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

nytimes.com

851–860 of 1001 posts

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

#851

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a false equivalence. You’ve either misunderstood or deliberately linked an article that doesn’t support your claim about using natural gas cooking. “Around 2.4 billion people worldwide (around a third of the global population) cook using open fires or inefficient stoves fuelled by kerosene, biomass (wood, animal dung and crop waste) and coal, which generates harmful household air pollution.” Open fire/stove co…

The above is correct. Additionally, they even mention natural gas as a viable alternative in the abstract: "It is essential to expand use of clean fuels and technologies to reduce household air pollution and protect health. These include solar, electricity, biogas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, alcohol fuels, as well as biomass stoves that meet the emission targets in the WHO Guidelines."

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

#852
post #740

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…

I hooked up my house with indoor air quality monitoring during covid to keep track of CO2 levels as a representation of ventilation levels. There have been many unintended consequences to what this experience taught me including dehumidifiers, indoor plants, air filters, ventilation schedules, and yes, eliminating natural gas. NO2, CO2, CO, PM2.5, and VOC would go up to unhealthy levels even with a hood vent and wind…

Induction stoves use less energy, have no emissions, are safer, and cook Better than gas.

The gas lobby has been working for decades to trick Americans into thinking gas is somehow better. Idk how these people sleep at night knowing they are unnecessarily subjecting people to greater expense, greater pollution, and an inferior cooking experience.

But maybe most gas company employees drank the koolaide

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

#853

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…

1. Gas stoves emit CO2 and likely Methane due to leaks. In fact, methane (natural gas is just methane) is a very potent greenhouse gas and the methane industry leaks a significant percent every year. So having lots of gas infrastructure basically guarantees a bunch of methane will leak into the atmosphere. I doubt the stove-only emissions are an appreciable percent of global emissions, but I'll take a 2% reduction. However, there is a follow on effect. Each utility we transition off of direct fossil fuels results in economiesof scale moving away from fossil fuel to electricity (and hopefully clean power generation). So in the medium-term the effect could be multiplied.

2. Burning methane in your house is going to cause some pollution. Methane isn't pure, so other stuff is likely getting burned too. I mean, just logically lighting a fire in your house is probably not going to be good for your health in general.

As for "should we regulate this". It depends on perspective. The gas lobby has worked hard and spent a lot of money to trick people like you into to thinking gas stoves can compete with induction ranges. They cannot. Induction ranges are cheaper, more energy efficient, safer, and healthier than gas stoves. Installing a gas stove in 2023 is using an inferior technology either because of ignorance or Nostalgia.

Now, you could argue that it's the right of each citizen to choose to make bad decisions. In this case, however, that bad decision perpetuates an unsustainable energy apparatus. So I would argue the public good outweighs the homeowner's (or more likely, corporate landlord's) ability to make bad decisions.

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

#854

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So strange what people choose to care about

It's the last straw in a long list of offensive and disrespectful actions the state government has taken.

It's a joke to say "I live in a picturesque place with no crime, but I'm going to move if I can't use my gas stove"

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

#856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the last straw in a long list of offensive and disrespectful actions the state government has taken.

Americans are fucking nuts. Induction works 10x better than gas.

Yeah pretty crazy what people care about. This guy seems to live in (according to them) beautiful place they seem to like, no crime, huge house (5,000 sqft is massive), and they are upset about natural gas. ???

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

#857

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?

Pg&e runs both gas and electric for Berkeley. They are for-profit. It is in pg&e's best interest to keep demand for direct natural gas. It's in their best interest to keep the electric grid unstable so that people will be tricked into supporting direct natural gas.

Fortunately, pg&e has enough regulatory capture and marketing to trick regulators into letting them rob taxpayers and trick taxpayers into docility.

The issue lies not with a natural gas ban. The issue lies with having a for-profit monopoly in charge of all energy production and supply.

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

#858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask the Lebanese, I guess. They have electricity off more than have it on. Every house there has a generator and some have solar panels.

A generator running on gasoline

Would you rather have: A) Burn gas at home 2 times a year for a couple hours. B) Burn gas many/most days for many hours.

I fail to see how B is better?

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

#859

IMHO: The government including EPA has been hijacked by corporate interests that destroy the environment literally on an industrial scale. The same club of multinationals have expropriated our middle class and sent it to China, which is profitable in part because of the lack of environmental regulations which manages to be even worse than the hollowed out ones we enjoy here. So while all this is going on we have the…

Induction stoves are cheaper, more energy efficient, safer, and better for your health.

There aren't any advantages to gas at all. The gas industry has, however, put many billions into lobbying and marketing to convince you otherwise. And it seems they have succeeded.

For your education https://youtu.be/hX2aZUav-54

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

#860

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…

How things are discussed and reported in media may not have a direct correlation to how that thing is.

If people want the natural gas debate to be about climate change but it’s really about personal health and a city’s right to govern risk in that place, that itself doesn’t change because other people are saying, or blogging, “climate change” for this given thing.

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