What a gas stove ban means for restaurants • Hacker News Board

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#371

Post by vkou » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

jcranberry wrote: post #326

vkou wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pointless game of accounting, that distracts from the issue at hand. As long as producers aren't taxed for emissions, consumers can't pick lower-emission producers.

We should be approaching the problem from all avenues, so I agree. But this campaign that ordinary people shouldn't arsed to do anything because it won't make a difference is absurd.

I can't be arsed to do it, not because it won't make a difference, but because I have no ability to know that an alleged lower-carbon product is actually lower-carbon, and not just marketing bullshit and accounting trickery.

Encoding it in cost is the only metric that the manufacturer won't be able to game. It's the only honest, guaranteed signal for any product. Making purchasing decisions based on it is the whole point of market economies.

Tax carbon at the same cost as it takes to pull it out of the air[1], and consumers will start buying low-carbon alternatives.

[1] You should also probably take that money, and actually pull it out of the air, though.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#372

Post by agentdrtran » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:09 PM UTC

colin_mccabe wrote: post #351

dynm wrote: post #318

This article is all about climate change and cooking. But in case anyone is interested, I got interested in the health effects of gas stoves vs. induction a few months back. I was frustrated that no one seemed to give the magnitude of the harm. My conclusion was that using a gas stove for your entire life rather than an electric cooktop plausibly creates enough enough NO2 to reduce life expectancy by a couple of mont…

It seems questionable to evaluate what happens when you cook without any ventilation. You need ventilation to avoid smelling like food later on. Poor ventilation also has other bad consequences.

I have never lived anywhere, in my entire life, that vented stove air outside — it just "filters" it through a filter nobody ever replaces and blows it back at you, if you're lucky.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#373

Post by russdill » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:10 PM UTC

m00x wrote: post #355

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly we should be banning new gas hookups (as proposed here) and going even further to incentivise removal of existing ones. Climate change is a life or death situation, and we need to be acting way faster. That alone is reason enough. The other reason is that it is better! You can actually get an induction stove to heat up faster than a gas stove, if it is wired properly

Give me the data where it says how much gas stoves contribute to climate change. It's probably so insignificant that it's purely a point for virtue signaling. I've had a gas stove for years and I still haven't needed to refill the tank, and it's not even that big of a tank. Shipping your new induction stove will probably use more gas than you will in a decade of cooking. Induction stoves can't be used for things like…

You're replying to an article (and comment) that discusses disallowing new gas hookups. The article and a lot of the discussion does focus on cooking though.

The amount of greenhouse gas emissions due to heating is not insignificant.

While in general, heat is heat, and hot water is hot water, disallowing gas hookups means no more gas stoves, which a lot of people and chefs have strong attachments to. Hence the focus.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#374

Post by cwkoss » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:12 PM UTC

danShumway wrote: post #130

From what I can tell, gas stove bans would really just be a side effect of the broader measure, which is requiring homes to be "emission free". The measure seems to be more directly about heating/water/etc... Which makes me wonder if it might not just make sense to add some exclusions for some specific appliances for places like restaurants. I don't know the numbers, but I doubt that stoves in specific are the highes…

Why not just apply a gradually increasing natural gas tax across the state? Wouldn't that have a similar effect to a ban-for-future construction, provide consumers with choices, and generate revenue?

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#375

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

hristov wrote: post #208

Wow. So much bullshit. Where do I start. Most importantly, the motion only bans gas appliances in new construction. Now think about this and re-read the article with this important fact in mind, and you will discover that nothing in the article is actually the least bit relevant for the proposed ordinance. Everything they talk about refers to existing restaurants in existing buildings, which will not be affected by t…

[deleted]

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#376

Post by cwkoss » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:14 PM UTC

kmtrowbr wrote: post #155

I don't see how it makes sense: the electricity has to be generated, which is almost always via burning something to heat a boiler. Then the electricity is sent to houses via the grid, which involves further losses. So you burn something, make heat, make electricity, send the electricity though wires, to make heat. Vs, just making heat directly in the house to accomplish the job. If all our electricity came from rene…

From what I've read, natural gas power plants have much higher efficiency than point of use. Powerplants try to squeeze every last drop of energy out of the inputs and their byproducts, whereas a home stove just lets energy and byproducts into the atmosphere.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#377

Post by Mikeb85 » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

daniel-cussen wrote: post #364

Mikeb85 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Plus it takes for ever to boil anything Tell me you've never cooked on induction without telling me. If there's ONE thing an induction range does quantitatively better than a gas range, it's boil water...

Oh that's induction...just used electric resistance heating, that makes sense. Yeah water boilers. OK, well I take back the comment I made, not fully informed.

I could have specified but at the professional level and high end in homes, electric basically means induction nowadays, for cooktops.

In a professional kitchen an all electric setup would be:

- induction cooktops

- electric oven, usually a combi

- electric fryers

- electric water circulators

And then they'll often add a small charcoal burning grill to the setup for grilling (I know, not electric but works with no gas hookup).

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#378

Post by tbossanova » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

m00x wrote: post #355

TheSoftwareGuy wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly we should be banning new gas hookups (as proposed here) and going even further to incentivise removal of existing ones. Climate change is a life or death situation, and we need to be acting way faster. That alone is reason enough. The other reason is that it is better! You can actually get an induction stove to heat up faster than a gas stove, if it is wired properly

Give me the data where it says how much gas stoves contribute to climate change. It's probably so insignificant that it's purely a point for virtue signaling. I've had a gas stove for years and I still haven't needed to refill the tank, and it's not even that big of a tank. Shipping your new induction stove will probably use more gas than you will in a decade of cooking. Induction stoves can't be used for things like…

The problem with this point of view is that each contributor to climate change, by itself, is not especially significant. So if we dismiss each individually as being insignificant, we end up doing nothing about any of them. That’s my perception anyway, if you know of the big, highest priority climate change contributor that should be focused on before the smaller things, please let me know!

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#379

Post by rch » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #309

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #275

A large reason electric (restive and induction) are seen as inferior to gas is that portable units are limited to 120v/15a (few are 20a) so the total possible power is technically less than a gas stove; 2800w effective. However, gas stoves are very inefficient so in reality it's not a huge problem and 240v electric stoves could even be hotter (~4000w) than a gas stove. > Xie estimates that he pays around $500 to $700…

> Since gas stoves are so inefficient, natural gas should provide no cost benefit. In North America, the cost of gas is basically just the cost of transmission. It's so plentiful it's almost free. Agree that the move to electric has tons of benefits though.

The low cost contributes to the negative externalities of production. If it was less plentiful, arguably we wouldn't have dramatic methane plumes in the southwest due to atmospheric release.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#380

Post by russdill » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 9:21 PM UTC

rob74 wrote: post #23

al_borland wrote: post #2

I get wanting to move off these fuels for the big stuff, but surely there can still be some room for novelty. Korean BBQ is fantastic.

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…

LA is working towards a 100% carbon-neutral power grid by 2035.