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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

#201

Post by ajsnigrutin »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #184
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, thermosta…

I mean... it's a power outage, those happen and sometimes last a long time.

In my country, we had a strange mix of humid air hitting a cold air front, so one side of the country had rain, the other had snowfall, and in between you had frozen rain...

The result? This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2Gr_RKN4Os (ignore the weird music).

This is what the power lines looked like: https://www.postojna.si/Datoteke/Slike/Novice/123958/l_12395...

Was it a problem? Sure. But not a huge once, since everyone in the rural area was familiar with power issues even from the yugoslav era, wood furnaces are still common, even in houses with central heating (most nowadays), and well.. the country of ~2mio pop. has ~162k voulonteer firefighters, and fallen trees were removed, roads were cleared, and due to a lot of shitty wood, the toilet paper was cheap :)

Now we're looking at this (article here), and germany banning gas, oil and wood heating, and many other countries following, and even a localized event or just some operator fuckup can cause a huge catastrophy. (also, I might have a slight bias, since I know how the infrastructure works and many people who operate it, and it's a miracly we don't have more outages.... same for the internet itself... the core of the internet is based on routers saying "This is me, i own this IP block, just send me the traffic" and all the other routers believing it and doing what it's said... so yeah)

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

#202

Post by jablongo »

lumb63 wrote: post #193
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…

+1 regarding cooking gas being a minuscule amount of gas usage overall. And not to mention, gas is still the first choice for most serious cooks, so the small benefit comes at relatively large cost to lifestyle. Regarding heat pumps phasing out gas heat, in NY it isn’t feasible. It gets too cold. In more temperate climates, sure, but in the northern US and further, there will be a need for on-demand heat for a long t…

> Regarding heat pumps phasing out gas heat, in NY it isn’t feasible. It gets too cold.

Not true, heat pumps are widely used as primary heat sources in environments as cold or colder than NY, like in Montreal and other parts of Canada. The take that heat pump tech only works in very moderate temperatures is stale at this point.

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

#203

Post by local_crmdgeon »

john_shafthair wrote: post #10
tombert wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't modern heat pumps work even in crazy cold climates now? I seem to remember seeing that some are rated for -20F nowadays.

Not when the power's out for days - as often happens in winter storms. You can run the blower and electronics of a natural gas furnace or boiler off a little camping generator for a week or even better a natural gas whole house unit in perpetuity. So you don't, you know, freeze to death.

I've never lost power in NY. Lived all over the state. This isn't California.

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

#204

Post by anonymouskimmer »

toxik wrote: post #198
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why "around here" is 65% renters, when "here" is San Francisco: https://thefrisc.com/sf-is-65-rental-households-but-knows-al...

You mean almost half SF owns and it's incredibly expensive?

If I read the criticisms correctly another 34% is homeless. But that 1% who owns can afford battery backups! :P

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

#205

Post by throwaway049 »

endisneigh wrote: post #189
topaz0 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't have a view either way, but we can measure pollution from different cooking methods under controlled conditions so we know which is better or worse independent of ventilation.

Ventilation depends partly on individual behaviour, eg I open windows in good weather and close them in winter.

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

#206

Post by jprete »

amrocha wrote: post #179
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...…

If "shit hits the fan" to the point that you don't have electricity for several weeks then it's unreasonable to expect to be able to shelter in your own home imo.

Sheltering away from home is extremely expensive, disrupts anything resembling normal life - which a power outage does not - and may not even be possible if a large fraction of the local population all tries to find a hotel outside of the outage area at the same time.

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

#207

Post by throwaway892238 »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #156
sokoloff wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 to…

Everybody should listen to The Dollop's episodes on PG&E. It's pretty nuts. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDollop/comments/11e1c8u/the_doll... https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDollop/comments/11kmmsk/the_doll...

Amazingly this is not the worst US utility company. They are all pretty horrible.

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

#208

Post by xwdv »

lumb63 wrote: post #193
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…

+1 regarding cooking gas being a minuscule amount of gas usage overall. And not to mention, gas is still the first choice for most serious cooks, so the small benefit comes at relatively large cost to lifestyle. Regarding heat pumps phasing out gas heat, in NY it isn’t feasible. It gets too cold. In more temperate climates, sure, but in the northern US and further, there will be a need for on-demand heat for a long t…

If you want to be a serious cook work in a commercial kitchen.

Induction is a far better choice for residential use.

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

#209

Post by LazyMans »

lumb63 wrote: post #193
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…

+1 regarding cooking gas being a minuscule amount of gas usage overall. And not to mention, gas is still the first choice for most serious cooks, so the small benefit comes at relatively large cost to lifestyle. Regarding heat pumps phasing out gas heat, in NY it isn’t feasible. It gets too cold. In more temperate climates, sure, but in the northern US and further, there will be a need for on-demand heat for a long t…

It is not too cold in New York for heat pumps. With 20 year old technology yes, it would have required supplemental heat. Not anymore though, not until you get down around -25/-30f, at that point a resistive heater kicks in to assist.

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

#210

Post by TulliusCicero »

lumb63 wrote: post #193
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…

+1 regarding cooking gas being a minuscule amount of gas usage overall. And not to mention, gas is still the first choice for most serious cooks, so the small benefit comes at relatively large cost to lifestyle. Regarding heat pumps phasing out gas heat, in NY it isn’t feasible. It gets too cold. In more temperate climates, sure, but in the northern US and further, there will be a need for on-demand heat for a long t…

> And not to mention, gas is still the first choice for most serious cooks, so the small benefit comes at relatively large cost to lifestyle.

Induction is fantastic and even superior to gas in some ways (even faster for boiling water, for example). While some may still prefer gas, given that induction gives instant power and is more powerful, I have a hard time believing that it results in a "large cost to lifestyle".

Besides, gas stoves actually cause a significant amount of indoor air pollution, which may be more relevant than the climate change impact. They are quite literally bad for you: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/have-a-gas-stove-how-to-...

> Children living in households that use gas stoves for cooking are 42% more likely to have asthma

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