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

bloomberg.com

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

#21

Post by Kon-Peki »

tannranger wrote: post #18
Kon-Peki wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Excellent, thanks! Now we just need to know how many BTUs are needed to complete a specific cooking task. My main goal is not to question - just to quantify. Is the energy cost of cooking a big enough deal to worry about whether you are using gas or electric?

I just looked it up - in my area gas is about 40% the cost of yours and electric is about 30%. So for me, electric is ~3x more expensive rather than 4x. I'd still like to know if that matters :)

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

#22

Post by b0mbadilh0le »

Here's an excellent article about how our damning of cheap, reliable, "dirty" energy is going to push us into a crisis that dwarfs anything in recent memory. What happens when energy isn't cheap and isn't available?

https://adventuresincapitalism.com/2021/09/29/will-esg-creat...

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

#23

Post by ZetaZero »

tannranger wrote: post #18
Kon-Peki wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here in Georgia, before junk fees:

  $0.0566 per kWh
  $1.09 per therm ($0.038 per kWh using your conversion)

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

#24

Post by unethical_ban »

j_walter wrote: post #17
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.

There is a planned pivot from dirty electricity to clean electricity. There is no pivot from dirty NG to clean NG.

More efficient electronics and less wasteful leeches are possible over time. Sealing hundreds of thousands of miles of decentralized gas piping effectively is cost-prohibitive.

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

#25

Post by floatingatoll »

I appreciate that this is mathematically interesting, but from a practical standpoint, they should focus on “the emissions from gas stoves combined with an absence of fresh air inflow and poor exhaust outflow” if they want to see actual change.

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

#26

Post by tannranger »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #21
tannranger wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Excellent, thanks! Now we just need to know how many BTUs are needed to complete a specific cooking task. My main goal is not to question - just to quantify. Is the energy cost of cooking a big enough deal to worry about whether you are using gas or electric? I just looked it up - in my area gas is about 40% the cost of yours and electric is about 30%. So for me, electric is ~3x more expensive rather than 4x. I'd sti…

In general, our natural gas costs are overwhelmingly for heating - house heating in winter, and hot water. Our gas per month expenditure in the middle of summer is perhaps 20% of winter.

My guess is that our gas stove costs rarely exceed $10/month, maybe less than that.

I would recommend checking your gas bills for mid-winter and comparing to mid-summer. And then take into account any other gas users in your house (clothes dryer? hot water heater>).

More likely than not, the vast majority of your gas costs (especially if you live in a place with cold weather!), is similarly going towards heating, not stove..

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

#27

Post by bushbaba »

barbazoo wrote: post #7

I'm very environmentally conscious but personally I'm gonna switch to an electric vehicle and heat pump before changing my stove to an electric one I think. I will make sure to have proper ventilation when cooking though from now on, I wasn't aware of the health aspect of all the byproducts of cooking with gas.

To be fair. Your gas stove in your home can pose health risks due to often poor ventilation of the fumes.

Your personal and childs health might improve by moving to induction.

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

#29

Post by jeppesen-io »

b0mbadilh0le wrote: post #22

Here's an excellent article about how our damning of cheap, reliable, "dirty" energy is going to push us into a crisis that dwarfs anything in recent memory. What happens when energy isn't cheap and isn't available? https://adventuresincapitalism.com/2021/09/29/will-esg-creat...

I respectfully disagree. This article make large generalizations with little data. Borderline fear mongering

> Almost every day, we hear of a different policy plan to reduce energy production. We learn of new mandates, new taxes, more cancelled pipelines, more cancelled permits, and more penalties. What we don’t hear about is where the replacement energy comes from.

Solar, wind and more recently battery capacity is growing at an incredible rate. Even just this week there have been announcements for massive battery expansion in Texas and in California

Not saying there wont be problems over the next decade. Transitions are difficult. But for the article to to say "it will cause chaos for most of society" seems disingenuous

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

#30

Post by j_walter »

unethical_ban wrote: post #24
j_walter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is a planned pivot from dirty electricity to clean electricity. There is no pivot from dirty NG to clean NG. More efficient electronics and less wasteful leeches are possible over time. Sealing hundreds of thousands of miles of decentralized gas piping effectively is cost-prohibitive.

Eventually...and maybe once we get to 100% clean electricty we can look at adding more things like 100% EVs, heat and cooking stoves. However pushing to add them now doesn't help the situation. Old appliances in general should probably be replaced...a 30yr old freezer is probably not as efficient as a brand new one, just like a 30yr old gas stove is probably not as efficient or leak free as a brand new one.
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