Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

motherjones.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 144 posts

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#31

Post by hospadar »

Induction maaaan!

Switched from gas to induction and love it. I miss my stove every time i have to cook elsewhere. Mine is pretty much the cheapest induction range on the market (and i bought it used). Heats up way faster than gas (WAY FASTER, will get cast iron glowing if i leave an empty cast iron on the stove for a while at the highest setting), low/medium control is excellent and precise, and i really appreciate the lack of waste heat (pot handles don't overheat, kitchen doesn't quickly heat up from cooking - small kitchen).

The fact that the stove is more expensive is really the only downside. Not being able to use fabulous copper pans seems like the only meaningful downside but I'm not rich enough for that anyways.

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#33

Post by kwhitefoot »

yetihehe wrote: post #21
api wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The makers of high power battery stoves maybe? For those who don't know these are stoves that have on board batteries allowing them to generate, for a period of time, far more heat than an ordinary house circuit would be able to power. This replicates some of the advantages of gas. But honestly I think the ban gas stoves thing is brought to you by the same people who gave us bans on plastic straws. "Let's maximally i…

> For those who don't know these are stoves that have on board batteries allowing them to generate, for a period of time, far more heat than an ordinary house circuit would be able to power. Depends on ordinarity of a house. My ordinary house has 3phase power and my pretty cheap induction stove outperforms all gas stoves I had. When I was living in a flat, I only had single phase power, but 4kW should still be enough…

> In USA you typically only have 110V

Surely stoves are connected to the 220 V connection? Same for washers and dryers.

110 V in the US is one arm of a centre tapped secondary.

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#34

Post by jbotdev »

Forget climate and respiratory issues, I’ve gone induction out of pure convenience and don’t miss gas at all. My induction cook top heats up faster, has more precise control, retains less heat on the “burner”, and is way easier to clean. The only downsides I’ve found are you can’t char things on a flame, or use copper pots.

It seems like people keep comparing gas to “regular” electric stoves, which are definitely inferior in many ways. The biggest issue is they’re very inefficient, and take forever to heat anything.

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#35

Post by ryukafalz »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #28
fvdessen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why there’s a battle about gas stoves is that people care a lot more about the way they cook than the way they heat their house, but if they cook with gas, then they heat with gas. So if you want to push people away from gas heating towards electric heat pumps, then you need to attack gas stoves

Huh? The reason people have been talking about stopping use of gas stoves is that they put out pollution inside people's homes, which is pretty separate from the overall dialogue about fossil fuels or how to heat homes.

It's both, the climate impacts are absolutely part of it too.

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#36

Post by Philorandroid »

ccalloway wrote: post #19
mikrl wrote: post #7

It’s politicized too which is ridiculous. I’ve seen takes that being pro gas cookery is right-wing. Yes, it’s obvious that gas heat and cooking could cause respiratory issues due to combustion. As a gourmand though, cooking on a gas range is the best experience wrt temp control and convenience. I prefer an electric oven, and the heating system I’m impartial to, though radiant hot water is what I fondly remember from…

The thing about burning gas for heat in your home is that it's either very clean, or there is something seriously wrong with your system. There is no scope for it causing 'respiratory issues' except in a setup so broken that it's not legal (or shouldn't be legal) to operate. Unlike for example a wood stove which might release some smoke into your house, at a level where it's not good for you, but not violently toxic.

>There is no scope for it causing 'respiratory issues'...

But it's also an easy platform to sell to the un/misinformed, and a great platform for a candidate who just wants what's healthiest for you and the environment.

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#37

Post by paulette449 »

Article is from June 2020. I know why it is re-surfacing now, but I can't imagine why it was a big deal when originally published. So-called influencers earn their income from paid sponsorships from many industries, whether they admit to it or not.

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#38

Post by bryanlarsen »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #28
fvdessen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why there’s a battle about gas stoves is that people care a lot more about the way they cook than the way they heat their house, but if they cook with gas, then they heat with gas. So if you want to push people away from gas heating towards electric heat pumps, then you need to attack gas stoves

Huh? The reason people have been talking about stopping use of gas stoves is that they put out pollution inside people's homes, which is pretty separate from the overall dialogue about fossil fuels or how to heat homes.

Approximately a year ago several jurisdictions banned gas hookups in new developments. The pushback was significant and severe, and it was all focused on how awesome gas stoves were.

Now we're seeing the pushback for the pushback. fvdesson is right.

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#39

Post by sokoloff »

fvdessen wrote: post #20
api wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The makers of high power battery stoves maybe? For those who don't know these are stoves that have on board batteries allowing them to generate, for a period of time, far more heat than an ordinary house circuit would be able to power. This replicates some of the advantages of gas. But honestly I think the ban gas stoves thing is brought to you by the same people who gave us bans on plastic straws. "Let's maximally i…

The reason why there’s a battle about gas stoves is that people care a lot more about the way they cook than the way they heat their house, but if they cook with gas, then they heat with gas. So if you want to push people away from gas heating towards electric heat pumps, then you need to attack gas stoves

If you want to push people away from gas heating, just tax the shit out of gas. No household uses enough gas for cooking that it would matter that much to them. (We cook a fair amount and heat domestic water with gas. In the summer, our bills are around $30/mo, including about $12 in fixed charges. Quadruple the usage charges [add a 300% tax], and if I want to cook with gas, I still will, but I sure as hell will get rid of my gas water heater and boiler.)

If you roll out the tax as 25% starting in July, increasing 25% every 3 months after that until it hits 300%, people have some time to plan for it and you don't hit them this winter. Maybe you need to return 1/3 of the tax money to low-income households who are having a hard time getting their equipment upgraded in a timely fashion and 1/3 of the tax money in incentives to that same group [and landlords of affordable housing] to help them cover the capital costs.

Trying to backhand it by making people "not want" gas stoves seems like a longer and less certain path than just giving people economic incentives to do the thing that you want them to do.

Re: The gas industry is paying Instagram influencers to gush over gas stoves (2020)

#40

Post by rsynnott »

api wrote: post #5
h2odragon wrote: post #2

So who is paying for this week's "gas stoves should be banned" PR push, then?

The makers of high power battery stoves maybe? For those who don't know these are stoves that have on board batteries allowing them to generate, for a period of time, far more heat than an ordinary house circuit would be able to power. This replicates some of the advantages of gas. But honestly I think the ban gas stoves thing is brought to you by the same people who gave us bans on plastic straws. "Let's maximally i…

Gas stoves aren't a significant _environmental_ problem, certainly in terms of CO2 (in fact, unless your electricity is almost entirely renewable or nuclear, they're probably marginally better than electric from a CO2 perspective). There is a concern that they're a health risk, though (though the evidence that there's a large effect is somewhat weak).

Personally, I like my gas stove, though I expect to have to adapt to something else in my lifetime (the big push in Ireland is towards heat pumps, and once gas heating goes it will not be economic to maintain the home gas network just for stoves).

Post reply on HN