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What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

latimes.com

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Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#141

Post by incone123 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #96
tablespoon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a bit disingenuous. Those units were brought online in 1985 and 1986 and are licensed to operate through 2025. That's forty years - which is the life span of a power plant, especially a nuclear power plant. So, they're not being "switched off", they've hit end-of-life. I doubt that is true https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant#2021... talks about a report that states "that keeping Diablo op…

> Why is this a "lack of ability" rather than a lack of political will? Even in countries that are massively pushing for nuclear energy and where the utilities are sometimes outright government-owned, like in France, Finland or the UK, nuclear reactor projects have continuously hit massive cost and deadline overruns: Finland's Olkiluoto 3 had 12 years delay and ended up costing over three times as expected, French Fl…

It is remarkable that the UK does not trust Chinese involvement with our 5g network but we will let them design and build nuclear power stations here.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#142

Post by cgriswald »

throwaway4aday wrote: post #89
hgomersall wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used induction? My experience is that it's much more responsive than gas.

Yes, it turns on quickly but it also has to vary on and off to maintain the temperature which leads to it either running too cool part of the time or too hot. Gas allows you to set the exact temp you need and it makes a smooth, quick transition and then maintains it perfectly.

Decreasing temperature isn't a function of the range.

Increasing temperature is a function of the range, and in my experience induction is significantly faster.

To the extent that "it must vary on and off to maintain temperature" is true, that's not really relevant. As a sibling poster states, you're not setting a temperatures. You're setting a level of output on both induction and gas. Your food is separated from the output by a heat reservoir and cannot possibly respond quickly enough to induction's on/off switching for this to matter. This does however, seem to be an area where induction can vary greatly in quality, and I suspect most of the complaints people have about induction have more to do with dodgier induction units than they do with the technology versus gas.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#143

Post by kemiller »

m0llusk wrote: post #118

It seems like an alternative might be to use induction to warm a small heat exchange device, then blow air through it so that extremely hot air similar to a gas flame comes out. Probably some engineering would be needed, but not that much. There are already serious problems with water vapor condensation from burning natural gas so this could potentially be a superior alternative with more opportunities for controllin…

No point to induction then. Just use a resistive element. Seems like it would be hard to heat the air fast enough to compete, but who knows.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#144

Post by linsomniac »

kkfx wrote: post #36
cthalupa wrote: post #6

I've got a Control Freak, probably the highest end induction cooktop available for a home chef, and is even used in 3 michelin star restaurants like Alinea. It's amazing for consistency, holding temperature, and a dozen other things. It's quite responsive in general! But I still reach for my Iwatani butane stove and copper saucepot sometimes. These are still significantly more responsive even than a top of the line i…

Well... I'm full-electric since years and I still have to find a device that really match gas... Induction for me is NEVER able to hold a certain temperature, essentially all plate I've used at low temp just run-and-stop continuously witch combined to very thick pot allow a nearly-constant temp but definitively not much constant. Classic resistance on aluminum alloy and non-stick PTFE coating on contrary can regulate…

It sounds like you and the parent both have much more demanding needs than we do. My wife and I a pretty serious home cooks, and have been quite happy with our Samsung Chef Collection induction range. We pretty much home cook all of our food, but don't go so far as to make anything where we need to the degree PID feedback temp control.

Not saying there isn't a need for it, just trying to figure out what percentage of homes (or more to the point of this article, restaurants) needs that level of precision.

Air quality issues aside, I just prefer cooking on induction to gas. My inlaws have a nice gas range, I'd guess it's in the $5-10K price. I prefer my induction:

  - Less heat going around the pan, heating up the kitchen, the handles...
  - I'd say the induction is as fast as the gas (gas has more BTUs, but dumps a lot into the kitchen?)
  - Clean up is SOOO much easier.  The cooktop doesn't get very hot and is solid surface.  You can move a pan, wipe up a spill, and go right back to cooking, without turning the burner off.  Or after cooking, just wipe it up.  Resistance solid surface and gas both really burn spills on.
  - As fast as gas.
The one real downside is that if you lift or tip the cookware (flipping, basting, just moving sauces/oils around), you get no heat while it's up.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#145

Post by adolph »

I've seen this topic pop up on HN from time to time. Most of the discussion comes from folks concerned about climate change saying inductions fine and folks die hard about gas cooktops.

Where are the people interested in new ways to prepare compounds for digestion? Is anyone charring surfaces with a laser? Retuning microwave antenna to target lipids? Levening with organisms other than yeast?

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#146

Post by gwbas1c »

Is hydrogen practical? What about other forms of bio-gas?

Personally I wonder if shutting down the gas network for cooking, and backup generators, is short-sighted. It seems to make more sense to push for mixing in carbon neutral gas sources and letting cost be more of a motivating factor.

IE: I pay about $20 a month for gas in the summer when I just use it for cooking and grilling. They could swap in carbon-neutral gas and double my bill and I wouldn't care. BUT, if I was paying for gas to heat my house, you betcha I'd switch to a heat pump if my cost of gas doubled. (I have solar and heat with a heat pump. I only have gas for cooking and a backup heater.)

Carbon-neutral gas: Figure out how to harvest methane from decaying plant matter.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#148

Post by trgn »

breadloaf wrote: post #44

I always find laughable when governments are scolding or limiting peasants for basically nothing, while ignoring the elephant in the room. * You need to conserve the water, California peasant! Ignore the fact that 80% of water in California is consumed by agriculture and we are not going to do anything about it. * You need to stop using your gas stove, peasant! Ignore the fact that we are going to switch off Diablo N…

Upvoted since I agree with the sentiment, although at some point, real changes do start in our own lives. Less driving, smaller homes, abandoning those trashy free plastic bags in stores (wtf - I'm so sick of seeing plastic bag litter stuck in shrubs, why do we even have them!). Problem is, most people are incredibly defensive about making any sort of change, even if it means being better stewards of our neighborhood.

Anyway, this stove one is sad, it really removes one of those tiny luxuries. Like no more quick roasting of some greasy naan bread on the stove. That's a real loss.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#149

Post by gkop »

ryukafalz wrote: post #112
throwaway4aday wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it turns on quickly but it also has to vary on and off to maintain the temperature which leads to it either running too cool part of the time or too hot. Gas allows you to set the exact temp you need and it makes a smooth, quick transition and then maintains it perfectly.

> Gas allows you to set the exact temp you need No gas stove I’ve used has had this functionality. They let you set the exact output you want, which is not the same (and induction cooktops can do that too). Yes, if you want to set a specific temperature induction cooktops will cycle, but you can also use them the same way you’d use a gas stove and then they don’t.

Would you spell it out for us? If induction cooktops are capable of continuous control of their output, why do they cycle significantly in set temp mode? At least, I would expect them to cycle minimally for fine tuning, relying on the continuous control of output as much as possible instead of cycling.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#150

Post by nicoburns »

epistasis wrote: post #94
breadloaf wrote: post #44

I always find laughable when governments are scolding or limiting peasants for basically nothing, while ignoring the elephant in the room. * You need to conserve the water, California peasant! Ignore the fact that 80% of water in California is consumed by agriculture and we are not going to do anything about it. * You need to stop using your gas stove, peasant! Ignore the fact that we are going to switch off Diablo N…

> switch off Diablo Nuclear Power plant and replace it with gas plants. This is not true, it will be replaced with zero carbon generation, including geothermal. For intermittent zero carbon generation, there needs to be matched storage, which will consist both of "regular" lithium storage, and some newer less tested tech for longer duration storage. This is mandated specifically by law, so if it doesn't happen then s…

Seems like it would still be better to switch off a gas plant and replace that with geothermal, etc. IF the nuclear staton is still in good working order of course.
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