[pdx6]

SFBay doesn't have big freezes like Texas, but I have to wonder the wisdom of eliminating gas heaters entirely. The blower fan on a typical gas heater uses 120v and doesn't consume nearly as much power as a ~20a 240v heat pump. During a typical PG&E power outage a much larger back up battery will be needed to keep a home heated.

Over the last couple of years, I've had 4-5 power outages that lasted over 4 hours and I live in the middle of San Francisco. I do have a wood burning fireplace as a backup, but those have all sorts of restrictions on use and new ones aren't permitted. Imagine what a chilly 20 unit Tenderloin apartment is going to be like!

Unless cheap battery tech, microgrids, and major subsidies are put into place, it's going to be a cold winter when PG&E is out for hours at night in 2032.

[cgriswald]

You're absolutely right.

I live on the peninsula. We've had many more than 4-5 power outages the last couple of years. Usually they last 4-8 hours, but we've had several that lasted for days, including the most recent one which was 48-hours (and we had one a few weeks ago for 24-hours). They've re-routed power, not fixed the actual cause, so some of our neighborhood is still without power. The cause is a huge mess of trees, wires, and broken poles. We spoke to a PG&E worker and he said it will probably take about 36-hours to fix, it's not high priority (we still have traffic lights out in town), and they probably won't work on it over the weekend. So some of our neighbors are looking at a week-long outage.

It's been cold here, with temperatures down in the 30s some nights. The temperature in our house was less than 50 degrees this morning. We do have a wood burning fireplace, but we've never used it, so I'm hesitant to do so unless we really need it. Even then, it's not enough to heat the whole house.

We've finally decided to get some alternative power here. Probably solar+battery with natural gas generation as backup (before that's illegal). We can only sort-of afford it. I don't know what other people are going to do.

[D13Fd]

Many wood fireplaces barely heat anything. You have to open the flue to let the smoke escape, and the heated air from your house escapes as well. That air has to be replenished from somewhere—and that somewhere is "outside," where the air is freezing.

So in the end all you get is heat immediately around the fireplace, and a cold house everywhere else.

(None of this applies to modern fireplaces that account for these issues - but I don't think that's what you are talking about here.)

[BeLoSmc]

Lived in a house for a decade with only wood heat, as do lots of folks, this just isn’t accurate.

[frumper]

If your power goes out and you need to heat your home, there are no restrictions on the fireplace. They only apply if you have an alternative.

[CoffeeOnWrite]

What’s your point? Nobody is discussing building new buildings with fireplaces or adding fireplaces to existing buildings when converting their heat from gas to electric (I’m pretty sure neither of these activities are even allowed in the Bay Area!)

[frumper]

> I do have a wood burning fireplace as a backup, but those have all sorts of restrictions on use and new ones aren't permitted.

He already has one and says they have restrictions.

[CoffeeOnWrite]

Ah, thanks for pointing this out!

[akozak]

It seems like a very specific scenario you're concerned about, which doesn't necessarily force one to conclude we need to keep gas heating. I'm skeptical a 20 unit building would buy enough battery storage for long duration electric OR gas furnace heating during an outage. Probably not too difficult to do some napkin math on the cost of that system.

[subsubzero]

I couldn't disagree more with most of the policies that California and the sfbay area have implemented in the past few years and this is one of the dumbest. You are now putting your housing(of millions) onto a non-redundant heating system(if power goes out you are totally out of luck like you mentioned). And lets look at the other blunders they are putting into place:

- Banning the sale of all gas cars by 2035(lets see how the grid handles by adding millions of electric cars to it). My guess it will fail spectacularly as the state now can't even handle a small heat wave(in 2022) with the current power grid pull.

- Shutting down perfectly safe and clean nuclear energy power plants which will strain the grid even more.

- Banning gas powered lawn equipment - have you ever tried to use electric alternatives, they are completely not up to the task of a yard larger than a room or two(I do alot of yard work and tried every electric alternative, they need to be recharged constantly).

- Banning gas powered backup generators - good luck when the power goes out on the new frail grid California has when nuclear power is shut down.

[Fatnino]

There is only one operational nuclear plant in California, and it only produces some 8-9% of the grid's power. Don't let's pretend that nuclear is the cornerstone of the grid here.

It should have been, but currently we are facing the results of decades of the feds and everyone else refusing to build any nuclear anywhere.

[CameronNemo]

I hear they also are taking efforts to keep the plant open a little longer than they originally planned, despite it being close to some fault lines.

[Xt-6]

In case of an outage, maybe you do not need to heat the whole building.

[mbgerring]

Cheap battery tech exists and your next electric furnace will probably have a battery backup built into it.

[fsh]

Or the US could start burying its residential power lines like the other industrialized countries do. Day-long power outages just do not happen there.

[pdx6]

Burying is a good idea and I'm a fan of it for sure. The issues I've seen on my block is the transformer out on the pole fails about every 7 years.

As an aside, it's an interesting failure scenario because there's a loud explosion outside my window, then I get 120v 50hz power from whatever is left of the transformer so half the house lights work at an odd warm glow. :D

[goda90]

My neighborhood has buried lines. We've lost power a handful of times in the last 5 years, usually due to extreme cold(Midwest), or animals getting into power station equipment. Admittedly not day-long outages though. So far the extreme cold cases have been luckily short, so it wasn't a big concern, but if they were longer then I would've been wishing for some sort of backup power for my gas furnace or for a wood stove.

[bombcar]

You can bury local lines. But look around and I'm sure within a mile you'll see high-tension lines going across the land, those are very expensive (very) to bury, because they give off quite a bit of heat.

[inglor_cz]

The sheer amount of third-world problems concentrated in a rich state like California just never ceases to amaze me. You will get better power supply in rural Bulgaria.

[gorwell]

Some of you May Die, But it's a Sacrifice I am Willing to Make

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