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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

#771

Post by fundad »

iamdamian wrote: post #365

This regulation feels quite frustrating to me, and several comments in this thread illustrate why. This change is being promoted as a critical step in the fight against climate change. (See most news articles over the past two years covering this.) But when you dig into the details, it seems like the regulation may not have much effect on climate change at all. When you point this out to advocates, you'll get an enti…

Government picked fossil fuels and the winner for decades. The subsidies, infrastructure and regulations favorable to selling fossil gas and fossil auto fuels (and heating oil) was structurally important to government earlier.

Now it’s less important than saving money and improving the electric grid.

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

#772

Post by kllrnohj »

annexrichmond wrote: post #330
cogman10 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more reasons to ban gas in buildings than just global warming. There's the fact that you are actually burning fuel, which released noxious fumes into the home [1]. There's mounting evidence that this sort of exposure has pretty negative health implications [2] Gas is also inherently dangerous, more-so than electricity. There's been more than a few examples of exploded homes/buildings due to gas leaks [3]. A…

Why can’t people make safety decisions for themselves? Many people will choose electric/induction stoves, or not rent an apartment with a gas stove. But many people do prefer it, and I don’t think it should be up to you or the government whether something is “good” for them or not.

How do you effectively mandate that those building owners are maintaining their gas lines and ensuring they aren't leaking?

This is where it stops being "personal responsibility"

Also you personally can still have gas anyway, you just don't get government subsidized gas infrastructure anymore. Go get your own propane tank or whatever. Go be "personally independent"

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

#773

Post by fundad »

matwood wrote: post #726
boplicity wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This change is being promoted as a critical step in the fight against climate change. 27 years from now, when we're supposedly going to be "net zero", do we really want to be supporting a bunch of natural gas infrastructure? Or should we start making that expensive infrastructure not necessary? 1. Most homes built now will be around in 27 years, and still in good shape. 2. Building and maintaining natural gas infra…

> 4. It's just not worth it to support gas infrastructure just for gas stoves. My oven/cooktop is gas, along with my on-demand hot water heater, and fire place. I also have a connection outside that I use for my grill. I think my heatpump has gas backup for when it's really cold. Gas powers a lot more than just stoves.

Gas won your business and government picked gas as the winner. Government didn’t run a gas line to my home.

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

#774

Post by dbsmith83 »

john_the_writer wrote: post #624
dbsmith83 wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logic makes no sense. Make laws requiring landlords to properly vent gas stoves, not ban them altogether.

Nah.. 90% of places would be grand-fathered in. A landlord won't spend money on fixing the heat, they're not putting in duct work and a vent. Practically speaking how would a building do this, without costing thousands. Who do you think the land-lord will pass that cost to? I grew up in Canada with electric stoves (in multiple rentals). Never once did I have an issue cooking.

> 90% of places would be grand-fathered in. A landlord won't spend money on fixing the heat...

But we are talking about new construction here like the title says, no?

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

#775

Post by achates »

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.…

Now multiply that by the efficiency of a gas power plant.

I'm so glad I swapped out my heat pump for gas heat. My power bill went down and the house is much more comfortable.

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

#776

Post by kllrnohj »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #483
stefan_ wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be the problem with this discussion on HN, there are people here who earnestly believe we will need batteries in them to power simple electric induction cooktops.

Induction cooktops generally require 220-40 outlets, so I get that a battery might be a way around that, I doubt it would work for code however. A household battery made out of old Tesla batteries sounds like a good idea, but I think someone has thought of it.

If those batteries are too old/weak to effectively power a car how useful are they going to be at powering a household stove?

Especially when why would you need such a thing anyway when you have 220v+ just itching to get the job done directly from the grid? The grid needs power storage, yes, but there's all sorts of solutions to that beyond lithium ion batteries including water & stone gravity storage systems. Or just centralized batteries.

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

#777

Post by dbsmith83 »

simplotek wrote: post #717
dbsmith83 wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logic makes no sense. Make laws requiring landlords to properly vent gas stoves, not ban them altogether.

> Your logic makes no sense. Make laws requiring landlords to properly vent gas stoves, not ban them altogether. Read the article. Health concerns are an issue, buy they are not the reason why New York is banning natural gas in new constructions.

The parent is talking about having no vent hood.

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

#778

Post by beepbooptheory »

bombcar wrote: post #752
kleiba wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such baloney - there's so many way more relevant factors to the taste of food then which power source was used to provide heat. I bet if you did a blind tasting you'd not be able to tell the difference.

All I know is I've yet to see an all-electric commercial kitchen. I assume they exist somewhere, but I've yet to see one.

Portable induction stoves were used in a few kitchens I've worked in, but as a supplementary tool, e.g., the pastry guy needs to make jam while the line is really busy.

The main thing that makes electric stoves hard for a professional kitchen is ultimately speed and space. You need every single burner during a rush, and you need to be reacting quick, and there is usually very limited space. If I need to stop the heat on my pan, I need to stop it now. An electric top requires you to actually move the pan off the burner to somewhere else, but good luck finding a spot without butting in on the garde manger or grill guy. A gas stove offers the flexibility of being able to leave food there until its ready to plate.

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

#779

Post by kerkeslager »

uwagar wrote: post #686
kleiba wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such baloney - there's so many way more relevant factors to the taste of food then which power source was used to provide heat. I bet if you did a blind tasting you'd not be able to tell the difference.

i like to roast my aubergine for babaganoush on an open flame. try that on an induction cooker and let me know?

Another poster has suggested that you try a butane torch, but I want to point out, that's not just an alternative, that's a better way to do it. It's much easier to move a small torch than the entire dish, so you can keep the flame moving and get a much more even roast. An aubergine (eggplant for this side of the pond) has enough water content to be pretty forgiving, but if you're roasting pita or something else with low water content, a stove will almost inevitably give you burnt spots which taste bad and contain carcinogens. It's maybe not bad enough to be a dealbreaker for a home cook, but you won't see a nice restaurant doing it this way.

And that's setting aside all the other possibilities a torch opens up, like flan or crusting cheese, which are best done from the top.

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

#780

Post by throwaway2990 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #721
throwaway2990 wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re talking about roti flatbread. It’s always cooked on a flat surface so gas/electric has 0 influence on it.

Roti Indian style is finished off on top of a direct flame. Pretty impossible to fully emulate it without gas.

Never seen it finished off on an open flame in Singapore or Malaysia. No one does that. Roti prata is one of my favourite late night snacks. Atleast once a week I go down at 1am to buy it.

If we talk about say poppadoms. Doing that without an open flame produces… it produces something…

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