New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings • Hacker News Board

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

#521

Post by apnew » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:07 PM UTC

ahoy wrote: post #445

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…

I _rent_ a home, as do a full half of new york state residents. I'd love an electric stove. Every rental I've ever lived in has a gas stove and no fume hood. The full half of new yorkers who rent - almost 20 million people - mostly get whatever theirlandlord picked. So when I read posts like this, decrying government overreach, I wonder if you've ever been poor? Have you ever lived here? Do you know what youre talkin…

I also _rent_. I hate food cooked on electric stoves, so when I was looking to rent, anything that dint have gas stove was automatic non-starter for me.

This whole argument that “you oppose a forced choice so you must hate poor people” is just a straw-man. Just because you prefer things one way doesn’t mean govt has a business telling me how I should cook my food.

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

#522

Post by ineedasername » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:08 PM UTC

parineum wrote: post #460

ahoy wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I _rent_ a home, as do a full half of new york state residents. I'd love an electric stove. Every rental I've ever lived in has a gas stove and no fume hood. The full half of new yorkers who rent - almost 20 million people - mostly get whatever theirlandlord picked. So when I read posts like this, decrying government overreach, I wonder if you've ever been poor? Have you ever lived here? Do you know what youre talkin…

> almost 20 million people - mostly get whatever theirlandlord picked. So when I read posts like this, decrying government overreach... What's the purpose of an outright ban then? Why not just ban it from rental properties? > I wonder if you've ever been poor? What do you think the median income for home ownsership is? I'm sure you make plenty of money more than most homeowners if you're renting in New York.

They said New York State, not City. Pick a random town w/ 20k-30k people and you'll see rents as low as $1000. Newburgh is a random example I chose. So there's no reason to think their comments requires them to be more or less wealthy, poor or not poor.

Or maybe they've been poor, and now they're not, so they're speaking from prior experience. Or they have friends or family or acquaintances that are poor. It's not like a wealthy person can't have contact with folks less wealthy.

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

#523

Post by kibwen » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:09 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #512

kibwen wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternatives to gas are so good these days that there's no way I'd pay to connect any new house to gas.

Gas alliances are significantly cheaper to run. Also perform better. Gas dryers are awesome compared to electric for example. Plus electric goes out often. Gas doesn’t.

> Plus electric goes out often. Gas doesn’t.

Most gas appliances also require electricity to run, and in addition the broader gas infrastructure itself requires electricity to compress the gas so that it reaches the consumer. There's no getting around the need for reliable electric infrastructure; centralized gas infrastructure won't save you from unreliable electricity.

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

#524

Post by cassepipe » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:09 PM UTC

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…

About the argument over climate change : The thing is that although stoves don't represent much not in proportion to total consumption of gas, it acts as foot in the door for the gas industry.

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

#525

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:10 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #464

SoftTalker wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many homes have burned down because of faulty wiring for electric stoves vs the number that have exploded due to leaking gas stoves?

286 from gas appliances [1] 24,000 for all electrical fires. [2] I wasn't able to find specifically fires caused by electric stoves. Most are caused by faulty wiring, lights, and space heaters. My assumption, stoves are not often involved in electric fires. They have isolated, grounded circuits that you aren't frequently plugging and unplugging into. The thinker cables usually have thicker insulation on top of that.…

Also, contemporary induction stoves don't actually get "hot", at least for a stove top. They do have quite a lot of electricity flowing, however, so shorts etc. could potentially be bad. They seem rather unlikely, however.

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

#526

Post by argiopetech » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:10 PM UTC

iamdamian wrote: post #494

justeleblanc wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can get rid of a whole percent in emissions by giving up nothing important, and you think it's not a regulation that the government should pass?! What should the threshold for a regulation to pass, in your opinion? Should it cut single-handedly emissions by 2% on its own? 5%? 10%? 50%?

Based on the information you've provided, I don't think we can get rid of a whole percent, since that would require the entire country to completely get rid of gas stoves and also for their new electric stoves to be powered by something that does not produce emissions. I know you'll disagree, but my take is that the upside (<1% savings over the course of, say, 30 years) is outweighed by the downside (lack of ability…

Agreed that 1% of the United States' 28% of global CO2 emissions is negligible in the grand global scheme.

Additionally, the energy cost of creating new stoves with significantly more complex internals (both due to the constant march of technology and the relative complexity of electric or induction cooktops versus gas) can't be overnighted.

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

#527

Post by vegetablepotpie » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:10 PM UTC

speakfreely wrote: post #410

seanalltogether wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the change may not have much effect on climate change at all. Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change?

Did you know that almost 40% of NYC's electricity grid is powered by natural gas? Another 30% from nuclear and ~20% from hydroelectric. Since nuclear and hydroelectric can't be immediately stepped up, what do you think is going to be increased to generate power for all these new electrical appliances that will be drawing power from the grid? The heat transfer and energy loss of electrical appliances generally makes t…

To make the climate argument, while it’s true that methane is being used to generate electricity, and there are losses that come from transmitting electricity, switching to electricity overall reduces the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted into the atmosphere. Because methane is 80 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, even small leaks of methane have an outsized impact. When methane leak rates exceed 2.7% of the amount burned [1], it has worse warming impacts than burning coal. Having a network of pipes going to individual residences will introduce many joints and fittings, all of which leak. Even behind the meter residences leak up to 1.3 % of what they burn [2]. Even if you were to burn methane to generate electricity, even if there are efficiency losses to generation and transmission, it’s better to send that methane to one destination to be burned, than to thousands just to prevent the potential for it to leak out into the atmosphere.

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/methane-leaks-era...

[2] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707

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

#528

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:12 PM UTC

indymike wrote: post #423

jablongo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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. As the owner of a 5 year old heat pump in a milder climate in Indiana, I can tell you this: * When it is under 10°F, my heat pump switches to emergency heat... forced air electric and is very expensive to run. * Often the temperature swings are pretty wild... 40-50 degr…

You do not have a Mitsubishi hyper-heat unit, then.

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

#529

Post by mburns » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:12 PM UTC

ivalm wrote: post #484

pipodeclown wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that even mean? Did you not get the whole, burning hydrocarbons is bad for the climate memo? We have to stop all net carbon emmissions in the next fifteen years or were screwed (propably already are) and twats like you keep going online spouting your 'i don't buy the climate argument' bullshit. We're literally talking about burning hydrocarbons to heat stuff, how the hell can you say that you don't buy the…

We’ll muddle through. At any rate, the point is to focus on low hanging fruit —- target high emitters, an electric stove powered by a coal plant is worse than a natural gas stove.

New York doesn’t have any coal plants.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/nyregion/coal-energy-ny.h...

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

#530

Post by 0xdead8ead » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 11:12 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #299

0xdead8ead wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eugene tried this as well. City council passed it without input from the community and is facing backlash. Since the 9th circuit decision, the ordinance has been called into question. https://www.bendbulletin.com/business/eugene-s-natural-gas-b... The community has since generated enough signatures to put the ban to a public vote that will be voted on in November. Anecdotally, I'd say, most my neighbors are against t…

If the 240v circuit is your problem, then this ordinance helps solve it, no? Future houses will be better set up to handle your task using electricity than hooking in a gas pipe to your boiler

That implies that the code cretins would actually make a carve out for it. If I go to the trouble of jumping through all the state / county / local building code applications, I’m just going to build a 20kw capacity 48v solar array with a dual inverter that supports 240v and have the power company (government monopoly) as backup / battery top-up.

My point is, that this is really unnecessary. Shoehorning the general public into electrification isn’t the answer here. And it goes far beyond just my small needs as a residential subscriber. Commercial breweries, restauranteurs, and everything in-between, use gas because it is far more efficient, cheaper, and suitable for their individual applications.

Choice, is the essential thing here. Let the market sort it out. If the market can make a compelling argument for electrification, that’s the way people will go. But for now, I’m unconvinced.

(btw — I lived in Berkeley for years, and houses that were gas grandfathered were especially sought after. Government diktats just create perverse incentives.)