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New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

nytimes.com

131–140 of 1001 posts

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#131

Everyone is worked up about losing their gas stove, but natural gas heating is far more reliable and efficient than any electric option right now. This will create a lot of issues until heat pumps catch up. Northern New York is very cold.

Heat pumps are about 250-300% efficient. Relative to resistive heating which is of course 100% efficient. Gas is about close to 100% (you loose some via exhaust). Ground source heat pumps work pretty much anywhere. Air source heat pumps can be more challenging but can also work at more extreme temperatures. They don't stop working but their efficiency drops a bit. And of course resistive heating doesn't stop working.

Heat pumps are used all over Scandinavia and well into the arctic circle, including rural areas in the parts of Scandinavia (i.e. the polar circle) that see extreme temperatures far more regularly and for far longer periods than NY. Of course relative to NY, they do have a more reliable power grid and excellent building standards. Triple (not double) glazing is the norm there, for example.

And of course more rural places would also feature wood stoves as a backup. There is mostly no gas network there; especially not in rural areas. Before heat pumps became popular about thirty years ago they would have used that or oil based systems.

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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To add some nuance, third world countries can be very different. Crime isn’t just a matter of “3rd world” or not (I don’t even think that’s a meaningful term). Guatemala City felt extremely dangerous even during the day. In contrast, Fez felt very safe from crime. In contrast, Singapore might be considered “3rd world” by some definitions but it is by far the safest place I’ve lived.

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#133
post #17

And NPR told me that the possibility of gas stoves being banned was fake outrage: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/20/1150228734/the-facts-and-stra... .

There’s a difference between “no new construction with gas stoves” and “seizing all gas stoves” lol

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Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a difference between “no new construction with gas stoves” and “seizing all gas stoves” lol

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That’s a fallacy. You can make anything into a slippery slope.

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#135
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. An induction cooktop and electric stove are far superior to gas.

I am curious how one pops popcorn, shakes a pan, throws the pan, and heats the sides of the pan when eg reducing stock. How do woks work, exactly, on an induction burner? Why does spilling liquids cause the problems I encountered? Why does the bottom of the pans have to be perfectly flat? Some of my cast iron skillets (whoops never mind) are 50 years or more old and are not perfectly flat. They cook fantastic on a ga…

Induction doesn’t require you have perfectly flat pans/whatever. Your “induction ready” pots/pans were probably just really bad, like maybe aluminum (yikes) with some kind of induction-compatible insert? You want to use pure cast iron anyways.

Everything your gas burner can do, a proper induction range can do better. Mine has a dedicated 240V 60A line and can boil water faster than anything but a restaurant-grade gas line (which isn’t even an option in most neighborhoods).

I don’t use woks at all, but I can’t see why one wouldn’t work.

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#136
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the vast majority of the population of New York State lives in places where air source heat pumps work just fine. Air source heat pumps can be built to work down to at least -20 Fahrenheit[1]. That's equal to the coldest temperature on record in places like Buffalo and Albany. For those relatively few people living in places which get even colder than that, there's the option of either ground loop heat pumps…

But is it more efficient overall? Gas to elec, infrastructure losses, etc. vs just gas to heat?

Heat pumps are dramatically more efficient. A good gas furnace is 95% efficient. Meanwhile, a ductless heat pump can be 300%. They more more energy than they consume. That's the huge advantage.

Converting gas heat to heat pumps, even if they have a gas heat backup for worst case days in northern latitudes, would still be a big win in the net environmentally.

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#137

Berkeley attempted this and it was recently overturned: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/court-overturns-berkeley-califo... California's electric grid is in horrendous shape. We can barely keep the power on in the summertime, especially when wildfires happen. When the power is out, am I expected to start a fire in my yard to cook food? Fire up my JetBoil? My BBQ?

A bigger problem is getting a feed to your house that can handle your hot water heater, stove, washing machine, and electric car charging all at once. That's rather impractical in some areas, so there is some work to coordinate between the appliances so they can share a smaller feed. The way some stoves are participating is that they charge a battery at relatively low current all the time, and then cook from the batt…

> … getting a feed to your house that can handle your hot water heater, stove, washing machine, and electric car charging all at once.

This wasn’t on my radar as being a thing. What type of service is typical out there? Where I am, 200A is fairly normal and I haven’t really perceived of the concept of not having enough electricity to run a family as a thing.

Do people trip the main breaker more than “almost never” out there?

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#138
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. An induction cooktop and electric stove are far superior to gas.

I am curious how one pops popcorn, shakes a pan, throws the pan, and heats the sides of the pan when eg reducing stock. How do woks work, exactly, on an induction burner? Why does spilling liquids cause the problems I encountered? Why does the bottom of the pans have to be perfectly flat? Some of my cast iron skillets (whoops never mind) are 50 years or more old and are not perfectly flat. They cook fantastic on a ga…

> I am curious how one pops popcorn, shakes a pan, throws the pan, and heats the sides of the pan when eg reducing stock. How do woks work, exactly, on an induction burner? Why does spilling liquids cause the problems I encountered? Why does the bottom of the pans have to be perfectly flat? Some of my cast iron skillets (whoops never mind) are 50 years or more old and are not perfectly flat. They cook fantastic on a gas range. My All-Clad skillets reduce stock while caramalizing above the liquid level, and... the flavor gain is detectable. My only a few years old set of de Buyers "work" on induction but they're not perfectly flat, either. They are ever so slightly concave up in the center. They work fantastic too on a gas burner, but are a disaster on induction.

... we do all of those things on our mid/low-range induction stove? Our primary cookware is random cast iron, the pasta water boils over all the time with no ill effect, we make popcorn, we make stocks, toss things in a pan by lifting it from the surface all the time. I don't know what range you had but something is wrong with it.

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#139
post #78

Everyone is worked up about losing their gas stove, but natural gas heating is far more reliable and efficient than any electric option right now. This will create a lot of issues until heat pumps catch up. Northern New York is very cold.

Heat Pumps can run in very cold temperatures, but it's just not worth it, economically, because their efficiency drops and gas becomes a cheaper option.

In almost all of the continental USA the number of days that cold are more than offset by the savings during the rest of the days of the year. This YouTube channel covers the topic extensively https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI

Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings

#140
post #17

And NPR told me that the possibility of gas stoves being banned was fake outrage: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/20/1150228734/the-facts-and-stra... .

The ... ahem, administrators of Fox News and the Conservative media bubble told their flock that 87,000 IRS federal agents were being hired to come to everyone's houses (Conservatives first though) to remove all AR-15s and gas appliances as soon as possible, probably after Kamala Harris orchestrates Biden's removal from office via the 25th amendment so she, famous trans progressive, can implement the true LiberalTM a…

When the day comes that gas stoves actually get banned (either forcefully removed or by banning the distribution of gas), your comment will again be:

"This shouldn't be surprising, sensational or controversial."

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