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by endisneigh 1641 days ago
I agree that we're trending to your conclusion, but we're not there yet.

You're kidding if you think the electric grid, especially in NYC, could handle the removal of all gas appliances and replacement with high amperage electric appliances. You're talking about an order of magnitude (or even two) increase in electricity usage.
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sitkack 1641 days ago
Not kidding, totally doable with batteries. The power density in hybrid car batteries is roughly 500Whr @ 50C, so max power output is 25kW. So 72s at max power, even at industrial cooking of 9kw we see 200s. At max home resistance heater output we see 700s of runtime.

We can cook with batteries and have better performance than gas right now. Which means you don't even have to run 240v to the range. You can run a high power stove top off any regular circuit.

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endisneigh 1641 days ago
Where will these batteries be stored? How will the risk of a fire be mitigated? What's the plan for recycling the batteries or dealing with battery failure? The infrastructure should have a lot of redundancy - I like batteries but I personally wouldn't rely on them in extreme scenarios.
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sitkack 1641 days ago
We are talking about a battery pack that is 100x100x600mm. LiFeO4 and other chemistries don't have the same failure scenarios. A home stove is not an extreme scenario, I believe you are just throwing up chaff and moving some goal posts.
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endisneigh 1641 days ago
I'm not talking about stoves, I'm talking about your claim that "the need to deliver gas to anything other than a grid scale powerplant is over."

It's just not true.

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micromacrofoot 1641 days ago
this is all stuff we’re going to figure out anyway, it’s already happening… replacing old appliances as they fail and retrofitting existing buildings will take much longer
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chillingeffect 1641 days ago
>recycling

Invest in ABML or several other companies :)

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CydeWeys 1641 days ago
> You're talking about an order of magnitude (or even two) increase in electricity usage.

You're way off on this estimate. No way would the energy usage of NYC go up 10-100X! Those are absurd numbers!

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endisneigh 1641 days ago
Electricity usage, not energy. Electric heat, even a heat pump, uses orders of magnitude more electricity. Of course then we save on the efficiency of moving gas, but that wouldn’t necessarily be NYC
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