.) | | But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation | may not have much effect on climate change at all. | | When you point this out to advocates, you'll get an _entirely | different_ argument, this time about personal health. I don 't | think the personal health justification stands up to scrutiny, | for two reasons: | | 1. If you buy a home and want it to have a gas stove, why is it | the state government's place to say that you can't do so, for | your own health? | | 2. According to research I've seen, vented fume hoods seem to | mitigate any health effects; if that's true and a state | government really wants to intervene, why not spread awareness or | perhaps mandate that newly constructed buildings with gas lines | also have venting for fume hoods? (Incidentally, requiring | venting for fume hoods would be a nice baseline for New York.) | | I haven't seen any well-reasoned debate on this topic, possibly | because the rationale for the regulation is, in fact, incoherent. | jnwatson wrote: | I don't buy the climate argument. However, banning gas | appliances comes from the same place as banning lead paint. Gas | appliances are a major source of indoor pollution. Gas heating | leaks pollution inside the home, especially as furnaces age. | | Plus, many residents don't own their own property. This helps | protect renters. | [deleted] | pipodeclown wrote: | What does that even mean? Did you not get the whole, burning | hydrocarbons is bad for the climate memo? We have to stop all | net carbon emmissions in the next fifteen years or were | screwed (propably already are) and twats like you keep going | online spouting your 'i don't buy the climate argument' | bullshit. We're literally talking about burning hydrocarbons | to heat stuff, how the hell can you say that you don't buy | the climate argument?!? | ivalm wrote: | We'll muddle through. At any rate, the point is to focus on | low hanging fruit --- target high emitters, an electric | stove powered by a coal plant is worse than a natural gas | stove. | speakfreely wrote: | You can believe climate change is real and an imminent | threat and still hold the position that banning gas stoves | is a meaningless, misguided policy that will have no effect | on climate change. There is no mutual exclusivity. | | A typical natural gas stove burner uses around 7,000 to | 10,000 BTUs per hour, which translates to about 0.8 to 1.2 | pounds of CO2 emissions per hour of use. This doesn't even | qualify as a blip on the radar of the global emissions | problem. It's completely irrelevant to the problem you | claim is prompting your antisocial outbursts. | | At some point, you'll have to decide whether it's more | about the climate or more about you. Hopefully you'll | choose the climate eventually. | iamdamian wrote: | Yes, but this regulation targets everyone in the state of New | York, not just renters, and the research I've read seems to | indicate that fume hoods protect against this indoor | pollution. | azemetre wrote: | I have never seen an actual fume hood in any residential | home in my life (close to 800 homes across the South and | New England. I have seen plenty of faux hoods that do | absolutely nothing. | | Maybe it's something they only add in luxury homes. | iamdamian wrote: | These are common in New York and _may_ even be required | by residential building code: https://up.codes/viewer/new | _york/irc-2018/chapter/15/exhaust... | | (Note: I'm a New Yorker but not an expert in building | code.) | pipodeclown wrote: | You gotta start somewhere mate, might as well start with a rule | that says, if you're gonna build something new and put a new | stove in, might as well make sure it's electric. Really don't | see you're point here. So because the impact of a single | measure is not that big it means we shouldn't do it? You could | apply that reasoning that a shit load of individual measures, | what you fail to point out is that all those individual | measures add up to a Significant reduction, even if any single | one doesn't by itself. | greedo wrote: | For the same reason that they can say not to use lead paint, or | asbestos siding... | superbaconman wrote: | Right but is the particulate matter from burning natural gas | any more harmful then the particulate matter from searing | protein? | toss1 wrote: | It is not only particulate matter but gaseous combustion | products that are the problem, and gas stoves are used for | a LOT more than only searing protein, starting with heating | tea water. | | Also, just because searing protein produces bad indoor | pollution, doesn't mean that any other pollution should | therefore be automatically ignored. It is purely optional | whether you want to use your stove to sear protein (e.g., | you won't find any vegans using it for that purpose), but | you don't really have an option if the only thing installed | is a gas stove to heat your tea water or saute your | onions... | iamdamian wrote: | > but you don't really have an option if the only thing | installed is a gas stove to heat your tea water or saute | your onions... | | A cheap electric kettle or standalone burner is an | option, isn't it? | | And doesn't the research indicate that fume hoods help | regardless? | SoftTalker wrote: | Basic chemistry, burning methane cleanly produces water and | CO2. Neither is anywhere near as dangerous as lead or | asbestos. | dschuler wrote: | It does produce a little bit of CO and NOx as well, but | newer furnaces control the air mixture to keep those pretty | low. | pathartl wrote: | Yes, but natural gas isn't pure methane and CO2 isn't good | for the brain. Burning something without a vented hood in a | closed space can be incredibly dangerous. Especially if | you're talking about high rise apartment buildings where... | well... hot gas rises. | engineer_22 wrote: | Humans produce CO2 via cellular respiration, ergo you | should not let people inside your home as it's bad for | your brain. | bhickey wrote: | The real world isn't basic chemistry and we shouldn't | flippantly pretend it is. Stove gas also contains nitrogen | dioxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. In a study of | (approximately) all children in asthma, researchers found | that stove gas explains 14% of all asthma cases. | MagicMoonlight wrote: | 1. Because destroying the planet affects everyone and injuring | yourself costs everyone else in state spending. We also don't | allow asbestos or releasing poison gas in your garden. | | 2. Would you consider spreading awareness a suitable solution | to knife crime? No? I wonder why. | AbrahamParangi wrote: | 1. Do you believe in banning other bad things people do to | themselves like smoking or eating too much? Obesity is _by | far_ the largest public health problem in the United States. | | 2. There is a relevant difference between doing something bad | for you (like smoking - legal but the government tries hard | to let you know it's bad) and murdering others with a knife. | iamdamian wrote: | I haven't seen evidence that this regulation will prevent the | planet from being destroyed. | | Also, personal health is not something that's generally | regulated by the government, _despite_ the potential to cause | additional state spending. | NLPaep wrote: | It's not? Drugs are illegal | stevehawk wrote: | i don't follow your argument on #2. | | i also dont understand why we can't have legislation that | says "you can only have a stove cooktop if its properly | vented".. | | In the winter, when i lose electricity, i can run my house on | a small amount of power because i have natural gas heat, | cooktop, clothes dryer, and two natural gas fireplaces. I'm | not particularly interested in giving up that safety or | luxury. | IG_Semmelweiss wrote: | this is extremely important to highlight. | | Monoculture is risky in all domains. Heating is not exempt | chongli wrote: | It's a lot easier to just ban stuff than to regulate things so | they're done properly. I'm sure if building inspectors did an | unannounced tour of 100 random apartment buildings in New York | they'd find a list of code violations a mile long. | seanalltogether wrote: | > But when you dig into the details, it seems like the change | may not have much effect on climate change at all. | | Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances | in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change? | speakfreely wrote: | Did you know that almost 40% of NYC's electricity grid is | powered by natural gas? Another 30% from nuclear and ~20% | from hydroelectric. Since nuclear and hydroelectric can't be | immediately stepped up, what do you think is going to be | increased to generate power for all these new electrical | appliances that will be drawing power from the grid? | | The heat transfer and energy loss of electrical appliances | generally makes them less efficient than natural gas | appliances, thus actually increasing the amount of natural | gas that will need to be burned to accommodate this policy. | This is literally going to increase the amount of natural gas | that needs to be burned to maintain existing cooking | patterns. | | This policy and ones like it are why people can't take | environmentalists seriously. | tcfhgj wrote: | What can be stepped up fast is wind and solar energy. | | And a heat pump is superior to gas even if the grid | consists 100% out of gas. | | Further, you don't build a building built for gas when have | to switch to electricity in the future anyway when the grid | is even cleaner. | speakfreely wrote: | > What can be stepped up fast is wind and solar energy. | | I don't know who told you this. Can you point to any | large city that is running on purely wind & solar right | now? As far as I'm aware, there's not even a large | regional city that has demonstrated this can work with | current battery technology. I would be really happy to be | wrong on this, but as of right now, it's not an option | and we need to be realistic about that. | | "The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says | nuclear power plants had a capacity factor of 92.6% in | the US during 2022. This compares to 36.1% for wind | energy and just 24.8% for solar photovoltaic technology. | To a rough approximation, it takes three times as much | wind capacity and four times as much solar to produce the | same amount of electricity as a nuclear power plant over | a given period. This is complicated by seasonality. | Solar, for example, is particularly ineffective during | the winter months when energy needs in the northern | portion of the country are highest." | | [0] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_gra | pher.ph... | plantain wrote: | Purely on wind & solar? Probably only islands. | | But major cities are getting close. | | Adelaide, Australia went from 100% carbon energy in 2007 | to ~30% today, and looks to hit at a net 0% by 2028. | | https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=all&interval=1M | tcfhgj wrote: | You don't need to run 100% on solar and PV to cut | emissions significantly using it | | Regarding seasons: in our country wind is strong when | solar is weak and vice versa | ncallaway wrote: | > Can you point to any large city that is running on | purely wind & solar right now? | | That wasn't their claim at all, so it seems questionable | to demand they prove this. | | It's like if someone said "cheerios are good for the | heart", and you asked someone to demonstrate that nobody | ever had a heart attack while eating cheerios. You're | challenging an exaggerated version of the claim that was | made, not the actual claim. | speakfreely wrote: | > That wasn't their claim at all, so it seems | questionable to demand they prove this. | | That is a fair criticism. | pxx wrote: | Um. Aren't we talking about stoves? Heat pumps aren't | usable for this application. | | Even in the furnace case you need fairly ideal numbers | for the heat pump to overtake the loss of 50% you're | taking just in the generation step. | | And I don't know what's up with your claim about solar | and wind energy. | XorNot wrote: | Induction cook tops are considerably more efficient at | getting heat into the cookware then gas stoves are. | bentlegen wrote: | So because nuclear or other solutions can't "immediately" | be stepped up (debatable, but it doesn't matter), we should | not bother to create the circumstances in which they would | become beneficial? | | This go-nowhere attitude and is why people can't take | fossil fuel apologists seriously. | speakfreely wrote: | You mis-characterized me. I actually identify as a | nuclear energy apologist. Nothing would make me more | happy than to see nuclear energy sources being fast | tracked. | bentlegen wrote: | I don't think I've mischaracterized anything, unless | you're telling me that you didn't mean to paint this | effort as meaningless posturing by ineffective | environmentalists that would only have negative results. | | If nothing would make you happier, make that point in | your comment. "Maybe this will make a difference in 20 | years" or "nuclear advancement is what we need" would | completely change the tone. | ilikehurdles wrote: | The biggest effect would be the negative one from | manufacturing and replacing all those stoves. Gas stoves are | a molecule in a drop in a bucket of climate change. | tcfhgj wrote: | Every single thing is a drop in a bucket. | | Still the drops make a full bucket in the end | pclmulqdq wrote: | Why do we frequently go after the drops that cause a lot | of headache and inconvenience, then? | tcfhgj wrote: | Because we have to go after all drops | iamdamian wrote: | > Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning | appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on | climate change? | | Yes. (Also, I welcome strong evidence to the contrary.) | zbrozek wrote: | Space heating matters and everything else is basically | noise. | rlg2161 wrote: | For the average American, 4 devices in their home - water | heaters, furnaces, stoves and gas powered clothes driers - | account 95% of residential emissions [1]. Residential | energy use accounts for ~20% of US annual carbon emissions | [2]. | | The 2nd figure accounts for carbon footprint of electricity | generation used in the home as well as gas combusted in the | home. The 4th chart from [1] suggests this is about a 50/50 | split (if we bring grid emissions to 0 but don't exchange | these natural gas devices, carbon intensity remains at half | of what it is today). Therefore, we can conclude that these | 4 appliances in residential properties account for 10% of | US carbon footprint. | | You could potentially make an argument that stoves are not | the lions share of those emissions - but even if they only | represent 10% of residential building emissions, that's | still 1% of US carbon emissions annually (which is a huge | number when expressed in tons of CO2) | | [1] https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing- | infrastructu... - Chart 4 [2] | https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117 | iamdamian wrote: | I appreciate you digging up this information, this is | exactly what's been lacking in press coverage of the | issue. | | If you're telling me that _fully eliminating gas stoves_ | in the U.S. (something that will not happen in our | lifetimes and will come at great political and personal | cost) is going to reduce U.S.-specific emissions by just | 1%, I think I 'm even more convinced that this regulation | should not have been passed. | | What am I missing? | justeleblanc wrote: | We can get rid of a whole percent in emissions by giving | up nothing important, and you think it's not a regulation | that the government should pass?! What should the | threshold for a regulation to pass, in your opinion? | Should it cut single-handedly emissions by 2% on its own? | 5%? 10%? 50%? | iamdamian wrote: | Based on the information you've provided, I _don 't_ | think we can get rid of a whole percent, since that would | require the entire country to entirely get rid of gas | stoves and also for their new electric stoves to be | powered by something that does not produce emissions. | | I know you'll disagree, but my take is that the upside | (<1% savings over the course of, say, 30 years) is | outweighed by the downside (lack of ability to cook or | boil water during a power outage, far worse cooking | experience). | ahoy wrote: | I _rent_ a home, as do a full half of new york state residents. | I'd love an electric stove. Every rental I've ever lived in has | a gas stove and no fume hood. | | The full half of new yorkers who rent - almost 20 million | people - mostly get whatever theirlandlord picked. So when I | read posts like this, decrying government overreach, I wonder | if you've ever been poor? Have you ever lived here? Do you know | what youre talking about at at all? Because the government has | never been my problem. It's always a person a few rungs on the | economic ladder above me. A boss, a landlord, making my life | just a little worse in order to make theirs a little wealthier. | ravenstine wrote: | Uhhh... woe is you? Plenty of non-poor people live with gas | stoves, often without fume hoods, and even prefer gas. Not | once have I ever felt ill or victimized because I had to cook | on gas. | pclmulqdq wrote: | I hope you don't use that stove to cook, because if you do, | you are putting hundreds of times more harmful particulates | into the air than the stove puts out alone. | | This is the same kind of "green"-feeling hypocrisy as the | plastic bag bans. After Australia banned plastic bags, they | found an increased amount of plastic in their landfills. Why? | Because people used to re-use them as trash bags and were now | buying much thicker dedicated plastic bags for the purpose. | amluto wrote: | > you are putting hundreds of times more harmful | particulates into the air than the stove puts out alone. | | This is true and entirely misses the point. | | A gas stove emits NOx. Cooking some foods at high | temperature emits particulates. Different cause, different | poison. Also, an air filter can easily remove particulates, | but getting rid of NOx with anything other than outright | replacement of the air is not so easy. | parineum wrote: | > almost 20 million people - mostly get whatever | theirlandlord picked. So when I read posts like this, | decrying government overreach... | | What's the purpose of an outright ban then? Why not just ban | it from rental properties? | | > I wonder if you've ever been poor? | | What do you think the median income for home ownsership is? | I'm sure you make plenty of money more than most homeowners | if you're renting in New York. | michaelmior wrote: | Average rental prices can be as low as $1,000 for four | bedrooms depending on the county. I don't think it takes an | income higher than most home owners to afford. | [deleted] | engineer_22 wrote: | Fellow New Yorker here. Just wanted to point out the state's | entire population is less than 20 million, and young people | are leaving in droves. | | Nobody is holding a gun to your head. If you're unhappy, make | different choices. | heatmiser wrote: | Source? I am interested to know where the young people are | leaving to. | IIAOPSW wrote: | The Metro Statistical Area of the city is 25 million, which | differs quite drastically from the de jure municipal and | state borders. | iamdamian wrote: | I'm a little confused by this take. | | Anyway, yes I'm a New Yorker and also rent. | engineer_22 wrote: | I'm frankly amazed at how dogmatic the argument around gas stoves | is. How does this happen? How have people been educated about an | issue like this so quickly? | sourcecodeplz wrote: | One can always downgrade to those 60L? gas canisters that you | take to the center and they give you a full one. My grandma still | uses one. | nonethewiser wrote: | What a ridiculous step backwards | cmpalmer52 wrote: | I write software for natural gas utility management and | maintenance. Between this and coding AIs, I'm glad I'm | approaching retirement age. | | Of course, new government regulations (not outright bans) are a | lot of what drives the need for our software. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | I don't often like to take a "both sides" approach when assessing | specific issues, but this one just seems to highlight the | stupidity, or at the very least shortsightedness, of both sides. | | On one hand, for those pushing for a ban, this seems largely | performative, a la banning plastic straws. Gas is used for 2 main | reasons: for cooking, where it represents a miniscule amount of | overall energy use, and for heating, where, if what all the heat | pump folks say is true, gas should fall out of favor vs. heat | pumps eventually anyway. On the other side, I'm tired of the | constant cries of "Muh Freedom!!!" in the face of any regulation | that ignores the collective impact of not having any regulations. | | Still, even for those who are gravely concerned about global | warming, this feels like it will lead to a pyrrhic victory at | best by making your average Joe more skeptical of government | overreach. It seems like there could have been umpteen different | types of government responses (e.g. support for heat pumps) that | would have been better received by most folks compared to "we're | banning something that a lot of people find useful and | convenient". | cogman10 wrote: | There are more reasons to ban gas in buildings than just global | warming. | | There's the fact that you are actually burning fuel, which | released noxious fumes into the home [1]. There's mounting | evidence that this sort of exposure has pretty negative health | implications [2] | | Gas is also inherently dangerous, more-so than electricity. | There's been more than a few examples of exploded | homes/buildings due to gas leaks [3]. All it takes is for | someone to accidentally leave a burner on unstarted (or for a | kid to do it while playing around the home). | | But as for cooking, heat pumps won't work there. What you're | more likely to see is either homes coming standard with thick | enough lines to power everything or stoves with batteries | (think about it, a stove is off 90% of the time, so why not | slowly charge a battery during that time for the times when you | need to cook fast?) | | [1] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707 | | [2] https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tfacts175.pdf | | [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point | robocat wrote: | Here's a house that was turned to kindling by a gas | explosion: http://www.nzpdg.org.nz/news/details/cause- | revealed-of-gas-e... | https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/114388788/gas-contractor- | wh... "[the gas fitter] had not isolated the gas supply to | the fire he was part-way through repairing, and he failed to | tell the residents not to turn the main gas supply back on". | Of course you would want to analyse the relative risks of gas | versus electricity. | stefan_ wrote: | This might be the problem with this discussion on HN, there | are people here who earnestly believe we will need batteries | in them to power simple electric induction cooktops. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | These products do exist, and while the price is still high | I do like the idea. Then you can do high power cooking with | a more modest electrical draw, because the stove draws high | power from its local batteries and charges them more slowly | via a wall outlet. This allows installation even when high | power wiring is not available. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Induction cooktops generally require 220-40 outlets, so I | get that a battery might be a way around that, I doubt it | would work for code however. | | A household battery made out of old Tesla batteries sounds | like a good idea, but I think someone has thought of it. | SoftTalker wrote: | How many homes have burned down because of faulty wiring for | electric stoves vs the number that have exploded due to | leaking gas stoves? | cogman10 wrote: | 286 from gas appliances [1] | | 24,000 for all electrical fires. [2] | | I wasn't able to find specifically fires caused by electric | stoves. Most are caused by faulty wiring, lights, and space | heaters. | | My assumption, stoves are not often involved in electric | fires. They have isolated, grounded circuits that you | aren't frequently plugging and unplugging into. The thinker | cables usually have thicker insulation on top of that. | | [1] https://www.millerweisbrod.com/preventing-gas- | explosions#:~:.... | | [2] https://www.firerescue1.com/fire- | products/firefightingtools/... | dschuler wrote: | Newer gas stoves turn off automatically when they don't | detect a flame, but I've only seen those in Europe so far. | annexrichmond wrote: | Why can't people make safety decisions for themselves? Many | people will choose electric/induction stoves, or not rent an | apartment with a gas stove. But many people do prefer it, and | I don't think it should be up to you or the government | whether something is "good" for them or not. | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | hdisjdudh wrote: | many people will rent and have no say on what's better for | them | annexrichmond wrote: | I've searched for apartments many times in my life, and | both options were always plentiful. If it's important | enough to someone they will have a say. | newZWhoDis wrote: | Unfortunately we crossed that bridge a long time ago... | CydeWeys wrote: | Most people in NYC rent, and there are many other | considerations to make when picking an apartment to move | into besides what kind of stove it has. You're often taking | what you can get. This law will mean that, going forward, | there will be more apartments available that don't have | air-quality-destroying gas stoves, meaning there'll be more | suitable places for people to pick from. | | Also, as the other commenter said, these are apartment | buildings. If you burn your apartment down it's gonna | affect your neighbors. If you mess up your indoor air | quality it's gonna affect your neighbors. | annexrichmond wrote: | Surely there are other ways to incentivize non gas stoves | than outright banning it in all new buildings. | heatmiser wrote: | To what end? | iamdamian wrote: | This regulation unfortunately targets the entire state of | New York and includes not just NYC renters but also home | owners. | Eric_WVGG wrote: | All kinds of reasons. Besides widespread societal | misinformation going back to the tobacco lobbyist days, a | five-year-old cannot express a preference not to inhale | toxic fumes. | arijun wrote: | Do you have the same opinion on fire escapes? After all, it | should be my choice to endanger myself so I can pay a | little less in rent. | annexrichmond wrote: | And who is protesting the existence of fire escapes? | Since my argument was about freedom of choice, that | couldn't be more of a false equivalence. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | The briefest of search finds a page claiming that | landlords opposed fire escape regulation when it was | introduced, as it was costly and supposedly unattractive. | I would not be surprised if some of them argued for | freedom of choice in the matter. | | https://americacomesalive.com/the-invention-of-the-fire- | esca... | the_gastropod wrote: | For one reason, _your decision_ to use a gas stove affects | all the people who live within proximity of you. Everyone's | air quality could be affected, and everyone's risk of | carbon monoxide poisoning increases, and everyone's risk of | fire increases. | | No one is an island. | pathartl wrote: | I think they're missing the point that the ban is for New | York. You know, one of the most densely populated areas | in the country? | tobyjsullivan wrote: | It's starting to feel like government "solutions" are | aggressively targeting freedoms (for lack of a better word) | with the fewest, least-organized defenders rather than any | consideration for actual impact. | | For example, here in Canada, we recently banned a wide range of | window blinds including the very popular top-down bottom-up | style (a personal favourite). Why? To save the kids of course. | One Canadian child a year was killed, on average, over 30 | years.[0] So it's a performative win and, let's be honest, | who's going to defend our right to buy and install blinds? | | [0] https://science.gc.ca/site/science/en/blogs/science- | health/k... | cool_dude85 wrote: | >and for heating, where, if what all the heat pump folks say is | true, gas should fall out of favor vs. heat pumps eventually | anyway | | This is exactly what governmental action is meant to put a stop | to. We have a case where due to inertia, consumer preferences, | market failures w.r.t. externalities, etc. residential gas use | would, if left to the market, make up a significant proportion | of heating energy. | | Maybe "eventually anyway" gas would "fall out of favor", but | what needs to happen is for it to no longer be in use (along | with 1000 other such changes). The market cannot achieve this | for us. | rhaway84773 wrote: | People are misrepresenting this. | | No one is banning gas. You can go ahead and buy a gas stove and | use it. | | What you cannot do is expect buildings to install piping | throughout the building, the gas provider to provide | infrastructure to supply that building with gas, and get the | gas out of a tap. | | The vast majority of the world in fact does not have gas coming | out of a tap because it's not profitable. The U.S. has it | almost entirely because of regulation thst requires it to be | provided, which has now baked in expectation among homeowners | that it will be there. This expectation leads to buildings | paying extra to supply gas at exorbitant costs so their homes | don't feel less luxury than an equivalent competitor. | prottog wrote: | > The U.S. has it almost entirely because of regulation thst | requires it to be provided | | If this is true, then why is the New York Times calling it a | ban? Wouldn't it be more accurate to call it a repeal of | whatever legislation that was requiring it? | | Do you have a source on this regulation? | jltsiren wrote: | If the plan is to phase out natural gas heating in a reasonable | timeframe, you need to stop new investments in it soon. A ban | is a crude tool, but it may be better than telling residents of | new buildings that they must start planning to replace their | heating systems, because natural gas deliveries will end in | 2035 or 2040. | Blikkentrekker wrote: | I don't understand banning these kinds of things in general | opposed to simply taxing them considerably. | | A man should have the freedom to damage the environment so long | as he pay for it, and that money can then be used to undo his | damage. | | Of course, it's always quite inconsistent how these things are | applied based on cultural reasons. I've been in favor for a | long time for higher taxes on paper. The production of paper is | apparently 1/5 of deforestation and there really is not much | justification for it now with alternatives with less of an | environmental footprint, but too many people, even those who | supposedly stand for the environment, are too emotionally | attached to paper for cultural reasons to see this ever pass. | lumb63 wrote: | +1 regarding cooking gas being a minuscule amount of gas usage | overall. And not to mention, gas is still the first choice for | most serious cooks, so the small benefit comes at relatively | large cost to lifestyle. | | Regarding heat pumps phasing out gas heat, in NY it isn't | feasible. It gets too cold. In more temperate climates, sure, | but in the northern US and further, there will be a need for | on-demand heat for a long time to come. The heat pump is being | oversold as the answer to everything, but there are use cases | it doesn't account for. | | The path forward to carbon neutrality is electrification. | Electrify new construction, use steam to heat them, etc. | Something which addresses heat will dwarf any of the benefits | from coming after people's stovetops, at a fraction of the | lifestyle cost. | | It almost feels like this is something designed to turn heads; | a political act focused on banning something quite popular, | that everyone knows about, for very marginal benefit. It's | almost certainly not to help with "climate change"; if it were, | the legislation would target non-negligible emissions sources. | xwdv wrote: | If you want to be a serious cook work in a commercial | kitchen. | | Induction is a far better choice for residential use. | bluGill wrote: | I can't afford to eat out every meal, not with 3 kids at | home. Unless the meal is $20/person I can do better myself | at home, and even many of the expensive ones are | disappointing compared to what I can do for a fraction of | the cost. Good tools help me cook better. | xwdv wrote: | Hence induction stoves. | collegeburner wrote: | i just looked on home depot dot com | | gas ranges: $949, $848, $676. boujee model is $1199 | | induction ranges: $1198 starting, $4138, $1848, $1598, | $2498 | | plus i can't use my nice copper diffuser with them :( | | nah, imma stick to gas :) | LazyMans wrote: | It is not too cold in New York for heat pumps. With 20 year | old technology yes, it would have required supplemental heat. | Not anymore though, not until you get down around -25/-30f, | at that point a resistive heater kicks in to assist. | lumb63 wrote: | Perhaps I worded my comment incorrectly. Yes, heat pumps | can work in New York. But, a backup heat system in that | climate would be prudent. | LazyMans wrote: | Auxiliary heat is built into a heat pump due to the need | for a defrost cycle. The auxiliary is the backup. | bitexploder wrote: | We live in Denver and saw -10, -15 this winter. Our heat | pump is 100% efficient down to -10, and still reasonably | efficient at -25. Our whole house is on it. No gas. | catiopatio wrote: | What happens, exactly, when everyone's resistive heater | kicks in, the grid is overloaded, and we wind up with | rolling blackouts in -30 weather? | blkhawk wrote: | The same as when all the gas burners kick in at the same | time - everything turns mauve and explodes. | blkhawk wrote: | Its really hard not to be maximally sarcastic when faced | with this type of "what if"... | | I mean cities do not work because "what if everybody | decides to leave at the same time -and I mean everybody". | | "What if its really hot and everybody turns on their | aircon at the same time" | | Gas heating is inefficient when compared to heat pumps | and gas stoves are extremely inefficient when compared to | say an induction stove. It simply will not make sense to | install them very soon. A heat-pump is really just an | air-conditioner with very few extra bits stuck on so | houses might have everything in place already. And the | grid isn't collapsing because of that. | | As for the ban - there might be market forces at play | that would make gas real cheap for a time - this would | lead to an inclusion in practically all new buildings. | But it fairly certain that after that gas will get | expensive and supplying it at the individual building | level might get less reliable. This will cause a | liability because the state will probably be called to | fiance the mitigation of that. | | Actually I think this will happen regardless. So the ban | is simply a way to prevent it getting more costly than it | already will be. | TulliusCicero wrote: | > And not to mention, gas is still the first choice for most | serious cooks, so the small benefit comes at relatively large | cost to lifestyle. | | Induction is fantastic and even superior to gas in some ways | (even faster for boiling water, for example). While some may | still prefer gas, given that induction gives instant power | and is more powerful, I have a hard time believing that it | results in a "large cost to lifestyle". | | Besides, gas stoves actually cause a significant amount of | indoor air pollution, which may be more relevant than the | climate change impact. They are quite literally bad for you: | https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/have-a-gas-stove-how- | to-... | | > Children living in households that use gas stoves for | cooking are 42% more likely to have asthma | [deleted] | gwbas1c wrote: | > Regarding heat pumps phasing out gas heat, in NY it isn't | feasible. It gets too cold | | I live in MA and heat my whole house with a heat pump. It | works fine. I have an electric strip for backup. | | My house (and heat pump) are five years old. The newer ones | are better; Lennox's new model can work in Upstate New York | _without a backup heat source_ : | https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-announces- | breakthrough-r... | | (I will admit that I have a gas stove in my basement to | handle power outages, a gas stove, and a gas grill. I will | also admit that I really, really regret installing a gas | stove and will switch to an induction stove when it's time to | replace the stove.) | catiopatio wrote: | > I really, really regret installing a gas stove | | Why? | gwbas1c wrote: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35756895 | | We HAVE to run the fan when we turn on the stove or oven. | That's not the case with electric / induction. | catiopatio wrote: | Of everything you're aerosolizing while cooking, the | combustion byproducts are almost certainly the least | impactful. | | Given your concerns, I wouldn't cook using | electric/induction without the fan on either. | emmanuel_1234 wrote: | 2 weeks ago I met a Chinese chef, the kind that cooks with a | wok on those extremely noisy burners. He thinks induction is | better than anything. | rhaway84773 wrote: | Most new buildings in NYC are already heat pump based. | | For the obvious reason that it's much cheaper. | | Ban cooking gas as well, and they save a ton of money running | gas pipes, and utility companies having to maintain that gas | pipe. | | Also, "serious cooks" can still use their gas stoves. They | just need to hook it up to a cylinder like most of the world | manages just fine, but apparently the people in the richest | country in the world can't figure out. | pclmulqdq wrote: | Arguably propane may be better for serious cooking, too. | Chefs like to cook things a lot hotter than the average | person, and LPG burns hotter than natural gas. | jablongo wrote: | > Regarding heat pumps phasing out gas heat, in NY it isn't | feasible. It gets too cold. | | Not true, heat pumps are widely used as primary heat sources | in environments as cold or colder than NY, like in Montreal | and other parts of Canada. The take that heat pump tech only | works in very moderate temperatures is stale at this point. | bradlys wrote: | [flagged] | amalcon wrote: | Usually that works one of two ways: | | 1. Ground source heat pump -- which can work pretty much | anywhere people live, but costs a lot more and people don't | necessarily know about them. | | 2. Failover to resistive heating when it gets too cold | outside. It's fine to do this in Montreal, because | electricity is relatively inexpensive there. It's fine to | do this in New York City, or even somewhere a little cooler | like Boston, because you're doing it for max like 2 days a | year even in an outlier year. Not sure if it's fine to do | this in Buffalo. | indymike wrote: | > Not true, heat pumps are widely used as primary heat | sources in environments as cold or colder than NY, like in | Montreal and other parts of Canada. | | As the owner of a 5 year old heat pump in a milder climate | in Indiana, I can tell you this: | | * When it is under 10degF, my heat pump switches to | emergency heat... forced air electric and is very expensive | to run. * Often the temperature swings are pretty wild... | 40-50 degrees and that also can force emergency heat. | | Oh, and since the electric company is usually using gas to | generate the electricity, isn't the environmental impact | somewhat of a wash? | justeleblanc wrote: | You bought a shitty heat pump and decided you were okay | with living in a state that produces electricity using | fossil fuels. What's your point again? | SoftTalker wrote: | Yep if you live in Indiana your electricity comes from | gas or coal, there's a tiny bit of generation from a wind | farm in the northwest corner of the state and some | scattered token solar farms. | [deleted] | sudosysgen wrote: | I live north of New York, in Canada, and use a heat pump for | heating. It works perfectly well. | Aunche wrote: | >Gas is used for 2 main reasons: for cooking, where it | represents a miniscule amount of overall energy use | | Gas cooking makes sense when the infrastructure costs can be | amortized with that of heating. One of these costs is the 2-3% | of gas that leaks, and this loss will occur even if you heat | your home with heat pumps so long as you're connected to the | gas grid. If your only use of gas is cooking, it makes much | more sense to simply buy cans of propane. | nonethewiser wrote: | Gas cooking makes sense when people want to cook with gas. | ricardobayes wrote: | In my area I got a 50k quote to get connected to mains gas | even though it's less than 200 meters away. They can pound | sand, even the a state-of-the-art heat pump system is a | fraction of that. | Cardinal7167 wrote: | > feels like it will lead to a pyrrhic victory at best by | making your average Joe more skeptical of government overreach | | This is basically how all climate regulations are perceived at | the end of the day, and it's the primary fuel for my most | doompilled opinions for sure. | topaz0 wrote: | A big part of the reason for banning gas is not energy but | indoor pollution. There's pretty strong and growing evidence | that cooking with gas leads to substantial health risks because | of various combustion products that end up in your air | (especially if not properly vented). | endisneigh wrote: | From what I've read the same indoor pollution exists with | induction even if not vented. The confounding variable is | that induction generally is present in new construction which | will have proper ventilation. | | TLDR: it's a function of ventilation | throwaway049 wrote: | I don't have a view either way, but we can measure | pollution from different cooking methods under controlled | conditions so we know which is better or worse independent | of ventilation. | | Ventilation depends partly on individual behaviour, eg I | open windows in good weather and close them in winter. | taeric wrote: | Most of the in air particles will be what you are | cooking... | Zak wrote: | One of the concerns is nitrogen oxides (mostly nitrogen | dioxide, as I recall) from high temperature combustion. Car | engines attempt to limit combustion temperatures (usually | by adding some exhaust gasses to the intake air) to reduce | its production. | | Ventilation prevents it from reaching hazardous levels from | a gas stove; induction does not produce it. | endisneigh wrote: | The point is most of the harm comes from the cooking, not | the gas. Classic over optimizing. Might as well ban | Teflon while you're at it (the eu did this, as it's | harmful) | Zak wrote: | I'm not sure whether that's true (nitrogen dioxide can be | pretty bad), but I am sure that ventilation is the answer | either way. I suspect the main motivation for the ban is | to be able to shut down the gas lines in the future | because their existence results in methane leaking into | the atmosphere. Health concerns might help them sell it | ("think of the children" tends to be pretty effective, | politically). | dustymcp wrote: | Cooking itself releases a bunch of stuff that isnt great | regardless of stove its entirely on the ventilation. | chokma wrote: | Yeah, searing meat in the pan will raise the PM2.5 levels | in my flat by a factor of 30+. | bluescrn wrote: | Well, before long that choice to eat meat will likely be | taken away to 'save the planet', so that one will be | solved... | tomp wrote: | Are you a doctor? | | This one doctor (whom I probably trust the most of online | doctors) disagrees. | | https://peterattiamd.com/putting-out-the-fire-on-the-gas- | sto... | | _> For example, the analysis included multiple studies that | found an association between gas cooking and respiratory | disease in children but variously failed to evaluate parental | smoking habits, indoor smoke, pet ownership, or outdoor | pollution as other possible factors which might underlie the | observed associations. In other words, we must interpret | these conclusions with a high degree of caution._ | topaz0 wrote: | No, but I will be by the end of next week. | gwbas1c wrote: | Indoor pollution from a gas stove has more to do with _how_ | the building was built. | | Older construction leaks a lot more air than newer | construction, primarily due to changes in code. More | specifically, the air in an older home, from the 1980s, | might change over every four hours or so. In a newer home | built to modern building codes, it's eight or ten hours. | CydeWeys wrote: | Hours is still an awfully long time to have dangerous | chemicals floating around in your air after each time you | cook a meal. | | My apartment has a gas stove, which I was was induction. | The gas stove plus the lack of a hood that vents to the | outside means the indoor air quality gets pretty messed | up. I usually have to open some windows when cooking, | which is not great in winter. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | The total effect on health seems rather debatable, and even | if so there are better solutions (e.g. minimum ventilation | requirements) for that. | | Total bans on products people use and can enjoy | responsibility due to _potential_ health risks is nearly | always a bad idea in my opinion. Just look at smoking in the | US, for example, which recently hit an all time low. We could | have gone the prohibition route (and we can guess how that | would turn out), but instead we clamped down on advertising, | increased taxes, and helped usher in a societal change where | smoking is largely seen as unacceptable behavior by huge | swaths of people now. | dirck wrote: | Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease, | disability, and death in the United States. | | * 40% of cancer deaths are related to smoking * 80% of lung | cancer deaths are related to smoking * 33% of heart disease | deaths are related to smoking | | There's over half a million deaths a year from smoking and | 10% are second hand smoking related. | | I'm not quite sure we can call this a win yet. | lelanthran wrote: | As far as I know, the lower levels of smoking have not made | the US health outcomes any better than places where smoking | is at ridiculously high levels, like France. | CydeWeys wrote: | The health outcomes for illnesses related to smoking are | for sure better in the US. | hdisjdudh wrote: | because the usa never stopped smoking. | | numbers are higher now. but nobody was counting e-cig | before. some were even getting money to buy them as they | were spined as a quiting smoke path. | [deleted] | collegeburner wrote: | cause we turned into a nation of lardasses lol. like half | the country is obese and normal people seem to think that | being just kinda fat is normal now | | also, opioid epidemic is not helping things. this is | really reaching and not sourced but i wonder if less | smoking means more people reach for pills? | 8note wrote: | This is not a total ban though? | | They aren't going to force the gas to be removed from | current kitchens and heaters any time soon. | | There is a prohibition on smoking, kids aren't allowed to | buy cigarettes | 7speter wrote: | Theres a comment upthread championing this law because | eventually government will ban all the miscreants who use | gas powered appliances and heating from using them and | using something much more hip and palatable to a subset | of voters who can afford expensive house upgrades and | electric cars at the snap of a finger. | tialaramex wrote: | One reason to specifically forbid new installations is to avoid | stranding people when you later legislate provision out of | existence altogether. | | Sooner or later this is going away. If you announce you're not | doing _new_ installations, that starts a timer on the existing | users. In 2028 everything in use is at least 5 years old. In | summer 2035 everything in use is at least 12 years old. | Politically that makes it a _lot_ easier to sell an actual | prohibition on supply than it will be for places where that 's | a sudden overnight change from "Sure, you can use gas" to "No, | we're ripping that out". | | My country has begun gradually getting rid of POTS copper wire | telephone provision. You can still have it, for a little while | at least, but we know it has limited lifespan, if you're an | outfit who somehow didn't spot the signs and were shipping | devices that expect a physical copper line to work, you've had | your notice, in a couple of years stuff like that will drop | dead. When it's gone, with it goes a bunch of expenses that | most people don't benefit from at all. And yes, also some | relatively modest benefits are gone too, but mostly it's a | burden, we have better things to spend resources on. But you | need to give people a heads up first, and that's what this | legislation seems to do. | [deleted] | wingspar wrote: | As I understand it, it's a ban on piping gas lines in new | construction, not installing gas equipment in existing | buildings. | | In summer 2035, you won't have any buildings than less than | 12 years old with gas available, But, as I understand it from | the article, someone could replace their stove or heating | system in a building that has pre-ban gas, no problem at any | point in the intervening 12 years. Even the winter of 2035. | Multicomp wrote: | Yeah if anything this will exacerbate the challenge of | building new construction because existing buildings will | have this valuable utility that new buildings cannot have. | kibwen wrote: | The alternatives to gas are so good these days that | there's no way I'd pay to connect any new house to gas. | ajsnigrutin wrote: | There is also a third problem with this.... what happens when | shit hits the fan? | | If you use gas and your neighbours use electricity, and there's | suddenly a power outage, you can help your neighbors and | heat/cook their food too,... or in case of a gas system outage, | they can help with yours. If you heat with gas, you don't | freeze even with a power outage, and can still buy a cheap | electric heater with a gas outage... if you heat with | electricity, you can atleast try to find someone with gas heat | to let you sleep over and not freeze. | | Banning everything except electricity is just calling for a | catastrophy. | | (yes yes, i know, old heaters will stay, this applies only to | new construction, but in 30 years, most old devices will be | replaced too) | | edit: i don't know why the downvotes... probably not many | people from texas here... or anywhere else in the world... or | maybe people think that NY is somehow immune to such outages | UncleMeat wrote: | My gas furnace won't run if there's no power because it uses | various electrical systems for safety controls. I am not | convinced that "we'll have it if we lose power" is actually a | meaningful part of the public's reasoning for purchasing gas | furnaces. | bluGill wrote: | A cheap inverter from a car battery will run any gas | furnace | amrocha wrote: | If "shit hits the fan" to the point that you don't have | electricity for several weeks then it's unreasonable to | expect to be able to shelter in your own home imo. | jprete wrote: | Sheltering away from home is extremely expensive, disrupts | anything resembling normal life - which a power outage does | not - and may not even be possible if a large fraction of | the local population all tries to find a hotel outside of | the outage area at the same time. | MereInterest wrote: | > which a power outage does not | | Things that don't work without electric power: | | * Refrigeration. For a 6-12 hour power outage, leaving | the doors closed is sufficient. For 1-3 days, fridge | temperatures may be maintained by buying bags of ice, but | not a freezer. | | * Emergency communication. Landline phones might still | function, depending on exactly where the breakage | occurred. Cell phones have 24-48 hours of battery power | at the most. | | * Central heating. Even a gas furnace requires | electricity for its controller. | | * Kitchen ranges (conditional). For a gas range, this | depends on whether you have a lighter or matches. | | A power outage disrupts normal life. During a power | outage, you cannot cook food, cannot preserve food, and | cannot heat your home. Depending on the duration, | sheltering away from home may be the less disruptive | option. | toast0 wrote: | In the conditions where electricity is out for several | weeks, transportation between your home and a community | shelter may also be unreasonable. | hn_throwaway_99 wrote: | I'm guessing (maybe hoping?) that the downvotes are for the | seemingly overly apocalyptic tone of your post. | | But FWIW, as someone who is from Texas who lost power for 5 | days during Uri and nearly a week for the latest freeze this | winter, I wholeheartedly agree. Not sure how I would have | made it during Uri without gas - even with gas, we couldn't | run our heater (system still needs electricity to run the | fans, thermostats, etc.) but we could run a gas fireplace, | which kept our house temp just high enough to keep our pipes | from bursting. I still shudder from all the pics of people | with icicles dripping from their ceiling fans. | mardifoufs wrote: | To be fair, here in Quebec I lost power for 4 days not even | 3 weeks ago. So did 1 million people in Montreal (!). The | only reason it wasn't catastrophic was that the weather was | exceptionally merciful (if we ignore the freezing rains | that caused the outages in the first place). We used our | wood stove a lot (not legal in Montreal itself but still is | in most areas around it) even with warmer temperatures and | the stove honestly saved our Ramadan meals lol. | | I guess it depends on where you live! But to me it's | certainly iffy to ask people to just be ok with being | helpless if unpredictable stuff happens. | | Two decades and a half ago, the Quebec grid was completely | fubar* for the most part of January due to freezing rains | too so it's not super uncommon. | | *worse than Texas 2 years ago as the electricity | infrastructure physically collapsed, literally. | retrac wrote: | Some form of backup heat is considered rather essential in | many parts of Canada, including in suburban detached homes. | A small fireplace-style natural gas burner that doesn't | need electricity is common -- I think about 1 in 4 homes | have one? A significant proportion further have something | else, like a wood stove, or bottled gas. | | When the grid goes down for an extended period, people can | and do freeze, or suffer the effects of poisoning or fire, | from less safe forms of heat used out of desperation. (BBQ | grill or wood/trash fire indoors, etc.) The Quebec/New | England region grid collapse during the 1998 ice storm was | particularly bad with dozens dead. An atypical event, but | many do plan for that kind of eventuality in some way, | whether by having backup heat or hopefully knowing someone | who does. | nonethewiser wrote: | Power going out isn't apocalyptic. | | I'm not saying the power going out is no big deal. I'm | saying he's not being overly dramatic. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | We lost electricity due to an ice storm for a couple of | weeks when I was a kid in Mississippi. No natural gas at | all, but we bought propane heaters to get through it. | rainsford wrote: | I get the argument, but to me it seems overly myopic. Our | current electrical grid isn't alien technology we're just | stuck with. If it's so bad we can't realistically rely on | it to heat our homes or cook our food, maybe we should work | on making it better, and in the process have all the other | benefits of a reliable grid. The recent Texas outage is a | perfect example. It was incredibly rare weather, but my | understanding is that a lot of the problems could have been | significantly mitigated with some investment in improving | infrastructure. Again totally understand the concern, but | having to keep gas around forever because we can't be | bothered to fix our grid seems like not a great long-term | solution compared to fixing the underlying issue. | ajsnigrutin wrote: | I mean... it's a power outage, those happen and sometimes | last a long time. | | In my country, we had a strange mix of humid air hitting a | cold air front, so one side of the country had rain, the | other had snowfall, and in between you had frozen rain... | | The result? This: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Gr_RKN4Os (ignore the | weird music). | | This is what the power lines looked like: https://www.posto | jna.si/Datoteke/Slike/Novice/123958/l_12395... | | Was it a problem? Sure. But not a huge once, since everyone | in the rural area was familiar with power issues even from | the yugoslav era, wood furnaces are still common, even in | houses with central heating (most nowadays), and well.. the | country of ~2mio pop. has ~162k voulonteer firefighters, | and fallen trees were removed, roads were cleared, and due | to a lot of shitty wood, the toilet paper was cheap :) | | Now we're looking at this (article here), and germany | banning gas, oil and wood heating, and many other countries | following, and even a localized event or just some operator | fuckup can cause a huge catastrophy. (also, I might have a | slight bias, since I know how the infrastructure works and | many people who operate it, and it's a miracly we don't | have more outages.... same for the internet itself... the | core of the internet is based on routers saying "This is | me, i own this IP block, just send me the traffic" and all | the other routers believing it and doing what it's said... | so yeah) | realworldperson wrote: | [dead] | Zak wrote: | A surprising number of gas stoves do not work without | electrical power. It's supposedly for safety reasons because | a user might leave the gas on after the electronic igniter | fails to fire. Of course, it's possible for a sufficiently | incompetent user to turn the knob past the light position and | achieve the same result when it does have electrical power, | so this feature strikes me as nonsensical. | | I had an annoying experience with this during a multi-day | outage in Alaska last year. We did have other options | including a generator, but I'm not a fan of being patronized | by an appliance. | ajsnigrutin wrote: | Why is that a feature? ...interesting :) Our stoves here | usually have some heat-based protection, where you have to | hold the knob pressed in until a tiny rod heats up (usually | 2, 3 seconds) and after that you can release it and the gas | will stay on. Without power, you just need a ligher (or | anything releasing a spark) to ignite the gas. Also, the | default configuration for gas stoves is 3x gas cooktop + 1x | electric, so most people are covered in both cases. | gwbas1c wrote: | > If you use gas and your neighbours use electricity, and | there's suddenly a power outage | | I got solar, a powerwall, and a wood stove. | | (I also have a gas stove, but I wish I put the money into | buying an extra powerwall.) | amalcon wrote: | I have a propane camping stove (a slightly modernized version | of the classic Coleman model). This is the main reason why. | They aren't that expensive, and you can also take it camping | or set it up near your outdoor grill to prepare a side. | 8note wrote: | An argument for backups is an argument for backups, rather | than an argument for gas stoves. | | Gas systems could make a backup, but don't unless they're | designed to, and even if they do, you're gonna have a cheaper | time installing just the one system than multiple. A | generator, or a community generator with rollover practice is | the right answer. | | You don't see hospitals making every other room gas so they | can survive a power outage. Instead, they have a generator | rhaway84773 wrote: | The reactions to the gas hookup ban really reminds me of how | insular Americans really are. | | They can't even imagine a world where gas does not come in pipes, | when arguably that's how the vast majority of the world lives. | | You want a gas stove? Buy a gas stove, and get a cylinder. No one | is stopping you from doing that. | | Just don't expect everyone else to subsidize running that gas in | a pipe up to your gas stove. | nonethewiser wrote: | Natural gas is ubiquitous in the US indeed. Which is why a | small peninsula on the edge of the state/country deciding to | ban it shows how insular NYC leadership is. | PM_me_your_math wrote: | If we wanted to live like the rest of the world, we wouldn't | have started our own country. | tcfhgj wrote: | Ironically you will achieve the opposite fueling climate | change | endisneigh wrote: | Would you say the same about plumbing? Much if the world | doesn't have that, you have to go and carry your own water from | a local river to your house. | | Imagine how little water waste there would be if you had to | haul it yourself. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Large parts of the south in the USA lack natural gas from pipes | also. Propane is much more common in those parts (see the | cartoon "King of the Hill" for example). | SheepSlapper wrote: | What subsidizing? I built my house, I had to pay someone to dig | into the street to hook up to the gas lines and then fix the | road. Then I had to pay the gas company to install a meter and | turn on service at my new address. And finally, they send me a | bill every month for the gas I use. | | Having that gas hookup saves me a ton of hassle during the | winter months when, inevitably, power goes out and I need to | keep my place warm for a day or two (or more, though rarely) | while I wait for service to be restored. My neighbors | appreciate it as well, as they can come get warm in front of my | gas fireplace and cook on my gas range. | | I have yet to see a downside of having gas as an option, it's | only helped ESPECIALLY given the geographic realities of where | I live (feet of snow overnight, subzero temps for | weeks/months). Ironically the pushbacks against people who are | PRO gas proves how insular the anti-gas crowd is, because | apparently they can't imagine a reason someone would NEED that | as an option | inconceivable wrote: | reducing quality of life to be more like the rest of the world | is not really a great sales pitch. america is a sales-driven | society. | galleywest200 wrote: | Only 24% of my state (Washington) has gas stoves. We have already | begun the process to ban Natural Gas into new buildings. Nothing | major is happening and the sky is not falling. | | If you are curious about your state's ratio of gas to electric | stoves, you can check here [PDF warning]: | https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2020/state/... | fwungy wrote: | Washington is unique in its hydropower positioning. It's easy | to electrify in Washington because it makes sense to do so. | Hydropower is cheap and clean. | | Unfortunately it's not a replicable model for the rest of the | country. | novaRom wrote: | Germany has almost no hydropower, no nuclear power anymore, | but German government is continuing to insist a similar ban | on natural gas in all new buildings should be introduced (or | maybe already in action). | azinman2 wrote: | The US makes its own natural gas. Germany imports, and | until recently despite warnings to do so, from Russia. It's | a different situation. | fwungy wrote: | Germany thought they'd have cheap Russian gas from | Nordstream. Now they're looking to move manufacturing to | the US because energy is too expensive. | | Look at it this way, even is CO2 levels are primarily | anthropogenic, most of the world isn't willing to do | anything about it substantial (i.e. Global South). In which | case the Western economies martyring themselves isn't going | to change anything. | | OTOH, if climate change is not primarily anthropogenic the | West martyring itself with expensive green energy decisions | is a disastrous mistake. | | What is the game theoretical optimal move here? | tcfhgj wrote: | Are you seriously chasing the global south while the west | is responsible for this mess 90% while still abusing the | global south for cheap labour? | | > OTOH, if climate change is not primarily anthropogenic | the West martyring itself with expensive green energy | decisions is a disastrous mistake | | Yikes | | No comment | fwungy wrote: | Global South, i.e. BRICS+, sells and consumes huge | amounts of oil. | | Russia has proven mineral reserves of $75T, most in the | world by a fat margin. If they stop selling their oil | they're done, and so are China, India, Japan, and parts | of Europe. BRICS don't have the ability to drop oil | without catastrophic impacts on their food and energy | systems. | | >Yikes | | Climate science is hard. The margins of error are wide. | They already have a track record of being overly | aggressive on predictions. | SheepSlapper wrote: | As a WA resident, we also see weeks of subzero temperatures | every year. And we've had power outages that can last a few | days (if you're lucky) to multiple weeks (rare but not unheard | of). Knowing that I have natural gas as a backup source of | heating my house is great, and I've had to use it multiple | times already in the last 3 years. | | Having a backup method of ensuring my pipes don't freeze and my | family is (mostly) comfortable is great. But if you're an | electricity purist who hates cheap, available natural gas for | some reason, enjoy sitting in the cold while your house | destroys itself. Or spend thousands of dollars more on a device | that BURNS GAS to run your electric furnace anyway | VagueMag wrote: | Will this also prohibit the installation of propane or other one- | off gas cooking options at summer homes in the Hamptons? Are all | those personal chefs going to have to make do with induction | ranges? | IG_Semmelweiss wrote: | This seems like a risky bet. | | The monoculture could come and bite hard NYC. A city already a | hot target for terrorism... now exposed to the unknown (tiny ?) | probability, of 1 EMP, one solar flare, one major blackout via | hack or mechanical failure....and its millions without basic | heating, and who knows for how long ? an entire winter ? | srslack wrote: | I'll be burying a 1000 gallon propane tank, for propane heating | and two propane ranges (I have an apartment I've constructed) | within the next year, with a propane generator to help during | power outages, while I still can. I'll be heating/cooling | primarily with a heat pump, but it simply cannot be relied upon | for safety. | | This is ultimately performative, as it doesn't really help reach | carbon targets, and politically it seems like suicide with | something like 70% of homes having a gas appliance. Even weirder, | the governor is from Buffalo. I'm not sure that this is the hill | to die on in the northeast. But I guess it would be good for | property values of previous construction. | philip1209 wrote: | Electricity is a universal protocol - you can generate it with | multiple different energy sources, ranging from gas to nuclear. I | think this change future-proofs constructions, and makes our | infrastructure less fragile. | PM_me_your_math wrote: | There are about 3.5 million total housing units in NYC. Say | half of them needed electricity to heat the space all winter. | The grid simply cannot deliver on that load. | | That sounds pretty fragile to me. | Panzer04 wrote: | They clearly do just fine in summar, and heat pumps use | basically the same amount of power in either direction. I | don't see why the grid would be overloaded. | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | tpmx wrote: | I think; for many of us: It's quite fascinating to see a debate | between the benefits of electricity and gas in _2023_. | | Energy technology is so weirdly unevenly distributed. This | debate could have taken place in 1940 - with the exact same | arguments. | dadjoker wrote: | As California has shown multiple times, dependence on | electricity alone can be disastrous. | 8note wrote: | Dependence on the electricity is fine, dependence on the grid | alone can be disastrous. | | Depending on two different grid's is better whether the | second one is gas or your own electricity generation | blindriver wrote: | California's strategy for electricity is non-existent. We | have been perpetually at peak electricity use since 25+ years | since I came here. Meanwhile electricity use from EVs has | soared, and we don't have enough electricity for everything. | AND we attempted to shut down nuclear power plants but that | appears to be on hold for now. | | Plus, I'm paying over $0.50/kWh when I hit Tier 3, which I | hit after 2 charges of my EV. Everything is untenable. There | is no strategy at all. It's just a mess of ideology and dogma | but no science or logic, it's infuriating! | dragonwriter wrote: | > AND we attempted to shut down nuclear power plants but | that appears to be on hold for now. | | California has had a grand total of four nuclear power | plant, three are decommissioned, the fourth has is | scheduled to have its two reactors be decommissioned in | 2029 and 2030. | | The "on hold" description for the 5-year extension (the | schedule used to be 2024/2025) is inaccurate: it was | contingent on replacements being identified and | operational, those have been identified but were delayed by | factors including a temporary tariff on relevant | components, but are expected to be operational well before | the 2029 date. | ricardobayes wrote: | Well, holy smokes, I thought electricity was cheap in the | US. | annexrichmond wrote: | It could have been, but ideologues won't stop talking | about wind turbines vs fossil fuels. Over 30% of | California's grid comes from renewable resources, which | seems great, but appears to have come at a cost. | jandrewrogers wrote: | California is not typical and their situation is largely | self-inflicted. In many other parts of the US it is still | very cheap. | bluGill wrote: | For most of us it is cheap. I don't know what is going on | in California, but they are not typical. | newZWhoDis wrote: | Just because California sucks at something doesn't mean it's | a bad idea. | | Just like with Texas and wind turbines that lacked basic | winterization, implementation details matter. | r00fus wrote: | Please don't promote falsehoods. Texas power outage wasn't | due to wind turbines. It was due to gas plants freezing and | being unable to operate. Of course Gov. Abbot decides to | blame green energy when that's literally what prevented | even more blackouts. [1] | | "Power equipment in Texas was not winterized, leaving it | vulnerable to extended periods of cold weather.[44][45] | Natural gas power generating facilities had equipment | freeze up and faced shortages of fuel. Texas Governor Greg | Abbott and some other politicians initially said renewable | energy sources were the cause for the power outages, citing | frozen wind turbines as an example of their | unreliability.[46] Viral images of a helicopter de-icing a | wind turbine said to be in Texas were actually taken in | 2015 in Sweden.[47] However, wind energy accounts for only | 23% of Texas power output;[47] moreover, equipment for | other energy sources such as natural gas power generating | facilities either freezing up or having mechanical failures | were also responsible.[46] " | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis | newZWhoDis wrote: | I wasn't promoting falsehoods, I'm aware that the | majority of the grid loss in the Texas storm came from | frozen gas wells. | | Texas _also_ screwed up with their turbines | [deleted] | tomp wrote: | Electricity is also a centralized protocol, prone to | catastrophic failures. | analog31 wrote: | My gas heat goes down if electricity fails. | [deleted] | whiddershins wrote: | Only because of the thermostat, right? You could short the | contact that turns the boiler on. | bradlys wrote: | There's this thing called a fan that's inside your | furnace. If the electricity goes out - you're gonna die | of cold anyway because there's no way to move the heat | from the furnace through your ductwork. | bluGill wrote: | Convection will move air in my house. The safety will | turn off the fan at overtemp, but it will keep the pipes | from freezing. | | I.need to replace my 50 year old furnace, modern ones | don't work that way because it isn't compatible with high | efficiency. | whiddershins wrote: | I have this thing called steam heat. | | But duh, I am realizing that shorting the contact won't | do anything so you're right. | | But I have a small solar generator and could probably | make it work from that, because it requires very little | electricity, as opposed to say, a heat pump. | analog31 wrote: | That's right, the fan. And the little blower that brings | the combustion air. | briantakita wrote: | My gas stove can be connected to a gas tank which can be | bought at a gas station for less than $30USD... | | I can also purchase a propane heater from Home Depot or | Lowes which can run off the same gas tanks for less than | $200USD. | 8note wrote: | How much is a generator though? | bluGill wrote: | $600 for one that will run your gas furnace. $15000 for | one that will run your whole house. You probably want to | spend more than the cheap end just so it is reliable. Or | you can hook an inverter up to your car. | sudosysgen wrote: | Still won't work. If your home is sufficiently air-tight | so that you won't die of cold with that paltry amount of | gas, you're going to die from the carbon monoxide from | your stove. | | The propane heater from Home Depot either has the same | problem or it uses electricity for the air induction | system. | | If your goal is to be prepared, a generator and a heat | pump will last longer, it will be cheaper for you and | society in the long run, it will have more utility, and | we have far more gasoline stockpiled and ready for | emergencies than we have natural gas. | briantakita wrote: | You can take hot showers with a tankless Propane water | heater as well assuming there's water pressure, costing < | $300 on the low end. Sure, proper ventilation is | important... | | Gas spoils & does not store for very long. Diesel & | propane are both better at storage. | | You can even run generators off propane, though at less | power than gas. There's even dual fuel (Gas & Propane) | generators you can purchase for < $300 USD. It won't | power your house, but it will at least be something which | can charge batteries & run small appliances. They are | loud though. If you own a house, getting a proper | generator is the better choice. If you need something off | grid or in an apartment (running on the balcony for | ventilation), a single smaller generator or 2 in parallel | will work. Smaller generators also save on fuel. | | At the end of the day, multiple fuel sources will | probably work. Wood/coal/propane/kerosene for heat, | solar/diesel/propane/gas for electricity, etc. Most grid | down scenarios last less than a few days. | | Being able to boil water is important as well. There are | often boil alerts when there are brown outs. | philip1209 wrote: | Not true. That's a problem with the implementation, not the | protocol. Elevators in my building run on electricity, and it | has local backup generators. I think the solution is a better | grid (including generators, electrical panels, and | batteries). | nonethewiser wrote: | But houses already have electricity. Banning gas just reduces | coverage. | blisterpeanuts wrote: | How is an all-electric infrastructure "less fragile"? I don't | see any advantage for the end user. The only thing that works | during a power outage is the gas stove. | | Regarding power generation, gas is cheap and plentiful and gas | power plants are much easier to build than nuclear. Nuclear | takes years to get regulatory approval. Anyway, no one's | building nuclear. Germany closed down their last three nuclear | plants, for some reason, and California would love to close | their last nuclear plant but simply can't. | 8note wrote: | Gas is cheap because you're externalizing costs, and have the | government subsidizing it. | | The electric stuff works if you provide electricity to it. | That doesn't have to be grid elecetricity | realusername wrote: | You forgot one small thing, there's two orders of magnitude | more emissions with gas plants which makes this technology | unsuitable for any future development, it's basically legacy, | regardless of what you think of nuclear. | freeflight wrote: | Afaik on an international level there's been a somewhat | universal consent that natural gas is the "transition | fossil fuel of choice" [0], due to being the fossil fuel | with the lowest emissions. | | It also has the added bonus that gas infrastructure can | realistically be retooled for green hydrogen, and related | products. | | [0] https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-gas-in-todays- | energy... | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Gas is cheap except when it isn't. If you are a European | depending on cheap natural gas from Russia, well, a simple | war with Ukraine could be enough to shut you off. | bluescrn wrote: | Redundancy is good. | | If you can cook and keep warm on both gas and electricity, then | an outage of one or the other is much less of an issue. | dathinab wrote: | IMHO it should say "especially stoves". | | While gas stoves are nicer for cooking then simple electrical | stoves, induction stoves have become comparatively cheap and can | be roughly as good as gas stoves. | | At the same time having gas stoves is associated with a non small | number of health risk especially with subpar ventilation and also | associated with a non small risk for pretty bad accidents of all | kinds. | | So a ban on gas stoves is IMHO overdue. | gainda wrote: | "In addition to the environmental concerns raised by such | widespread use of natural gas, some health experts have also | argued that using it in the home, especially when cooking, may | pose a health risk to consumers." | | Spending a day walking around NYC is probably worse for my health | than years of gas stove usage. Every time I leave the city I feel | like I need a shower from all the grime and who knows what I feel | caked on me. | wolverine876 wrote: | Wow. Where in NYC are you walking? | lesuorac wrote: | The article is about a ban from the State not the City so I'm | not too sure why the cleanliness of NYC matters. | john_shafthair wrote: | [flagged] | rcpt wrote: | This should make new construction cheaper, no? | | That's good if you want to see more housing built. | tomohawk wrote: | New York, Illinois, California - the top 3 states people are | moving out of. | nonethewiser wrote: | This is factually correct. | | https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/features/states-move... | | #4 is Pennsylvania and #5 is Massachusetts. | | Most moved to are Texas, Florida, South Carolina, North | Carolina, and Georgia. | bsder wrote: | Still waiting for all the Republicans in those states to decamp | for their Utopias of Texas and Florida so I can buy a house | finally. | | Doesn't seem to be happening very fast. Could you please make a | more concerted effort to convince your fellow brethren to leave | already? You can even tell them just how pwned I'll feel when | they all leave. I'll even swoon with how pwned I feel to help | back you up. Thanks bunches. | lizardking wrote: | Every day hacker news continues its slow slide into | redditdom. | seizethecheese wrote: | The parent and the reply are now heavily downvoted. It pays | to call this stuff out (without stooping to the same level. | seizethecheese wrote: | I personally don't like seeing this kind of sarcastic, | politically vitriolic, substance-less comment on HN. | WalterBright wrote: | https://www.wsj.com/articles/illinois-j-b-pritzker-taxes- | sta... | hackernoteng wrote: | As always, follow the money and give no heed to virtue signaling | politicians who claim to care about climate change while living | in multiple homes, flying around on private jets and rarely | spending any time in nature. | BeFlatXIII wrote: | How soon until "new" homes come with a blank space for the new | owner to install an aftermarket stove that can cook food | properly? | mkinsella wrote: | Agreed. An induction cooktop and electric stove are far | superior to gas. | carlosjobim wrote: | Absolutely, comrade! That's why all restaurants run their | kitchens on electric stoves. | downut wrote: | I am curious how one pops popcorn, shakes a pan, throws the | pan, and heats the sides of the pan when eg reducing stock. | How do woks work, exactly, on an induction burner? Why does | spilling liquids cause the problems I encountered? Why does | the bottom of the pans have to be perfectly flat? Some of my | cast iron skillets (whoops never mind) are 50 years or more | old and are not perfectly flat. They cook fantastic on a gas | range. My All-Clad skillets reduce stock while caramalizing | above the liquid level, and... the flavor gain is detectable. | My only a few years old set of de Buyers "work" on induction | but they're not perfectly flat, either. They are ever so | slightly concave up in the center. They work fantastic too on | a gas burner, but are a disaster on induction. | | While moving house across the country, our Viking gas range | preceding us, I installed a moderately high end induction | stove (~$1600) and cooked on it for three weeks before I | completely gave up. I even bought "induction ready" pots and | pans! No doubt it improved the resale value of the kitchen | but for people with competent technique, an induction cook | top is a culinary disaster. | | Far superior? Yeah, I don't think so. | | I really wanted to love that induction stove, it's why I paid | extra for one to sell the house. But I was duped. Ah well | there is theory and there is practice, and I remind myself | yet again to always stick to practice. | 8note wrote: | You might be overselling your competence | [deleted] | fafqg wrote: | [flagged] | ecshafer wrote: | There is one really great use for induction stoves I found. | My wife and I have a small one burner induction stove from | Ikea, which is basically a high powered hot plate. Its | great for putting on the table for hotpot, fondue, | shabushabu, korean bbq, etc. Even though I love my gas | range, I am always a little weird about putting a propane | stove on my dining room table. | newZWhoDis wrote: | Induction doesn't require you have perfectly flat | pans/whatever. Your "induction ready" pots/pans were | probably just really bad, like maybe aluminum (yikes) with | some kind of induction-compatible insert? You want to use | pure cast iron anyways. | | Everything your gas burner can do, a proper induction range | can do better. Mine has a dedicated 240V 60A line and can | boil water faster than anything but a restaurant-grade gas | line (which isn't even an option in most neighborhoods). | | I don't use woks at all, but I can't see why one wouldn't | work. | nonethewiser wrote: | Charring peppers | downut wrote: | Yeah, those bbq baskets advertised for grilling | vegetables are sensational for charring Anaheims and | Poblanos over a big gas burner. Bell peppers become a no | brainer. No problem at all to do a much better job | getting the skins off than those roller things out in | front of the grocery stores in the fall. I can do about 8 | at a time. | | The rest of the responses, hoo boy, I think I live on a | different planet. | | Overselling my competence... amusing, because my view of | my own skills is that after 40 years of building on what | appears to in hindsight have been an extraordinarily well | chosen set of parents I might _just now_ begin to | understand how the best kitchens work. | hampelm wrote: | > I am curious how one pops popcorn, shakes a pan, throws | the pan, and heats the sides of the pan when eg reducing | stock. How do woks work, exactly, on an induction burner? | Why does spilling liquids cause the problems I encountered? | Why does the bottom of the pans have to be perfectly flat? | Some of my cast iron skillets (whoops never mind) are 50 | years or more old and are not perfectly flat. They cook | fantastic on a gas range. My All-Clad skillets reduce stock | while caramalizing above the liquid level, and... the | flavor gain is detectable. My only a few years old set of | de Buyers "work" on induction but they're not perfectly | flat, either. They are ever so slightly concave up in the | center. They work fantastic too on a gas burner, but are a | disaster on induction. | | ... we do all of those things on our mid/low-range | induction stove? Our primary cookware is random cast iron, | the pasta water boils over all the time with no ill effect, | we make popcorn, we make stocks, toss things in a pan by | lifting it from the surface all the time. I don't know what | range you had but something is wrong with it. | seizethecheese wrote: | Is this consensus opinion? I personally find gas to be far | superior. It could be that I've used low quality electric. | ApolloFortyNine wrote: | No lol, until your average restaurant is all electric (it's | not), it's very obviously not superior. | | Induction is better but nothing really beats gas for speed | to reach the desired heat level. | timbit42 wrote: | Gas stoves are faster to change temperature than electric | burner stoves but electric induction stoves are about the | same as gas. Electric stoves are faster at boiling water. | | "Gas stoves aren't really that fast - even standard | electric is faster" | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUywI8YGy0Y | seizethecheese wrote: | Great point. | konfusinomicon wrote: | I got an induction stove at a scratch and dent store for 60% | off and if and when I move it is most certainly coming with | me..I'll never go back to gas or electric. the time I've | saved heating water alone has tripled the investment. and it | came with a sous vide like temperature probe, which is | priceless for making a decent cup of coffee | galleywest200 wrote: | Install one in your backyard with a portable tank, problem | solved. | neonate wrote: | https://archive.ph/Z9WG6 | | http://web.archive.org/web/20230428234122/https://www.nytime... | ridgitdigit wrote: | [dead] | matsemann wrote: | I don't like the name "natural gas". It's fossil gas. "Natural | gas" is only used to make it seem greener. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-29 23:00 UTC)