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What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

latimes.com

211–220 of 614 posts

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, now how much carbon does the entire gas infrastructure used to pipe that gas around emit, and the gas used to heat homes? Because as long as people are going to specifically demand gas stoves, all that infrastructure still has to exist, and gas heating is going to be attractive because the gas hookup is already there. The fossil fuel industry specifically uses gas stoves as a gateway to push people towards usin…

We already have the infrastructure and it works great. How about solve the planes and container ships then we can work our way down to the things that barely matter?

> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in 2019, methane emissions from natural gas and petroleum systems and from abandoned oil and natural gas wells were the source of about 29% of total U.S. methane emissions and about 3% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/natural-gas-...

Sounds like it matters to me, especially considering methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#212
>that would ban most gas appliances in new residential and commercial construction in the city, citing an effort to combat climate change

I thought it would be due to some sort of safety issues, but no, it's a lot dumber than that. This is nothing more than a costly performative action that does NOTHING for climate change.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#213
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Well they don't have perfect output control, but also cycling is just usually a good way to maintain a temperature when you've got a pan and some food sitting on top of it since there's quite a bit of inertia in actually changing the temperature of whatever is on the stove. There are very expensive ones with separate temperature probes that do a lot less cycling and hold the temperature really steady, but most people don't really need that.

Gas stoves would likely cycle as well if they had a temperature set feature. It's what gas ovens do.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#214

I know this is about the environmental impacts, but isn't it also bad for you to have in your home? Surprised that's not more discussed here.

It's discussed prominently every time gas stoves are even sideways-relevant to an article?

Apologies, maybe I'm blind but can you point me in the right direction in this comments section?

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#216
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a wok, you need an actual electric wok, a special induction stove for woks [0] (of course this is a thing!), or gas. On the flip side, if you have a mediocre pan with a thick base but thin walls, an induction stove won’t heat the walls the way a gas stove would, which will reduce burning. [0] https://www.atcooker.com/products/commercial-induction-wok/ for example. I have no idea if this is any good.

Interesting. I wonder if the law makers are looking at the environmental cost of producing all these new cooktops vs using what has already been produced. Kind of like the plastic Nalgene bottle you already own, and functions perfectly fine, is better for the environment than throwing it out to buy a new stainless steel bottle. Granted, the water bottle example doesn't require a fuel source for continued use.

Most of these laws are for new construction.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#217

Do residential and commercial gas stoves even have a material impact on our emissions? Just like the paper straw debacle, I find it comical that legislators waste so much energy on ridiculously trivial things instead of putting that energy into something with larger returns.

Not emissions, but their combustion byproducts have been shown to be dangerous to people breathing in the enclosure.

https://rmi.org/insight/gas-stoves-pollution-health/

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#218
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gas stoves vent toxic fumes into the house, run the risk of blowing your house up, and are inferior to induction stoves in almost every way. Any time this comes up I love to singe the praises of induction!

Induction stoves are seriously inferior to gas, in every way. They are slower to heat. They are more expensive to operate. They are more fragile. They rely on complex electronics vs. simple mechanics. They require specific cookware made out of only certain materials. They require direct contact with the "burner" to work. In what possible way are they superior?

Consumer Reports, for one, is happy to report that "No other cooking technology we’ve tested is faster than induction."

I would think a lot of the advantages of induction are really obvious, so I don't think your statement that they are "inferior to gas in every way" is particularly in good faith. No gas in a building should be obviously advantageous. Reduced ability to cause burns or fires too. Reduction of use of a potent greenhouse gas.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#219
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I also think it's the wrong priority - I mean, what are you going to replace them with? Electric stoves? Then you'd better make sure that the electricity is 100% from renewable sources, otherwise you'll be burning fossil fuels to convert to electricity (with limited efficiency) and then using that electricity to heat stuff (again, with limited efficiency). Then it's much better to burn the fossil fuel to direct…

I was trying to figure out how much CO2 burning natural gas creates to get a grasp of how big of an issue this is. I found a source claiming 116.65 pounds of CO2 per million BTU produced by burning natural gas. Even if we assume chefs have a really hot burner cooking at 20,000 BTU per hour, that's 2.3 pounds CO2 per hour. Add on a little more for the methane released (some sources say 1/3) if you want. Let's just rou…

The impact of something else doesn't change the impact of what you do. If someone hands you a $1 million check, you don't say 'this is nothing compared to a $1 billion check; I'm not going to cash it'. If you create an open source project, you don't say 'it's not Linux, so I'm going to abandon it'. It's an absurd rhetorical argument. Just cut the GHG where you can.

This relative impact argument is the latest FUD, IMHO. It's incredible to see whoever come up with one reason after another to resist action on climate change, and then see everyone repeat it. Meanwhile, the world is warming up.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#220
post #42
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I also think it's the wrong priority - I mean, what are you going to replace them with? Electric stoves? Then you'd better make sure that the electricity is 100% from renewable sources, otherwise you'll be burning fossil fuels to convert to electricity (with limited efficiency) and then using that electricity to heat stuff (again, with limited efficiency). Then it's much better to burn the fossil fuel to direct…

Induction stoves are quite efficient. Gas stoves, perhaps counterintuitively, are not. This is mostly because the considerable majority of the heat from the flame goes around the pot without heating it. (A pot on a grate is a terrible heat exchanger.) So it is not obviously a loss to burn gas to make electricity and then to use that electricity to cook. It may even be a win. All of this ignores that electric cooking…

> This is mostly because the considerable majority of the heat from the flame goes around the pot without heating it. (A pot on a grate is a terrible heat exchanger.)

I always wonder: Why aren't pots insulated? Just putting the lid on allows me to cut the flame ~~ 80%.

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