[kmtrowbr]

I don't see how it makes sense: the electricity has to be generated, which is almost always via burning something to heat a boiler. Then the electricity is sent to houses via the grid, which involves further losses. So you burn something, make heat, make electricity, send the electricity though wires, to make heat. Vs, just making heat directly in the house to accomplish the job.

If all our electricity came from renewable power then sure, I agree. But most does not. So, this seems like putting the cart before the horse. Why not focus on improving how we generate electricity before we tear out all the gas?

My undergrad degree was electrical engineering. Basically, it seems visible to everyday people, and theatrical, but not that helpful or practical. Happy to hear how I'm wrong. I am certainly very concerned about the environment.

[lkbm]

> But most does not. So, this seems like putting the cart before the horse. Why not focus on improving how we generate electricity before we tear out all the gas?

What percentage should be from renewables before we start switching? What if it takes 10 years to get 90% of stoves replaced? It's surely not a "wait until the grid is 100% clean" situation.

Then add in the fact that induction stoves (and I believe electric stoves) are significantly more efficient than gas. With gas stoves, a ton of the heat just goes out into the kitchen, whereas induction gets much more directly into what you're cooking.

There's also the climate impact of unburned gas leaking into the atmosphere, though I don't know how significant this is. Ideally, we want to get to a place where we don't have to build gas transmission infrastructure to every building. This will take ages, so if it's important, we should start now, not after everything else is in place at the generation side of things.

Outside of climate concerns, there are also some significant negative health effects of gas stoves. e.g., much higher rates of asthma in households with gas stoves[0]

I have a strong preference for cooking with gas, mostly due to familiarity, but there are major downsides to the technology.

[0] https://slate.com/technology/2020/12/gas-stoves-hazardous-as...

[kmtrowbr]

Thank you. I appreciate your comments. It does make sense that most of the heat from a gas stove does not go into the cooking vessel. In fact I often use the electric kettle to speed cooking by pre-boiling water, then adding it to the cooking pot. And I also can see that the unvented exhaust from the combustion of the gas is unhealthy. And also, that leaks of gas into the atmosphere from poorly maintained pipes adds significant further greenhouse gases, as we know natural gas is a far worse greenhouse gas than CO2.

Regarding, the timing of it all, I guess at the root my attitude here, is one of frustration, where ... we have known about this for literally 100 years, but we just don't care. Now we make theatrical laws, but current events are more of the same: warmongering and blowing one another up is more interesting than actually addressing our biggest problem: climate change.

But by all means I am all for whatever we can do and I agree we should do all the helpful things ASAP.

My concern with the law was that I honestly wasn't entirely convinced it's actually the right thing to do. But I certainly appreciate those three points you made above.

Do you feel this law makes sense as well for colder areas that require homes to be heated?

[lkbm]

My initial reaction to the gas stove thing when NYC started on it a few months ago was definitely "this is not the big culprit in climate change". There are clearly other laws and policies that are more important that we're not doing, and that's frustrating.

But gas stoves, much as I love 'em, are a problem, so we should be addressing that. I do think it's the right time to start shifting people over to electric/induction stoves. I'd favor taxing natural gas or gas stoves rather than outright banning, (and ideally we'd just do a "carbon tax" that covered all greenhouse gases), but political realities might mean the ban is the best we can do.

As for heating in colder climates, from what I understand, heating is also almost always more efficient using a heat pump, so in general I think it holds true that we should be weening off of natural gas everywhere.

[golemiprague]

Somehow it looks to me like it will take much more time to rump up our electricity production, especially from renewable sources, than switching at some stage to electric stoves and cars. Not that I mind improving the situation in all fronts but it certainly not the main issue that we need to focus on. I don't even believe climate change is such an issue but I also don't mind trying some improvements to appease people who are worried, it is just that we need at least to focus on the main problems and make it in a way that will not be too costly and bankrupt us all.

[spookthesunset]

You are forgetting how much of the heat coming from the gas stove is simply heating the air around the pot instead of heating what is in the pot. The efficiency of gas stoves is pretty crap-tastic. Induction heats only the pot, and thus heats only what is inside.

(setting aside tiny losses from heating the pan, etc...)

[Gigachad]

Technology connections did a video on this recently showing an electric kettle required about 100wh to heat a volume of water and his gas stove took over 300wh to heat the same volume. And it was even worse when he used the large burner.

[Jenya_]

Natural gas heating is very inefficient (e.g. versus electric kettle). There was recent Technology Connections video about that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c

[danans]

> Why not focus on improving how we generate electricity before we tear out all the gas?

You have to shift the demand side while you are shifting supply, in order to keep the incentive for investment going.

[sevenf0ur]

We figured out that burning fossil fuels indoors is a bad idea.

[Tiktaalik]

We're in enough of a climate crisis that we need to be be doing all these climate actions possible immediately all at once in parallel.

At the same time that cities are updating the building code and zoning to phase out CO2 intensive home heating, the state and fed governments can be moving to shift electrical generation away from CO2 intensive methods.

[dralley]

Gas stovetops are pretty terrible about transferring heat to the food. Most of it flies away into the atmosphere.

[smallpipe]

The problem isn’t the gas being burned, it’s the gas not being burned. Natural gas is a much stronger greenhouse gas, to the point where leaks make up more of the greenhouse effect of residential gas than the CO2 from burning said gas.

[jklinger410]

> Why not focus on improving how we generate electricity before we tear out all the gas?

It's incredibly simple. We can, at will, change how the "single" source of energy is generated. There is no time that is too early to have all energy consolidated to one source.

Not only because the plants that generate the electricity are more efficient and cleaner than everyone burning their own fuel (even when they are gas or coal), but because if we are prepared already, as SOON as we make the change to renewables or nuclear, suddenly everything is more clean.

I don't want to be rude here, but I HAVE to assume fully functioning adults are arguing from bad faith here, rather than "not understanding" this concept.

Don't be coy, tell us why you really don't understand this.

[kmtrowbr]

The internet has successfully changed my mind! A very rare event. No need to appeal to bad faith. I simply received an engineering education which taught me that a great deal of energy is lost along the way to delivering electricity to houses, so that, for the purposes of generating heat, it's usually best to simply generate the heat via the primary route. I also grew up in the Northern Midwest & had to pay electric bills of $800 / month for rentals heated via electric baseboards.

http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-...

However -- thanks to the free further education I have received here, I now understand the argument for electric stoves (gas stoves less efficient due to heat loss around the sides of the pot and also unhealthy due to combustion in a living space).

Going a step further, do you think that heating houses (e.g. furnaces) as well should be exclusively done via electricity?

I am aware that these laws are for urban areas in California (which don't require much heating). But, I am curious to what extent the argument for greater efficiency & health holds up for the heating of houses and for colder geographic areas, considering that quantity of heat required is much higher, and also that the furnaces are vented much more aggressively.

[danhor]

For heating the promise of heat pumps is even greater, with "efficiency" of over 300% (possible since the heat energy is transferred from outside). This means it's even more efficient to just burn gas for electricity and use a heat pump for heating.

There are currently quite a few limitations for heat pumps, especially for retrofitting, but for new homes the main argument is initial investment price. A heat pump is initially usually much more expensive than the alternatives (although cheaper over time).

I'm not aware of any health arguments in regards to gas vs. heat pumps.

[cwkoss]

From what I've read, natural gas power plants have much higher efficiency than point of use. Powerplants try to squeeze every last drop of energy out of the inputs and their byproducts, whereas a home stove just lets energy and byproducts into the atmosphere.

[wolverine876]

> I don't see how it makes sense: the electricity has to be generated, which is almost always via burning something to heat a boiler. Then the electricity is sent to houses via the grid, which involves further losses. So you burn something, make heat, make electricity, send the electricity though wires, to make heat. Vs, just making heat directly in the house to accomplish the job.

This argument seems to assume that all power generation has equal impact on climate change, which clearly isn't true. Am I misunderstanding?

[Rebelgecko]

Interestingly enough, dinner hours are the times when California relies the most on natural gas for electricity production. Hopefully that changes in the future, but I wonder if all this ordinance does is further centralize natural gas usage at a single point of failure.

[adgjlsfhk1]

That's still a benefit. Pipes leak, so by burning all the gas in the same place, you lose way less gas to leaks, and you also gain efficiency since big generators have less waste than small ones.

[micromacrofoot]

Gas pipes in old cities like New York and Boston leak constantly, these cities have had thousands of active leaks for a century.