[HN Gopher] New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in ne...
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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.
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