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What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

latimes.com

411–420 of 614 posts

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#411
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This relates to a difficult topic, which is: should modern civilization be 100% carbon neutral? Some things are inherently difficult to make electric, yet we need them to have what we'd call a "modern civilization". Planes are the biggest one: there is a drive to use more trains instead of planes, but should we give that up? It is definitely a step backwards in civilization, as large parts of the world are now imposs…

I don't think that this is relevant at all in the context of this discussion - electric cooking methods - particularly induction - are superior to gas in essentially every way, shape or form - barring the production of wok hei, which is why the article stresses that so much, while conveniently leaving out all the massive downsides of gas stoves. Gas stoves are also generally used by gas companies to get gas lines dra…

Everything you have written is wrong.

Gas is very efficient. If you have the choice of burning gas at a power station (which is how a lot of electricity is generated now a days) and piping it directly into people's homes for the end goal of generating heat, piping wins every time. The inefficiencies of converting gas to electricity and transporting that electricity are significant and well known.

Additionally, I don't know how anyone who has cooked on gas and electric can claim electric is superior. I will grant that a very good electric (ie, induction) _might_ be superior to a very bad gas, but I have used a lot of examples of each and I would choose gas every time (and to demonstrate I am not ideological about this, I always prefer electric ovens over gas).

Heat pumps are also a vastly overrated technology which only work for very well insulated houses with an HVAC system which keeps the rooms ventilated artificially.

I am big on electrification - I'm a Tesla shareholder - but the carbon benefits of electric heating over gas are minute. The Green agenda should avoid battles where the perceived detriment to people's quality of life vastly exceeds the provable environmental benefit.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#412

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…

> Why not focus on improving how we generate electricity before we tear out all the gas? It's incredibly simple. We can, at will, change how the "single" source of energy is generated. There is no time that is too early to have all energy consolidated to one source. Not only because the plants that generate the electricity are more efficient and cleaner than everyone burning their own fuel (even when they are gas or…

The internet has successfully changed my mind! A very rare event. No need to appeal to bad faith. I simply received an engineering education which taught me that a great deal of energy is lost along the way to delivering electricity to houses, so that, for the purposes of generating heat, it's usually best to simply generate the heat via the primary route. I also grew up in the Northern Midwest & had to pay electric bills of $800 / month for rentals heated via electric baseboards.

http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-...

However -- thanks to the free further education I have received here, I now understand the argument for electric stoves (gas stoves less efficient due to heat loss around the sides of the pot and also unhealthy due to combustion in a living space).

Going a step further, do you think that heating houses (e.g. furnaces) as well should be exclusively done via electricity?

I am aware that these laws are for urban areas in California (which don't require much heating). But, I am curious to what extent the argument for greater efficiency & health holds up for the heating of houses and for colder geographic areas, considering that quantity of heat required is much higher, and also that the furnaces are vented much more aggressively.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#413

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…

I honestly would be interested for an actual chef to weigh in. I'm all for using an induction stovetop at home, but have people actually seen chefs fry over an open flame? They're moving the pan around, lifting it up and around, using it to toss the food, etc. That would basically be impossible with an induction stovetop. It seems rather tone deaf to me to not address the issues that the chefs are actually concerned…

I can’t imagine many professionals would wildly appreciate changing their core tool from underneath them, regardless of whether the tool is actually better.

If I wanted to stir the pot with a grenade, I’d say it’s like asking Vim users whether they should all move to VS Code.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#414
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The whole carbon footprint thing was created to shift blame from the dirty industry to inviduals you think that "the dirty industry" are just emitting carbon for the fun of it?

Carnival cruise ships alone produce 10x more pollution than all vehicles in Europe combined[1]. So yes, it is for fun. And profit. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/8bceef94-86cd-11e9-a028-86cea8523...

>Carnival cruise ships alone produce 10x more pollution than all vehicles in Europe combined[1].

1. I get the joke you're trying to make, but realistically speaking the fact that the company is in the "fun" industry, doesn't mean the company itself is being run "for fun".

2. that's at least somewhat misleading because the pollutants mentioned are pollutants that tend to be aggressively curtailed for land vehicles (because of their negative effects on local air quality), but are far less of an issue on the open sea

3. I get excusing the consumer if the good/service in question is essential and there's no pollution free alternative, but it seems weird to pin the blame on Carnival when consumers are making entirely discretionary purchases that are known to have negative environmental impacts.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you measure the pulse width in terms of seconds and not milliseconds. What is interesting is the hot plate on my 3d printer uses millisecond PWM, but not my stove. I'm not quite sure what the advantages of either method are?

PWM normally works with a constant DC voltage. If you’re driving a resistive heater with AC, the duty cycle loses its meaning unless the PWM frequency is much less than the AC frequency.

Good point!

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#416

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…

> 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. Could a combination of induction heating and h…

Simply switching to induction would be a big win. That and keeping the lid on while cooking.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#417
post #180

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…

> But most does not. So, this seems like putting the cart before the horse. Why not focus on improving how we generate electricity before we tear out all the gas? What percentage should be from renewables before we start switching? What if it takes 10 years to get 90% of stoves replaced? It's surely not a "wait until the grid is 100% clean" situation. Then add in the fact that induction stoves (and I believe electric…

Thank you. I appreciate your comments. It does make sense that most of the heat from a gas stove does not go into the cooking vessel. In fact I often use the electric kettle to speed cooking by pre-boiling water, then adding it to the cooking pot. And I also can see that the unvented exhaust from the combustion of the gas is unhealthy. And also, that leaks of gas into the atmosphere from poorly maintained pipes adds significant further greenhouse gases, as we know natural gas is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

Regarding, the timing of it all, I guess at the root my attitude here, is one of frustration, where ... we have known about this for literally 100 years, but we just don't care. Now we make theatrical laws, but current events are more of the same: warmongering and blowing one another up is more interesting than actually addressing our biggest problem: climate change.

But by all means I am all for whatever we can do and I agree we should do all the helpful things ASAP.

My concern with the law was that I honestly wasn't entirely convinced it's actually the right thing to do. But I certainly appreciate those three points you made above.

Do you feel this law makes sense as well for colder areas that require homes to be heated?

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there you have it. The essence of environmentalism. Find a small problem, propose drastic measures to counter it, end up making the problem worse. Then, later, accuse everyone of impeding progress, and that there is an urgent need for even more drastic measures.

Quoted post unavailable.

The issue wasn't cutting down trees. We've had notions of managed forests fro thousands of years. The problem was that we were now Clear Cutting an entire forest to a barren flatland. Those wouldn't return to forest for years if ever and represented huge habitat loss the local flora and fauna.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly would be interested for an actual chef to weigh in. I'm all for using an induction stovetop at home, but have people actually seen chefs fry over an open flame? They're moving the pan around, lifting it up and around, using it to toss the food, etc. That would basically be impossible with an induction stovetop. It seems rather tone deaf to me to not address the issues that the chefs are actually concerned…

I can’t imagine many professionals would wildly appreciate changing their core tool from underneath them, regardless of whether the tool is actually better. If I wanted to stir the pot with a grenade, I’d say it’s like asking Vim users whether they should all move to VS Code.

Well they probably should move to emacs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpdngXQOkBI

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#420
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit from whom? All these industries ultimately sell the resulting end products to people. This idea that Exxon Mobile is solely to blame for gasoline emissions or that a factory owner is the only one responsible for the emissions from their factory, rather than the person who purchases and uses those products is quite frankly absurd.

https://old.reddit.com/r/environment/comments/dbabxu/til_tha ... combine this ^ with: https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2016/12/05/tale-fish-two-cou ... > An example of this would be when a wild cod is caught off the coast of Alaska and, due to economic factors, is shipped to another country to be fabricated into fillets and packaged. If this process of turning a whole fish into packaged fillets occurs in China, the co…

That’s talking about pollution in general rather than greenhouse gas emissions like the post I was responding to.

When it comes to CO2, personal vehicles emit several times more carbon than the entire global shipping fleet.

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