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

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#441

Post by Melatonic » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:47 PM UTC

While I like gas stoves for cooking in my current apartment I occasionally would smell small amounts of gas and didnt think much of it. I took apart the stove and discovered that not a single fitting from the wall to internally had been done properly (they must use a special type of teflon tape on the threads or a special type of grease. They had neither). The stove was constantly leaking gas. On top of that it had THREE pilot lights constantly running (two for the top, one for the oven) that ended up creating actually quite a bit of heat. I disabled the two top pilots and left the bottom and now light it by hand.

Can't imagine all that gas was great for my health though.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#442

Post by cronix » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:47 PM UTC

> All that may change by 2023 — at least in new Los Angeles buildings. The L.A. City Council last week passed a motion that would ban most gas appliances in new residential and commercial construction in the city, citing an effort to combat climate change.

I understand this article is aimed at the effects this will cause on restaurants, but I think this could have much larger implications for everyone in the area. This sounds like it's going to put an artificial larger load on an aging electrical grid that is already failing due to lack of generating capacity, without adding any additional generation capacity. So more brown/blackouts during peak loads while increasing the chances of hitting the peak simultaneously by increasing load. Where are they going to get this extra power from?

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#443

Post by crooked-v » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:47 PM UTC

tompccs wrote: post #411

occz wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

> Gas is very efficient.

The way my entire kitchen noticeably heats up from pan-searing anything says otherwise.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#444

Post by cultofmetatron » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #207

fulafel wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the korean BBQs. Wood, or other biofuel that gets you a flame.

How is that better than natural gas for climate change and air quality?

bamboo grown sustainably and turned to charcoal for use wouldn't be introducing new c02 into the atmosphere. it would be carbon neutral. Its definitely better than natural gas which uses carbon that was sequestered millions of years ago

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#445

Post by jrockway » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

Hello71 wrote: post #384

wolverine876 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that better than natural gas for climate change and air quality?

biofuel is carbon-neutral. it might cause some particulate pollution, but if it's minimal enough for use in a restaurant dining area, then the environmental impact is probably negligible.

The occupational risk seems pretty high. I recall hearing that using a wood stove indoors to prepare 3 meals a day is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. People would be upset if their employer forced them to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. For the customer that's in there for an hour or two, though, not a big deal.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#446

Post by ricardobeat » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

bcbrown wrote: post #346

brewdad wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still not seeing the problem. Remove pan from the immersion coil and heat delivery ceases immediately. Adjusting the rate of heat delivery also happens quickly. There may be some cases where you have to alter technique a bit from what you are used to but, aside from wok cooking, I can't think of anything that you can cook over gas that you can't cook on an induction top.

You can't use copper or aluminum pans on induction stoves, so you're not going to be able to have a pan that has both high thermal conductivity and low thermal heat capacity. This is important for cooking things that need to go quickly from high temperature to off, for example hollandaise/bearnaise, caramel, roux. Even deglazing a pan to make a sauce benefits from being able to quickly stop heat transfer before whisk…

I've never cooked with copper pans, but I've made all three of those on induction and a steel pan without issues. Temp changes are noticeable almost immediately. There are also aluminum pans with a steel insert at the bottom, made for induction, that have terrible heat retention if you prefer that.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#447

Post by marak830 » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #398

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…

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…

Chef here: I've used induction, but the biggest annoyance is heat loss when lifting a pan.

Most pans section dishes are moved quite rapidly, lifting then off of the burner, to toss the ingredients(I could be cooking 5-6 dishes at once, so speed is very important), with a gas burner this doesn't matter as the radiant heat is there.

Now I'm assuming there are radiant stovetops that are designed for hospitality, but I've yet to see one, the only I have used the heat started dissipating rapidly when lifting the pan, and my wife was freaking out when the pan made contact thinking that I was going to break the cooktop.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#448

Post by ajsnigrutin » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #404

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not fun but profit. Look at the classic beer industry... you have/had a crate full of standardized glass bottles, with metal caps and paper labels, you pay some deposit to take the crate and the bottles, you drink the beer, return the crate and the empty bottles to be washed and refilled, get back your deposit (or take a new full crate), and that's it. Yes, some energy goes for transport and washing of those bottles.…

>Look at the classic beer industry... you have/had a crate full of standardized glass bottles, with metal caps and paper labels, you pay some deposit to take the crate and the bottles, you drink the beer, return the crate and the empty bottles to be washed and refilled, get back your deposit (or take a new full crate), and that's it. I'm not sure what time period "classic" implies, but what you described hasn't been…

> I'm not sure what time period "classic" implies, but what you described hasn't been the case for years.

It's still the case in many countries for "normal" (non craft, etc.) beers.

> I find it strange that you admit this is a thing, but ultimately gloss over it. What really is the TCO of plastic bottles vs glass bottles? It's tempting to conclude that reusing must be better than throwing stuff out, but given the costs associated with transporting heavy glass bottles and/or sanitizing them, it's not exactly obvious which one has overall higher costs.

Considering that CO2 is not the only thing, and we have problems with microplastics, we should consider that impact too.

> There's a lot wrong with recycling today (eg. ending up in landfills because recycling is too expensive), but what you described isn't one of them. Landfill space in the US is cheap as it is. Nobody is shipping plastic half-way across the world only to incinerate them.

But we did just that, before china banned import. We ship that stuff over to china "for recycling" and they burn it. Same with e-waste in africa ( https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/burning-truth-... )

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#449

Post by madengr » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

russdill wrote: post #302

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…

Commercial induction woks go up to ludicrous power levels. I've seen 15 and 20 kW models online.

No post body was provided.

Re: What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

#450

Post by colinmhayes » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #386

pao wrote: post #288

Seems like a lot of the interest in these bans is coming from new research like this [Stanford study]( https://news.stanford.edu/2022/01/27/rethinking-cooking-gas/ ) showing gas stoves emit more methane than previously thought. They say all residential stoves in the US emit GHG equivalent to 500,000 cars. There are 276 million cars in the US. So, this problem is about 1/500 of the car problem. If you eliminated all s…

Pretty much every argument I have read in this post boils down to "electric is better" but crucially ignores a) the idea that preferences are individual, and b) even accepting something as universally "better" doesn't mean we ought to legislate it across an entire group of people (AKA centrally plan the economy).

The problem with "just let individuals choose" arguments is that our population seems to be extremely opposed to taxes that counteract externalities. Of course we should let people choose, but when their choice harms others we have to either charge them more or force them into making a different choice. I'd prefer taxes, but bans seem much easier politically.