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

nytimes.com

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

#181

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #131
stathibus wrote: post #2

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 about 250-300% efficient.

Sure. When we’re talking about the temperature band they work in. Once it hits 0C the efficiency is very low, and by -10C is almost doing nothing at all. At that point you have two things happening…

1. You are using electricity to warm your coils outside to keep frost and snow off them.

2. You are using drastically inefficient heat for your home.

200-300% in their band under ideal conditions, maybe. Seems like cherry picking.

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

#182

Post by Symbiote »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #147
danans wrote: post #106

Earlier 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…

American houses mostly have air conditioning, which is a huge load. We don't, and make better use of shades, awnings etc.

European houses have had two or three decades of efficiency improvements made to everything, so we don't have the 5kW clothes dryers mentioned above.

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

#183

Post by nucleardog »

rcme wrote: post #75
JamisonM wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can run the blower and electronics of a natural gas furnace or boiler off a little camping generator.." Likewise for a heat pump, right? Does this "power out for days after a winter storm" thing actually happen very often? I am from Manitoba and my worst-ever experience was 10-11 hours when it was very, very cold out in 35+ years.

You need way to power to drive the heat pump than you do to run the blower. But I agree, it's stupid to act like a natural gas furnace is a good choice for long-term power outages.

Depending on your definition of long term… I’ve got ~900lbs of propane tanks sitting beside my house, a propane forced air furnace, and a dual fuel generator that can run on propane.

Assuming I run the generator for 12 hours a day at half load (powering my whole house, still firing my equipment up and working remotely…) and the furnace runs for three hours a day throughout that time… I can keep going for a couple of weeks. If I _can_ get gas to fuel the generator with that can be extended pretty substantially—the generator is really what’s using up all my propane.

So in the realm of the kind of power outages where you reasonably expect society to recover and continue… works pretty well for me.

But yeah, in the future I would love to move over to a heat pump and solar generation / local storage. That extends your potential runtime pretty near indefinitely. (We’re talking lifetime of batteries and solar panels at that point instead of “when the propane truck can come by next”.)

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

#184

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #176
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #166

I don't often like to take a "both sides" approach when assessing specific issues, but this one just seems to highlight the stupidity, or at the very least shortsightedness, of both sides. On one hand, for those pushing for a ban, this seems largely performative, a la banning plastic straws. Gas is used for 2 main reasons: for cooking, where it represents a miniscule amount of overall energy use, and for heating, whe…

There is also a third problem with this.... what happens when shit hits the fan? If you use gas and your neighbours use electricity, and there's suddenly a power outage, you can help your neighbors and heat/cook their food too,... or in case of a gas system outage, they can help with yours. If you heat with gas, you don't freeze even with a power outage, and can still buy a cheap electric heater with a gas outage...…

I'm guessing (maybe hoping?) that the downvotes are for the seemingly overly apocalyptic tone of your post.

But FWIW, as someone who is from Texas who lost power for 5 days during Uri and nearly a week for the latest freeze this winter, I wholeheartedly agree. Not sure how I would have made it during Uri without gas - even with gas, we couldn't run our heater (system still needs electricity to run the fans, thermostats, etc.) but we could run a gas fireplace, which kept our house temp just high enough to keep our pipes from bursting. I still shudder from all the pics of people with icicles dripping from their ceiling fans.

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

#185

Post by unethical_ban »

carlosjobim wrote: post #140
unethical_ban wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

>banning the distribution of gas

At some point that will happen, or else it will simply be so inconvenient to use gas it will be impractical for anything except remote places with propane tanks.

Why is that shocking? Are you also upset that you no longer have easy access to whale oil for your lighting, or a market for steam-powered sedans? Yes, someday in the relatively far future (decades) gas stoves will be a novelty, something small kids look at like they look at CRT televisions or ham radios today.

Who cares? My point is that the outrage on conservative media was built on lies and exaggerations about the now, as if in 2024 gas stoves would be banned. You You moved the goalpost in your comment.

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

#186

Post by nickstinemates »

zmgsabst wrote: post #122
dragonwriter wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most third world countries don’t allow organized crime Depending on whether you mean de jure or de facto when you say “allow”, this is either not a difference or not true.

> organized crime and persistent retail theft the way SF does Those were in a single grouping. I’m currently in SE Asia: factually, they don’t allow organized retail theft akin to what I’ve seen in Seattle or SF. Their downtowns also aren’t littered with drug zombies.

I love SE Asia, spend a lot of time there. Your characterization is incredibly misleading.

There's different tradeoffs between, say, Bangkok and San Francisco in terms of what is tolerated (i.e, drugs) and what isn't.

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

#187

Post by realworldperson »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #176
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #166

I don't often like to take a "both sides" approach when assessing specific issues, but this one just seems to highlight the stupidity, or at the very least shortsightedness, of both sides. On one hand, for those pushing for a ban, this seems largely performative, a la banning plastic straws. Gas is used for 2 main reasons: for cooking, where it represents a miniscule amount of overall energy use, and for heating, whe…

There is also a third problem with this.... what happens when shit hits the fan? If you use gas and your neighbours use electricity, and there's suddenly a power outage, you can help your neighbors and heat/cook their food too,... or in case of a gas system outage, they can help with yours. If you heat with gas, you don't freeze even with a power outage, and can still buy a cheap electric heater with a gas outage...…

[dead]

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

#188

Post by nuancebydefault »

implements wrote: post #178
mschuster91 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

America is 120v now, I believe - and many houses have a centre-tapped neutral supply [1] which means they actually can have 240v outlets in garages, workshops, utility rooms (etc) for high power devices. [1] https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/487836/how-d...

So this is different from a 3 phase system (N L1 L2 L3) with 120 degrees shift between the lines? It is instead basically a 2 phase system N L1 L2 with a 180 degree phase shift between L1 and L2?

I was already confused with the 240 being mentioned somewhere in this thread... it becomes a bit clearer now.

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

#189

Post by endisneigh »

topaz0 wrote: post #175
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #166

I don't often like to take a "both sides" approach when assessing specific issues, but this one just seems to highlight the stupidity, or at the very least shortsightedness, of both sides. On one hand, for those pushing for a ban, this seems largely performative, a la banning plastic straws. Gas is used for 2 main reasons: for cooking, where it represents a miniscule amount of overall energy use, and for heating, whe…

A big part of the reason for banning gas is not energy but indoor pollution. There's pretty strong and growing evidence that cooking with gas leads to substantial health risks because of various combustion products that end up in your air (especially if not properly vented).

From what I’ve read the same indoor pollution exists with induction even if not vented. The confounding variable is that induction generally is present in new construction which will have proper ventilation.

TLDR: it’s a function of ventilation

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

#190

Post by dadjoker »

philip1209 wrote: post #174

Electricity is a universal protocol - you can generate it with multiple different energy sources, ranging from gas to nuclear. I think this change future-proofs constructions, and makes our infrastructure less fragile.

As California has shown multiple times, dependence on electricity alone can be disastrous.
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