[stellar678]

The thing is "I absolutely must have gas installed in my house for cooking" turns into "well let's buy the gas water heater, and the gas central heating, and the gas dryer" and all of a sudden you're using was more piped-in gas for for non-cooking things than you are for cooking, but "cooking with gas" was the hydrocarbon foot in the door at your house.

Otherwise you might opt for an electric tankless water heater, a heat pump HVAC system, and just an electric dryer.

[dillondoyle]

Yes!

I've read that the gas industry uses the cooking specifically in advertising and lobying to keep this toehold for the even bigger emissions. [1]

And 2-3% isn't nothing either. Such an easy win. we desperately need to rack up easy points yesterday...

Relatively as in compared to say utility scale production/storage or hell even replacing home heating like you mention.

I wish we could replace our 110 year old giant cast iron steam heater thing. Would have to either replace all the radiators with electric board things (i hate them) or find an electric boiler (which would have to plasma cut apart the old boiler to get it out lol).

Heat pumps sound cool too but all those options have upfront costs which some of my hoa neighbors can't afford. We couldn't get a loan for other repairs we did with longer term than 3 years.

[1] https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/06/how-the-foss...

[stellar678]

I feel like we live in the same building with an ancient boiler and HOA neighbors who are extremely cost sensitive!

I do wonder if there's a reasonable heat pump retrofit for old buildings with boiler-based heating. Ultimately you're just heating up a liquid and pumping it through everyone's radiator, right? Seems like a sensible product given the number of old buildings with this kind of heating.

Edit: And here it is! https://electrek.co/2022/01/05/these-new-affordable-electric...

[dillondoyle]

Ha are you in denver? A ton of people in cities are in the same boat.

I wanted to get an electric car. But not only do my neighbors not want to split cost of a charger station but also I'd have to pay over 10k to upgrade/fix the electricity - or so I was told.

It seems like it could be even simpler than a heat exchange that I think puts pipes into the ground?

Like it's just creating steam. Can't we just scale up an electric tea kettle? Seems like it would be pretty efficient.

[snovv_crash]

On the west coast there are frequently power outages from downed trees. Gas doesn't go out if you have a tank, so anyone even a little bit rural uses gas if they can.

[stellar678]

Hmmm. I grew up in rural Northern California and we had propane that would be trucked in. Is that what you mean by having a tank? I don't live there any more, but my old neighbors tend to be buying backup generators now so they can keep their fridge and internet running when PG&E cuts off power so their distribution lines don't start fires. (This cuts into a whole other issue about people who want to live in the forest asking for extreme subsidies on all the costly electric infrastructure it takes to serve their low density lifestyle.)

Electricity is overall more plugable, versatile and evolvable than appliances that directly consume hydrocarbons. You can meet your source needs using some combination of grid connection, solar, backup generator, backup batteries, etc... - and you can evolve this source side of things over time without being forced to constantly retrofit the load-side systems in your house.

[snovv_crash]

Yes, propane tanks filled by truck is common anywhere it doesn't make sense to run a pipe and the usage is more than makes sense for a hand-carried bottle.

[bluGill]

Where i live in the Midwest everyone has gas installed for the furnace and then the builder asks if they want a gas or electric stove. If you ask you can get a heat pump instead of just air conditioning, but it is extra cost and you still need gas heat for the really cold days we get every winter.

[ekianjo]

You seem to think electricity is not produced by fossil fuels. In most countries the majority is made with gas and coal.

[wolverine876]

Reducing climate impact from energy production requires both reducing it at the point of production and at the point of consumption. By switching to electric energy at the point of consumption, you reduce demand for gas, etc. The production can then be switched to something zero-impact.

[ekianjo]

> The production can then be switched to something zero-impact.

There's no such thing as zero-impact. Wind farms have an environmental impact. Building solar-sensitive cells require dirty processes that also create pollution and waste as they don't last forever.

[acdha]

In most countries is changing rapidly as renewables ramp up and it’s not uncommon to hear about major countries having entirely renewable days.

The important part to remember is that natural gas infrastructure is always polluting, and tends to leak a fair amount of fuel which is never even used (around me, there are estimated that this is as high as a third of the total usage). That’s all locked in when you use gas, whereas an electric stove can be powered by a mix of sources which change hourly without the owner even having to know about it.

The other thing to consider is that a professionally-managed and monitored power plant is usually better than equipment as maintained by the average person. Lots of people don’t even get their gas appliances checked once a year on average, and you’ll pretty regularly hear about leaks or fires caused by poor maintenance at apartment buildings where you’d think they’d be at least a little more responsible.

[adgjlsfhk1]

doesn't matter. gas pipes leak, and shall appliances aren't efficient, so even if the grid was 100% fossil fuel (which it's not), it still would be more efficient to use electric in the home.

[ekianjo]

> it still would be more efficient to use electric in the home.

Efficiency wise you may be wrong. Carrying electricity is not efficient (you lose energy with distance) while gas (as long as leaks are limited) is a more efficient store of energy from start to end.

[adgjlsfhk1]

the entire grid has loses of roughly 7%. it also takes energy to pump gas around, and leaks aren't all that limited.