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A lot easier to switch to renewals with electricity. I don’t know of a way to do that with natural gas.
by exegete 5y ago
A lot easier to switch to renewals with electricity. I don’t know of a way to do that with natural gas.
- glogla 5y agoThere's [1] but I'm not impressed by the efficiency numbers. Also, no need to go through electricity. Significant part of my city is heated by waste heat of power plant that would otherwise go out the cooling tower. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
- vladvasiliu 5y agoCouldn't they just cut off the gas and switch to electric once the power plants are clean(-enough)?
- dml2135 5y agoNo, you need to transition over time. Your idea is to just cut off the gas one day, and expect everyone to go out and buy new appliances at the same time? I don’t think I need to explain why phasing in such a change is preferable.
- vladvasiliu 5y agoI don't expect to just cut it off all of a sudden. They could announce the cut some years in advance. Of course, if right now they already expect to cut off the gas a few years from now, they may as well not build new pipes.
- matthewdgreen 5y agoNYC already has relatively low-CO2 electricity and is signing an agreement with hydro Quebec to keep things that way.
- davidf18 5y ago
- ikr678 5y agoA lot of gas distribution networks are experimenting with hydrogen blending (adding a % of sustainably generated hydrogen to the methane blend), much the same as adding ethanol to petrol. However, beyond the engineering issues (existing pipes not always suitable for hydrogen blended gas) it just kicks the can down the road and delays the structural changes needed to get households away from using natural gas. Only a few are doing full % hydrogen conversions, City of Leeds being the biggest project under way.
- Danieru 5y agoThat sounds interesting, how are they managing the invisible nature of hydrogen flames?