Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 40 posts

Re: Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

#11

Post by bradstewart »

While I am generally supportive of electrification efforts as a major tool in combating climate change, I am wary of having a single energy source to my house.

Particularly in light of the grid failures in Texas last winter. We would have been in big trouble without uninterrupted gas service. Running a small (1500 watt) generator to power the blower and control circuits, we were able to heat the house and cook without issue.

The redundancy was hugely important. Granted a rooftop solar+battery system would also suffice, but I'm wondering how long you can run a stove or furnace from those batteries.

Re: Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

#12

Post by Tagbert »

jvanderbot wrote: post #9

My father in law, a quite intelligent person with a non-technical background, asked me a really good question re: electric appliances and vehicles. He was holding off on getting an electric car, because he didn't understand how it could possibly be more efficient and cost-effective to use gas appliances in the home, but suddenly it's more efficient and cost-effective to use electric motors in cars. Of course the prob…

And cars are a much much larger scale problem. Home stove emmisions are a rounding error.

Re: Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

#14

Post by conjecTech »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #3
Kon-Peki wrote: post #2

Swapping a gas stove for an electric can easily cost double the price of the stove. Consider running a 30, 40, or possibly even 50 amp circuit and capping or removing the gas line. Neither of these tasks are ones that are ok to be done poorly.

And that's before you even turn it on. Electricity is far more expensive per BTU than gas pretty much anywhere with municipal gas.

That's true with marginal costs, but it doesn't consider fixed costs. My range is the only thing that uses gas in my unit. The connection fee is $18/month. The actual charge for gas was $0.73 last month. Sure, the marginal economics look better, but I'd save close to $200/year if I could switch over to all electric.

Re: Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

#15

Post by smileysteve »

jvanderbot wrote: post #9

My father in law, a quite intelligent person with a non-technical background, asked me a really good question re: electric appliances and vehicles. He was holding off on getting an electric car, because he didn't understand how it could possibly be more efficient and cost-effective to use gas appliances in the home, but suddenly it's more efficient and cost-effective to use electric motors in cars. Of course the prob…

To add confusion; induction is drastically more efficient than resistance heating; heat pumps are drastically more efficient than gas or traditional heat.

So the communication problem is also one of changing technology. Technologies that adults learned 30 years ago are not the same as those today.

Re: Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

#17

Post by j_walter »

baud147258 wrote: post #5

The title could be re written as "Americans’ gas stoves are as bad for the climate as less than 1% of US all cars".

They didn't really dive into the fact that if you switch all of those gas stoves for electricity...a lot of that electricity comes from NG or coal fired plants anyway.

They focus on leaks too...well every appliance plugged in leaks electricity it multiple forms.

Re: Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

#18

Post by tannranger »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #10
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's before you even turn it on. Electricity is far more expensive per BTU than gas pretty much anywhere with municipal gas.

Do you have a source that quantifies it? Something along the lines of "It costs 5 cents to make a box of macaroni and cheese using gas, but 7 cents using electricity". I just moved from a condo that used electricity for cooking to a house that uses natural gas for cooking. Same number of people in the household and same amount of cooking done. How much less am I paying? $1? $10? Is it enough to matter?

There's ~100,000 BTUs per therm (as sold in the USA). A therm where we are (Bay Area California) costs roughly $2 USD.

We pay ~$0.30 per kWh via electricity.

We can convert a kilowatt hour to BTUs - ~3400 BTU/hr ~= 1 kWh.

Whereas the $2 we pay for a natural gas therm is equivalent to (100000/3400) ~= 29kWh or ~$0.07/kWh.

tldr; leaving out all other conversion inefficiencies, gas is roughly 25% the cost of electricity, for equivalent energy, at least in California (which is a place that would presumably push a bit harder for gas->electricity conversions).

Re: Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

#19

Post by teeray »

bradstewart wrote: post #11

While I am generally supportive of electrification efforts as a major tool in combating climate change, I am wary of having a single energy source to my house. Particularly in light of the grid failures in Texas last winter. We would have been in big trouble without uninterrupted gas service. Running a small (1500 watt) generator to power the blower and control circuits, we were able to heat the house and cook withou…

This is the reason many people in northern New England typically have a combination of propane, electric, or a wood stove. Relying on any one is an invitation for frozen pipes.

Re: Americans’ Gas Stoves Are as Bad for Climate as 500k Cars

#20

Post by j_walter »

BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote: post #16

According to Statista there's 284 million cars in the US; so getting rid of gas stoves would address < 0.2% of the problem posed by cars.

Not to mention where does the electricity for those replacement stoves come from...probably NG or coal...
Post reply on HN