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Every day hacker news continues its slow slide into redditdom.
New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
151–160 of 1001 posts
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most people around here buy enough battery or generators to keep the power on. This is a surprising assertion to me. How can “most people” afford batteries and generators?
$50-60K is enough to buy a backup system, and not much compared to the price of a house in this area.
$50-60K is more money than most people I know make per year.
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think it’s impractical to upgrade service lines. It is, however, impractical to get PG&E to approve the upgrade. (For us, that process cost about 3 years and $10K. They ran a wire 6 feet from an existing transformer to a pole we had to install ourselves). When they pass these laws, they should come with an SLA for the utility provider to approve “engineering” plans for the utility hookup and whatever transfor…
> (For us, that process cost about 3 years and $10K. They ran a wire 6 feet from an existing transformer to a pole we had to install ourselves). Must have been a while ago because in 2021 they charged me $0 (not a typo) to go from 100A to 200A. It took just a month or so to arrange.
It's different depending on the line that runs to your home and the transformer serving your street. If the line to your home has enough diameter to carry 200A and the transformer and the main line have enough spare capacity, all it needs is to exchange the main fuses/circuit breakers on the utility side. Most new constructions these days are severely overbuilt to accomodate the rise in electric car chargers.
For older constructions however, it can be more involved - the line from the main line to your home might need an upgrade, the main line might need an upgrade or in the worst case the transformer might need an upgrade. The further up in the grid you go, the more expensive it gets for the utility - and some measures might even require significant work involving construction permits.
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#154Berkeley 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?
Most people around here buy enough battery or generators to keep the power on. PG&E is way below one nine of availability this year, but the outlets inside our house are at 6 nines followed by an eight. Granted, once the propane rationing started, a few of our neighbors lost power for extended periods of time (weeks). The phone company doesn’t maintain internet if the power is out, but there is starlink, and fiber co…
> This is the SF Bay Area, so it’s pretty much a third world country if you measure things by quality of government services. I assume this isn’t typical for most other parts of the country
You would assume wrong. California's grid reliability statistics are actually better than the national average:
Electric Utility Performance: A State-By-State Data Review https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/wp-content/uploads/2021...
The only statistic where it falls last is "AVERAGE AMOUNT OF TIME TO RESTORE POWER PER CUSTOMER, IN MINUTES (CAIDI) WITH MAJOR EVENT DAYS"
Compare the California's power reliability with West Virginia's before making any assumptions.
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#155Everyone 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.…
> And of course resistive heating doesn't stop working.
Well except…
> Of course relative to NY, they do have a more reliable power grid
Okay, yeah. That would pretty much be my concern.
Having been without power for over two weeks in the past 12 months the propane tanks and propane stove / furnace / water heater have been a lifesaver.
Powering the control boards / fans with a generator (or even UPS in a pinch) is a lot simpler proposition than trying to generate enough power to heat my house, water, and food with resistive heating.
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people around here buy enough battery or generators to keep the power on. PG&E is way below one nine of availability this year, but the outlets inside our house are at 6 nines followed by an eight. Granted, once the propane rationing started, a few of our neighbors lost power for extended periods of time (weeks). The phone company doesn’t maintain internet if the power is out, but there is starlink, and fiber co…
> PG&E is way below one nine of availability this year You’ve been without utility power for two full weeks in 2023?!
Yes. There’s been a lot of storms this spring and the wind has brought down power cables left and right. That’s in addition to whatever other crap is up that’s causing power and even occasionally gas to be shut off for days at a time. Depending on where you live in the bay area, you might’ve had a few hour long shut offs, a few day long shut off’s, or worse and that’s just this year. I personally have had almost 3 total days without power where I live in the inner sunset of San Francisco, including 6 incidents of between 1 and 5 hours, and 1 period of two whole days. I have friends elsewhere in the city who’ve had it a lot worse. I don’t personally know anyone who has had 14 days total outages, but I would absolutely believe it given what I have seen. Also my personal PG&E bill for my home of two people and a baby is over $500 a month between electric and gas. I also run a small-midsize 400 seat theater in SF Chinatown and the monthly power and gas bill for that is almost $3000 a month even though we only run events two or three days a week. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a difference between “no new construction with gas stoves” and “seizing all gas stoves” lol
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The boiling frog strategy only works on frogs when the frog's brain is removed.
https://archive.org/details/studiesfrombiol00martgoog/page/3...
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#158Berkeley 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?
Most people around here buy enough battery or generators to keep the power on. PG&E is way below one nine of availability this year, but the outlets inside our house are at 6 nines followed by an eight. Granted, once the propane rationing started, a few of our neighbors lost power for extended periods of time (weeks). The phone company doesn’t maintain internet if the power is out, but there is starlink, and fiber co…
In the Boston area, I almost never lose power, at all, ever. One hour five years ago in an ice storm was an aberration. Something is very wrong in Cali.
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
> (For us, that process cost about 3 years and $10K. They ran a wire 6 feet from an existing transformer to a pole we had to install ourselves). Must have been a while ago because in 2021 they charged me $0 (not a typo) to go from 100A to 200A. It took just a month or so to arrange.
It's really amazing how people can talk about 200 amps as if it's nothing. We have a household installation of 40 amps (220) and last year there were months that cost 400 euros per month on electricity, and we are not heavy electricity users (we have no electric cloth dryer but have a small robot mower tho) It is almost like talking about 400HP cars/suvs, my 3 cylinder car is doing just fine at 84 kW max. Am I being…
You're talking in Euros... we have 230V power, while Americans and a few other holdouts still use 110V. The problem is, the lower the voltage the more current you need - an 1 kW vacuum draws 9 amps in the US, but 4.5 in Europe.
The unit of billing - kW/h - however remains the same.
Re: New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
#160Everyone 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.
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…
Yes, but at that point it's like running an AC during a hot Summer day. The compressor will be working very hard to keep up with -20.
Our leaders have lost their minds pursuing green purity. It's a religion at this point.