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What a gas stove ban means for restaurants

166 points by fortran77 4y ago

aaron695 4y ago
al_borland 4y ago
I get wanting to move off these fuels for the big stuff, but surely there can still be some room for novelty. Korean BBQ is fantastic.
- rob74 4y ago
  Yeah, I also think it's the wrong priority - I mean, what are you going to replace them with? Electric stoves? Then you'd better make sure that the electricity is 100% from renewable sources, otherwise you'll be burning fossil fuels to convert to electricity (with limited efficiency) and then using that electricity to heat stuff (again, with limited efficiency). Then it's much better to burn the fossil fuel to directly heat stuff... And I don't think it's only Korean chefs that are worried, most professional kitchens use gas stoves.
  - scrollaway 4y ago
    Removing local gas means removing a massive network of gas that leaks a lot. And yes it also means that it’s easier to go fully renewable down the supply chain, even if it’s not immediate. There are advantages to all this regardless. And for exceptional cases, it’s worth noting gas can be bought by the canister… this is how my mother uses her gas stove in Athens, no gas distribution network reaches her.
  - jl6 4y ago
    > Then you'd better make sure that the electricity is 100% from renewable sources Yes, that is also the plan, and we can work on more than one thing at a time.
  - amluto 4y ago
    Induction stoves are quite efficient. Gas stoves, perhaps counterintuitively, are not. This is mostly because the considerable majority of the heat from the flame goes around the pot without heating it. (A pot on a grate is a terrible heat exchanger.) So it is not obviously a loss to burn gas to make electricity and then to use that electricity to cook. It may even be a win. All of this ignores that electric cooking can use renewable sources and that gas fired plants can control NOx emissions.
    - al_borland 4y ago
      I've been looking into replacing my terrible electric range with one that has induction burners. One consideration I saw when looking at comparisons was that electric and induction really require a flat bottom pan. If your pan is curved, you need gas to evenly heat it. So when it comes to something like a wok, you need gas. To eliminate gas is to eliminate the wok as a means of cooking.
      - wumpus 4y ago
        Sounds dire! But there are multiple solutions, and you can find a lot on the Internets about them.
      - amluto 4y ago
        For a wok, you need an actual electric wok, a special induction stove for woks [0] (of course this is a thing!), or gas. On the flip side, if you have a mediocre pan with a thick base but thin walls, an induction stove won’t heat the walls the way a gas stove would, which will reduce burning. [0] https://www.atcooker.com/products/commercial-induction-wok/ https://www.atcooker.com/products/commercial-induction-wok/ for example. I have no idea if this is any good.
        al_borland 4y ago
        Interesting. I wonder if the law makers are looking at the environmental cost of producing all these new cooktops vs using what has already been produced. Kind of like the plastic Nalgene bottle you already own, and functions perfectly fine, is better for the environment than throwing it out to buy a new stainless steel bottle. Granted, the water bottle example doesn't require a fuel source for continued use.
  - GoldenRacer 4y ago
    I was trying to figure out how much CO2 burning natural gas creates to get a grasp of how big of an issue this is. I found a source claiming 116.65 pounds of CO2 per million BTU produced by burning natural gas. Even if we assume chefs have a really hot burner cooking at 20,000 BTU per hour, that's 2.3 pounds CO2 per hour. Add on a little more for the methane released (some sources say 1/3) if you want. Let's just round up to 3 pounds CO2 equivalent/hour cooking for what is likely an overestimation. If anyone has better estimates or sees an error in my math, I'd be happy to hear. Meanwhile producing a pound of beef causes 22 pounds of CO2 equivalent emissions. So, if you order a 16 oz steak that was cooked for 15 minutes on a gas stove, the stove was responsible for <3.5% of the emissions. So yeah, seems like a feel good measure that doesn't actually make much of a difference. But maybe that's the point? https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      The impact of something else doesn't change the impact of what you do. If someone hands you a $1 million check, you don't say 'this is nothing compared to a $1 billion check; I'm not going to cash it'. If you create an open source project, you don't say 'it's not Linux, so I'm going to abandon it'. It's an absurd rhetorical argument. Just cut the GHG where you can. This relative impact argument is the latest FUD, IMHO. It's incredible to see whoever come up with one reason after another to resist action on climate change, and then see everyone repeat it. Meanwhile, the world is warming up.
      - GoldenRacer 4y ago
        > Just cut the GHG where you can. I 100% agree and wasn't trying to discourage anyone from cutting where they can. I just think it's important to actually cut where you can and not make insignificant changes, pat yourself on the back, and call it a day. Imagine you had an employee that spent 7 hours a day browsing reddit 15 minutes a day smoking cigarettes and 45 minutes actually working. You approach them about wasting time and they respond "You know what boss, you're right. I'll cut out my smoke breaks." You'd be correct to tell them the 15 minutes of smoke breaks aren't the problem, the 7 hours on reddit is the problem! In the context of my above comment, if you really wanted to cut your CO2 production, you'd stop eating beef. Producing a pound of beans results in around 1 pound of CO2 emissions. When people start eating those instead of steak to cut their emissions, I'll start taking their desire to get rid of gas stoves seriously. Meanwhile, the world is warming up.
  - russdill 4y ago
    LA is working towards a 100% carbon-neutral power grid by 2035.
- krallja 4y ago
  Korean BBQ should use charcoal, methane grills are a weak imitation at best.
WalterGR 4y ago
Actual article title: "The end of Korean BBQ in L.A.? What the gas stove ban means for your fave restaurants" Subtitle, emphasis mine: "Chinese and Korean chefs in Los Angeles are worried that a ban on future gas stoves may alter their kitchens forever."
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Authentic BBQ would use a char coal grill, not gas. Gas bbq's are a lot less nice in terms of flavor. I guess, they could just switch to using gas in containers instead of getting it via a pipe into the building. I assume that would still be legal.
- WalterGR 4y ago
  (Originally submitted title was editorialized and has since been corrected. It was something like “Los Angeles gas ban will destroy Korean BBQ.”)
ars 4y ago
This is such a foolish law, environmentally speaking. I totally understand doing this once we've phased out burning natural gas for electricity. But we are not there today, today we are burning natural gas for electricity. So using electricity instead of natural gas in your home is wasteful. And yes I'm well aware that induction stoves are a thing. But induction stoves of today cannot run all four burners and the stove at the same time. We would need to basically double the electric supply to the range to do that. The standard 50 amp plug is not enough. And a lot of homes go with the cheaper 30 amp. Each burner needs around 15 amp and then the stove needs maybe 30. Basically you need around 100 amp supply, or more realistically two 50s. Of course homes typically max out at 200 amp service, so 100 amp for the stove plus 50 amp for the car plus 30 amp for the dryer plus 30 amp for the water heater plus 30 amp for the AC, and you can see we're in trouble.
- basedgod 4y ago
  you don't know what you're talking about or anything about induction stoves induction stoves are far more efficient in terms of heat transferred to food vs gas, which mostly heats the air instead and yeah it's a bummer the one time every 2 years you go to use all 4 burners at once you won't be able to max amp it
  - ars 4y ago
    I use all 4 burners at the same time at least every week, if not more often. You must not cook very much. It's not hard: boil water for pasta, potatoes, make a soup, and then cook a protein, and bake a cake. That's not a complicated meal - you could do than on any random day. > which mostly heats the air instead That isn't actually true, which you can tell for yourself by simply putting your hand near a fire, and a fire with a pot on it.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > bake a cake I'm willing to bet most people don't bake cakes daily. When i cook it's usually 2, max 3 at the same time, even with a multi-course meal.
meatsauce 4y ago
cthalupa 4y ago
I've got a Control Freak, probably the highest end induction cooktop available for a home chef, and is even used in 3 michelin star restaurants like Alinea. It's amazing for consistency, holding temperature, and a dozen other things. It's quite responsive in general! But I still reach for my Iwatani butane stove and copper saucepot sometimes. These are still significantly more responsive even than a top of the line induction cooker, and I don't have a gas line. Gas still has a place in cooking. It has all sorts of drawbacks, from air quality issues for humans, safety issues, etc., but as of right now, there are thermal properties around materials like copper which will not work with induction that mean there are things that simply can't be done with them, and resistive electric is horribly non-responsive. At least with current materials science, there's no true alternative.
- kkfx 4y ago
  Well... I'm full-electric since years and I still have to find a device that really match gas... Induction for me is NEVER able to hold a certain temperature, essentially all plate I've used at low temp just run-and-stop continuously witch combined to very thick pot allow a nearly-constant temp but definitively not much constant. Classic resistance on aluminum alloy and non-stick PTFE coating on contrary can regulate temp far better BUT can't really heat much more than a bit. Combining them I can cook at home like with gas, but definitively not the same experience, it's surely comfortable the ability to move gears anywhere, to have simple systems to clean etc but that's is. Cooking quality is far from being the same. For me, at home, suffice. For a pro, for someone who really want good cooking I doubt.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    The cooker needs to work on continuous mode for setting the power, rather than pulse mode most (all?) of them do. Perhaps there exist such pro versions.
    - kkfx 4y ago
      Perhaps, so far I have seen "relatively few" induction plate of various vendor and shape, none do that at low/mean temp, only pushed to the maximum (witch is used normally just to boil since for frying means melting the fryer itself, so where "the right temp" does not count that much). IR models, including some pro one from a restaurant of some friends, do the same, but at least heating outside the pot the effect is less seen inside. Classic resistance direct coupled with the pot (coated aluminum, BBQ-alike plachas etc) do the same, all seems to be unable to regulate the heat, that's means they can only run full power and regulate temp choosing how much alternate on-and-off states... Theoretically I can imaging an induction plate made of many very small coils stitched together in a matrix so it's possible power only some of them using the metal of the pot and round-robin rotation of powered coils to keep the heat well spread and a constant transfer of little heat as needed, but so far I do not see anything like that on sale. I only see some pot with small steel inserts in an aluminum alloy to spread better the heat in the pot, some others mix different stratus of materials to achieve something similar but all can't compensate the irregular source of heat much. Theoretically I suppose IR plate can do the same, so classic resistance instead of a single bend costantan-alike "pipe" (sorry for my English, not my motherlanguage) can be a set of smaller ones with a controller to power just some, but again I do not see anything similar on sale. Perhaps having a thermometer inside the pot instead of in the plate might be of help to mitigate the effect, but it's hard to achieve, similarly tie a plate with specific pot to ensure a certain behavior can mitigate, but definitively not solve the issue. We have apparently no way to compensate heat dispersion - heat generation... Just try yourself: put a pot on a plate, with a very thin stratus of cooking oil (<1mm) or just a thinker (<4mm) of water and set the plate to the minimum, you'll see alternation of frying/boiling moment and "low heat" ones. An optical thermometer can easily confirm. For induction even noise can confirm the origin, a power meter can equally certify that.
fulafel 4y ago
If only there was something renewable we could make or grow and could make a flame... but even if sucha thing was invented i guess that wouldn't have the centuries old traditional essence of natural gas any more?
- mhio 4y ago
  Is this a wood joke? I'm not sure you want everyone burning wood.
  - fulafel 4y ago
    Just the korean BBQs. Wood, or other biofuel that gets you a flame.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      How is that better than natural gas for climate change and air quality?
      - Hello71 4y ago
        biofuel is carbon-neutral. it might cause some particulate pollution, but if it's minimal enough for use in a restaurant dining area, then the environmental impact is probably negligible.
        jrockway 4y ago
        The occupational risk seems pretty high. I recall hearing that using a wood stove indoors to prepare 3 meals a day is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. People would be upset if their employer forced them to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. For the customer that's in there for an hour or two, though, not a big deal.
        Hello71 4y ago
        that's true, I didn't think about that. a restaurant probably has better ventilation and better fuel than a crappy household wood stove, but even, say, half a pack per day is a lot.
SenHeng 4y ago
Lots of Korean bbq (yakiniku) restaurants in Japan have shifted to electric hot plates over the last decade. It's honestly a more comfortable experience, no more hot air rushing over your face, or cooking your wrist while turning some meat over.
- carabiner 4y ago
  This is how many korean families do it at home. You have a plug-in, table top griddle. They certainly don't all have gas grills inside their dining areas.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    Same in Japan, but so I think yakiniku with gas stove at restaurant is special.
    - carabiner 4y ago
      It definitely is.
      - dghughes 4y ago
        Is gas preferred over charcoal? I've no clue about what you are talking about but I figure charcoal would have been the oldest cooking method anywhere. Gas has no flavour or soul compared to charcoal cooking.
        bobthepanda 4y ago
        Smokiness adds more flavor, sure, but is also generally a bigger indoor hazard.
        zumu 4y ago
        No. Charcoal is preferred. Gas is for cheap bbq places, so it makes sense they would swap to an analogous cheap energy source.
        4y ago
rbanffy 4y ago
Rising sea levels can also end Korean BBQ in LA.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  What does sea level have to do with Korean BBQ in LA? Here's the last ~90 years of tide gauge readings from LA, a slightly rising straight line: The relative sea level trend is 1.04 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.22 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1923 to 2021 which is equivalent to a change of 0.34 feet in 100 years. https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=9410660 https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station....
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    > What does sea level have to do with Korean BBQ in LA? You can't have Korean BBQ in LA if there's no LA ;-)
    - the_third_wave 4y ago
      Strange to see my previous factual post with a link directly to NOAA downvoted, I'd say let the data speak for themselves? Here's some more data: LA lies quite high, somewhere between 80 and 130m above sea level: https://elevationmap.net/los-angeles-us-1002042754 https://elevationmap.net/los-angeles-us-1002042754 Long Beach lies at 10 m, Monterey at 5 m over sea level. With an average sea level rise of 1.04 mm/year it will take 5000 years for Monterey to get its feet wet. By that time there is a fair chance of the interglacial taking a turn for the worse with temperatures plunging back down for the next glaciation. LA will burn down (and not from Korean BBQs) before it is swamped by the ocean.
      - rbanffy 4y ago
        I think the issue is that you tried to confront a joke with a fact. It was a joke, after all (LA will last a lot longer than Florida, for instance). I suppose there won't be any Korean BBQ in Florida by the turn of the next century.
breadloaf 4y ago
I always find laughable when governments are scolding or limiting peasants for basically nothing, while ignoring the elephant in the room. * You need to conserve the water, California peasant! Ignore the fact that 80% of water in California is consumed by agriculture and we are not going to do anything about it. * You need to stop using your gas stove, peasant! Ignore the fact that we are going to switch off Diablo Nuclear Power plant and replace it with gas plants.
- tlogan 4y ago
  Sad but true. This is all about politicians are trying to be “woke/progressive” without actually trying to solve the problem. Would keeping Diablo nuclear plant and focusing on replacing other plants with clean energy help global warning? Yes! But that is hard.
- D13Fd 4y ago
  - throwaway27727 4y ago
    If you really want to optimize for the long term, obtaining goodwill by not making the forced habit changes first would be better.
    - D13Fd 4y ago
      That doesn’t obtain goodwill, it just delays the inevitable while we continue putting these gases into the atmosphere.
      - forum_ghost 4y ago
        Populations of insects have collapsed, fish stocks have collapsed, biosphere is polluted by millions of tons of forever chemicals dumped into the Pacific ever year. Chemicals that keep accumulating in every life form. Earlier puberty in girls by several years, lower testosterone in men by more than 50% in two generation. Intersex fish. Some species are even reproducing asexually which for some was thought impossible. This is NOW. TODAY. CO2 has become such a convenient misdirection device that the industry uses to keep your attention away from rather current things that can very well implode life as we know it well before any "climate problems" actually become disruptive as these all other pollutants are today. Why else do you think Exxon is rated 100% ESG compliant? Yes! They bought some credits or whatever, but still dump a few million tons of actual pollutants that destroy life TODAY. Just keep everyone spinning on the carbon hamster wheels. It's the green way.
neonate 4y ago
https://archive.ph/1nRQk https://archive.ph/1nRQk
- zomg 4y ago
  you're the real hero, thank you!
  - noasaservice 4y ago
    "Bypass paywalls clean" for firefox addons also works to see the content (and a whole lot other news sites too).
Mikeb85 4y ago
In Europe almost everyone and many (most?) restaurants are electric-only. It means nothing for restaurants except they'll need to get electric appliances and grills will be slightly less common (since electric grills aren't great and solid fuel grills require their own hood vent).
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  > many (most?) restaurants are electric-only. Are you in the restaurant industry? Maybe you know more than me, but about 3/4 of restaurants I go to in Europe have open kitchens, and I mean it's completely obvious that every single one of them is using gas, as you can literally see the flames, and I guess those with closed kitchens it's similar, so I can't square what you're saying with my own eyes.
  - forum_ghost 4y ago
    European restaurants (in any EU country, even Germany) absolutely do use gas, and it's fairly common. Depending on the restaurant, i'd go as far as to say "all" of them use it. At least the ones worth mentioning. Heating up hotdogs can probably done one something other than gas. Fewer natgas stover in Germany, more in Italy. Netherlands has like 92% of households hooked up to natural gas. Restaurants are mostly gas or induction.
    - Mikeb85 4y ago
      > At least the ones worth mentioning Of the top of my head can name a fair amount of 2/3 star restaurants that are all electric. BTW, Germany is among the MOST addicted to gas in the EU, despite their greenwashing. Generally the nations with the most nuclear energy are the lost likely to choose electric > gas.
      - forum_ghost 4y ago
        the famous french restaurants are cooking on electric, really?
  - 4y ago
mschuster91 4y ago
It's fine if the construction of new gas lines is banned because gas heaters can live for over three decades, even as it makes construction of new housing slightly more expensive because any alternative to gas is more expensive to build, but the real elephant in housing costs is the land anyway. Restaurants and anyone else wanting gas in a new construction can go and use bottled gas.
m0llusk 4y ago
It seems like an alternative might be to use induction to warm a small heat exchange device, then blow air through it so that extremely hot air similar to a gas flame comes out. Probably some engineering would be needed, but not that much. There are already serious problems with water vapor condensation from burning natural gas so this could potentially be a superior alternative with more opportunities for controlling the heat output.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  Charcoal is another option and doesn't have the water vapor problem either (it also cooks better and hotter than gas).
- kemiller 4y ago
  No point to induction then. Just use a resistive element. Seems like it would be hard to heat the air fast enough to compete, but who knows.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Spivak 4y ago
    This is basically my holy grail electric stovetop. I want a ring coils just like in my broiler sitting just below a normal stove grate because heating the air is basically the only way to get even heat distribution. Induction can also do that i know but I’m not really a fan of my stovetop being basically not user serviceable and a sealed box of electronics and glass.
danShumway 4y ago
From what I can tell, gas stove bans would really just be a side effect of the broader measure, which is requiring homes to be "emission free". The measure seems to be more directly about heating/water/etc... Which makes me wonder if it might not just make sense to add some exclusions for some specific appliances for places like restaurants. I don't know the numbers, but I doubt that stoves in specific are the highest carbon emitters, even in restaurants. But I could very well be wrong. Ignoring the environmental debate, purely for your own benefit I see light-to-medium-confidence evidence that gas stoves should be avoided just because they decrease the quality of air inside your home while you're cooking. It's not something I'm willing to make a strong claim about, but if I was buying a house or redoing a kitchen I personally would not put in a gas stove, and if I was renting I would avoid an apartment that has one. Again, I'm not going to make a strong claim increased particulate count during cooking is even something that's worth worrying about in the first place, but I do think the evidence is strong enough to at least warrant additional attention, and assuming that it turns out that gas stoves really do significantly lower air quality nearby during use, I could see a somewhat reasonable argument to be made that they shouldn't be allowed in newly constructed homes just on that basis, or at least a requirement that there be better ventilation attached to them than often currently is.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  I live in MA, and in my old house I heated and cooked with gas. In the summer my gas bill was $30. In the winter my gas bill would go up to about $200. One extremely cold January in 2015 nearly cost $300. So, yeah, space heating uses much more gas than cooking.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    I wonder what affected your air quality more? I could see it either way.
    - Kirby64 4y ago
      Inherently gas furnaces pipe their fumes out outside, so air quality should be better for the furnace than the gas stove, even though the furnace uses way more gas. Exterior though, obviously the furnace is worse since its all going outside.
adolph 4y ago
I've seen this topic pop up on HN from time to time. Most of the discussion comes from folks concerned about climate change saying inductions fine and folks die hard about gas cooktops. Where are the people interested in new ways to prepare compounds for digestion? Is anyone charring surfaces with a laser? Retuning microwave antenna to target lipids? Levening with organisms other than yeast?
gwbas1c 4y ago
Is hydrogen practical? What about other forms of bio-gas? Personally I wonder if shutting down the gas network for cooking, and backup generators, is short-sighted. It seems to make more sense to push for mixing in carbon neutral gas sources and letting cost be more of a motivating factor. IE: I pay about $20 a month for gas in the summer when I just use it for cooking and grilling. They could swap in carbon-neutral gas and double my bill and I wouldn't care. BUT, if I was paying for gas to heat my house, you betcha I'd switch to a heat pump if my cost of gas doubled. (I have solar and heat with a heat pump. I only have gas for cooking and a backup heater.) Carbon-neutral gas: Figure out how to harvest methane from decaying plant matter.
- elil17 4y ago
  Yeah, it's absolutely short sighted. Gas appliances are more efficient than electric appliances powered by natural gas fired power plants. While hydrogen might be a way's away (plus it requires redesigning everything), people (for example, Oberon fuels in California) are already mixing renewable dimethyl ether (similar to propane, but the central carbon atom is an oxygen atom) with propane in tanks for gas grills. Storing fuels is cheaper and better for the environment than storing electricity. Expanding the electric grid will be more challenging than repurposing the gas grid.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    Doesn't that omit the impact of natural gas on climate change?
    - elil17 4y ago
      I mean it impacts the climate whether it’s burned in a burner or in a power plant. We shouldn’t do either, but if you stop just the appliances you’ll just end up burning more in a power plant.
      - wolverine876 4y ago
        > if you stop just the appliances you’ll just end up burning more in a power plant That power plant doesn't have to use natural gas.
TameAntelope 4y ago
I know this is about the environmental impacts, but isn't it also bad for you to have in your home? Surprised that's not more discussed here.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  It's discussed prominently every time gas stoves are even sideways-relevant to an article?
  - TameAntelope 4y ago
    Apologies, maybe I'm blind but can you point me in the right direction in this comments section?
kmtrowbr 4y ago
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.
- danans 4y ago
  > 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.
- lkbm 4y ago
  > 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-asthma.html https://slate.com/technology/2020/12/gas-stoves-hazardous-as...
sudden_dystopia 4y ago
Because the electricity isn’t generated by mostly natural gas anyway and will continue to be for the foreseeable future…this doesn’t reduce emissions, it’s just authoritarian virtue signaling. If they tell those of us that live in a cold climate that we can’t have gas furnaces and gas water heaters, they are going to be rudely awakened by our response.
- timbit42 4y ago
  It is easier to capture CO2 when using it at a plant to produce electricity than when burning it in a stove.
- russdill 4y ago
  Generating electricity with natural gas is not surprisingly more efficient than cooking with natural gas. Also, in California, less than half of the electricity is produced by natural gas.
elil17 4y ago
Your home stove is probably around 7,000 BTU/hr (perhaps up to 20,000 if you have a fancy stove). Professional woks use 100,000 at the very minimum.
- chociej 4y ago
  That's only 30 kilowatts, which is really modest in terms of power demand for a commercial kitchen. And electric cooking can often deliver heat more efficiently to the cookware. Electric equivalent to 100k BTU/hr gas is not very hard to achieve.
  - elil17 4y ago
    There are certainly 100k BTU/hr induction woks
jeffwask 4y ago
Sure, gas stoves in restaurants are going to save us but shit like this is fine. https://jalopnik.com/lufthansa-group-admits-to-flying-18-000-empty-planes-to-1848330865 https://jalopnik.com/lufthansa-group-admits-to-flying-18-000...
carlgreene 4y ago
Do residential and commercial gas stoves even have a material impact on our emissions? Just like the paper straw debacle, I find it comical that legislators waste so much energy on ridiculously trivial things instead of putting that energy into something with larger returns.
- droopyEyelids 4y ago
  Not emissions, but their combustion byproducts have been shown to be dangerous to people breathing in the enclosure. https://rmi.org/insight/gas-stoves-pollution-health/ https://rmi.org/insight/gas-stoves-pollution-health/
hristov 4y ago
Wow. So much bullshit. Where do I start. Most importantly, the motion only bans gas appliances in new construction. Now think about this and re-read the article with this important fact in mind, and you will discover that nothing in the article is actually the least bit relevant for the proposed ordinance. Everything they talk about refers to existing restaurants in existing buildings, which will not be affected by the ordinance. Even in todays time of massive construction the percentage of actual new buildings is incredibly small. This is a necessary result from the high cost of construction. I am trying to remember if I ever stepped in a genuinely newly built (i.e., less than a year old) building this year, and I cannot. And I live in a city with massive construction and cranes everywhere. In a city like LA, where most of the area is already built up, there is are so many existing buildings, that it will be many decades before anyone has any difficulty finding a fire grilled meal. Now about cost. They talk about how expensive it will be to rip out all the gas stoves and put in electric. Again completely irrelevant. If you already have gas stoves, then you are in an existing building, then you will not be affected by the proposed ordinance. The theory about how there will be a glut of used gas stoves on the market is equally stupid. The part where a restaurant owner compares his gas bill to his electric bill is especially dumb. What does that have to do with anything? He has no electric stoves, his electric bill is mostly for air-conditioning, lighting and ventilation. (Ironically a lot of it I am sure goes for air-conditioning to remove the heat from his kitchen and ventilation to remove the smoke from his gas appliances.) What the article does not say is that if you stick to the actual proposed ordinance, everyone's costs will go down significantly. When you are talking about new buildings, avoiding the need to build the gas infrastructure results in significant savings and so does skipping all the chimneys, vents and fans needed to remove the smoke from the kitchens. Gas pipes are much more expensive to build than electrical wires, considering they have to move gas under pressure and ensure there are no leaks. Furthermore, if this ordinance is passed, it will result in savings not only for the developers of new buildings but for all people with gas hookups. This is because the way things currently stand, all gas company customers pay for any new capital outlays of the gas company. Thus, when the gas company has to put in a pipe to feed a new building they charge all their existing customers for that, and include a nice profit margin in their charges. Well, with this new ordinance these charges will be avoided. By the way, this is why the gas company is paying for articles like this. Regarding quality of food, all of the issues are solvable. You can make an electric wok to heat up fast. If you absolutely need a gush of hot gasses, you can create that with electricity and heat pumps. If you need the smoky smell of barbecue and grill you can achieve that by heating up wood chips with electricity while controlling their temperature without combusting them. This will actually smell and taste better. Gas smoke is not pleasant at all. The pleasant smoky smells and tastes come from chemicals in the wood that evaporate without combustion. Thus, for example, wine that has been casked in wooden barrels is often said to have a pleasant smoky smell, even if the barrels are not actually burned. All of this is possible and it will be created once there is demand. But there has to be some demand, or at least a promise of demand. And to create initial demand in new buildings, where you are actually making significant savings by not hooking up gas at all, is just an easy slam dunk decision.
macspoofing 4y ago
>that would ban most gas appliances in new residential and commercial construction in the city, citing an effort to combat climate change I thought it would be due to some sort of safety issues, but no, it's a lot dumber than that. This is nothing more than a costly performative action that does NOTHING for climate change.
Ekaros 4y ago
I wonder what are the particulate emissions of gas cooking? Is it entirely sootless? It is not really so big issue with powerplants as those can have more effective control of process and cleaning of output. But at poorly ventilated situations it seems possible to cause lot of harm.
- macspoofing 4y ago
  >I wonder what are the particulate emissions of gas cooking? Is it entirely sootless? Yes. It is entirely sootless[1]. There are no health concerns with gas cooking. There are certainly related concerns, like gas leaks leading to fires or CO poisoning - but of course this isn't the reason for the ban. [1] Kind of ... all cooking (i.e. the act of applying heat to particles) results in some level of 'harmful' emissions either from the burning of fuel itself, or from the act of heating food particles. In the grand scheme of things, gas stove emissions are just not a big deal.
  - ryukafalz 4y ago
    > There are no health concerns with gas cooking. Citation needed. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/5/7/21247602/gas-stove-cooking-indoor-air-pollution-health-risks https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/5/7/21247602...
smallmouth 4y ago
California banning gas stoves in restaurants means normal people need to find a way out of the state as soon as possible.
oehpr 4y ago
Arn't their wok induction stoves? Something like this: https://www.amazon.ca/Commercial-Countertop-Induction-Cooker-Stainless/dp/B01CZOPA44 https://www.amazon.ca/Commercial-Countertop-Induction-Cooker... Honestly I don't see why you couldn't make a curved emitters anyway. Or just several emitters. This seems needlessly dramatic.
laveur 4y ago
For me I think this misses another issue that may or may have not been pointed out: The bigger issue isn't people or resturaunts using gas, but the gas pipelines themselves leaking and emitting green house gasses. Natural Gas isn't going anywheres anytime soon even if we switch over to electric. So why isn't the government making sure leaky gas pipelines get fixed and maintained?
KingMachiavelli 4y ago
A large reason electric (restive and induction) are seen as inferior to gas is that portable units are limited to 120v/15a (few are 20a) so the total possible power is technically less than a gas stove; <1800w vs >2800w effective. However, gas stoves are very inefficient so in reality it's not a huge problem and 240v electric stoves could even be hotter (~4000w) than a gas stove. > Xie estimates that he pays around $500 to $700 a month on gas, and about $1,200 on electricity. Since gas stoves are so inefficient, natural gas should provide no cost benefit. It's likely that much of that electricity use from higher AC and refrigerator compressors demand due to gas stoves heating up the interior space (commercial kitchens can get very hot). It's interesting that Korean BBQ is mentioned since I already see many places using induction stoves for obvious safety reasons; customers are cooking their own food. Hot pot and Hibachi places also seem to either be using electric as well. IME doing KBBQ at home with a portable induction stove and it works very well. I think overall its ideal for even commercial kitchens to move to electric, it would greatly improve indoor air quality and likely make the kitchen environment more comfortable due to less waste heat. That said there are some cases where having an actual flame is important so it would be nice to see some solution for those dishes - perhaps larger portable propane tanks?
- presentation 4y ago
  I live in Tokyo and some yakiniku places even have charcoal table grills.
- karmicthreat 4y ago
  I miss Korean BBQ on a gas or charcoal burner. The only places I have ever managed to have it that was at Jongro in NYC or everywhere in Korea. The electric burner experience just isn't as fun.
  - joshgachnang 4y ago
    Huh, I've never used an induction one, and I've been to a bunch in Chicagoland and LA. Even at home we use a butane grill.
smm11 4y ago
Parents smoked for decades, and now tell me I'm crazy for still using a gas stove. I'll take my chances.
pao 4y ago
Seems like a lot of the interest in these bans is coming from new research like this [Stanford study](https://news.stanford.edu/2022/01/27/rethinking-cooking-gas/ https://news.stanford.edu/2022/01/27/rethinking-cooking-gas/) showing gas stoves emit more methane than previously thought. They say all residential stoves in the US emit GHG equivalent to 500,000 cars. There are 276 million cars in the US. So, this problem is about 1/500 of the car problem. If you eliminated all stoves today (eliminate, not replace with induction), you would make an impact equivalent to reducing driving by 0.2%. Of course it only applies to new construction. If it disincentivizes construction, that's widely considered a feature, not a bug. California is the Land of Unintended Consequences.
- brewdad 4y ago
  Why would this disincentivize construction? If anything, building a home without gas infrastructure should be cheaper. Lower building costs. One less utility meter to be installed. Reduced "impact" charges. Assuming it doesn't lead to a decrease in new home demand vs older homes with gas, this should be a boon to the construction industry.
  - sroussey 4y ago
    People don’t want a lack of gas line. Those that care can turn their own gas off, yet sell to someone that does care.
    - BeetleB 4y ago
      Do we have statistics on people's preferences? Anecdotes: I've yet to live in an apartment/house that actually had a gas stove. No one I know made gas a criterion when house/apartment hunting. They use whatever the place has. When leaving a place with a gas stove, none of them cared if the new place would be electric or gas. On the flip side, I know quite a few people that exclude places with gas stoves when hunting for housing, because they're used to electric and are worried about fires (never mind if their worry is reasonable or not). So I've definitely met more people who insist on electric than on gas.
dynm 4y ago
This article is all about climate change and cooking. But in case anyone is interested, I got interested in the health effects of gas stoves vs. induction a few months back. I was frustrated that no one seemed to give the magnitude of the harm. My conclusion was that using a gas stove for your entire life rather than an electric cooktop plausibly creates enough enough NO2 to reduce life expectancy by a couple of months: https://dynomight.net/stoves/ https://dynomight.net/stoves/ (this is high uncertainty, of course)
- colin_mccabe 4y ago
  It seems questionable to evaluate what happens when you cook without any ventilation. You need ventilation to avoid smelling like food later on. Poor ventilation also has other bad consequences.
  - agentdrtran 4y ago
    I have never lived anywhere, in my entire life, that vented stove air outside — it just "filters" it through a filter nobody ever replaces and blows it back at you, if you're lucky.
    - clawlor 4y ago
      Most of the places I've lived have vented stove air outdoors. I've had the kind you're referring to as well, but outdoor venting hasn't been uncommon in my experience. Maybe it's a regional thing; I'm on the east coast FWIW.
- __turbobrew__ 4y ago
  Gas stove usage may cause a few months shorter lifespan, but it really is low in my list of health related concerns. Eating a wholesome non-processed diet and staying active are going to be much more impactful on my health. Worrying about micro optimizations like gas stoves just seems like small potatoes when people are eating processed junk food and are horribly out of shape.
ripper1138 4y ago
Manpuku Tokyo BBQ in LA does charcoal bbq at the table. As long as they don’t ban that, we’ll be fine.
uberdru 4y ago
Cooking is absolutely the last human process that should be de-carbonized.
jhbadger 4y ago
I grew up using traditional electric (not even inductive; just the normal 1970s kind) and it was absolutely fine. Where I live now has gas (the first in my 50+ year life) and I don't think it's something amazing; I actually find it kind of irritating to be honest. I think it's just what people are used to. Going to electric from gas is irritating, but so is the reverse.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Non-induction electric has the huge huge advantage of being user serviceable but is absolutely garbage to cook with. The coils heat non-uniformly and pans aren’t perfectly flat and so make uneven contact with them. Now there are “radiant” cooktops but for some dumb reason they encase them in glass which I’m sure is for safety or efficiency but also makes them annoying because, again, pan aren’t flat. We are perfectly capable of making literally a gas stove but with electric coils just like ovens but we don’t. It would solve basically every issue with them except the speed to adjust temperature but I could live with that.
tristor 4y ago
Interestingly, I take significant steps to reduce my emissions footprint, but the one thing I won't give up is cooking with a gas stove. It's simply better /as a cook/ than other options. I've used high-end induction, I've used radiant electric, I've used different pan types. Gas is simply the best all-rounder, and has some unique properties that can't be replicated any other way. I take my home cooking very very seriously, and consider it a requirement to have a dual-fuel range.
joshe 4y ago
Propane is a good alternative, especially for the home cook. With good ventilation, charcoal is an option too. Both can actually be hotter that the standard or pro gas stove.
kderbyma 4y ago
why does everyone assume that humans are supposed to be carbon neutral.........it's not based in anything except postulated opinions.....
- jrockway 4y ago
  We don't need to be carbon neutral if we find another planet to fuck up and find a way to get everyone there. In the meantime, it seems easier to just tone down how much fossil fuel we burn.
Melatonic 4y ago
While I like gas stoves for cooking in my current apartment I occasionally would smell small amounts of gas and didnt think much of it. I took apart the stove and discovered that not a single fitting from the wall to internally had been done properly (they must use a special type of teflon tape on the threads or a special type of grease. They had neither). The stove was constantly leaking gas. On top of that it had THREE pilot lights constantly running (two for the top, one for the oven) that ended up creating actually quite a bit of heat. I disabled the two top pilots and left the bottom and now light it by hand. Can't imagine all that gas was great for my health though.
cronix 4y ago
> All that may change by 2023 — at least in new Los Angeles buildings. The L.A. City Council last week passed a motion that would ban most gas appliances in new residential and commercial construction in the city, citing an effort to combat climate change. I understand this article is aimed at the effects this will cause on restaurants, but I think this could have much larger implications for everyone in the area. This sounds like it's going to put an artificial larger load on an aging electrical grid that is already failing due to lack of generating capacity, without adding any additional generation capacity. So more brown/blackouts during peak loads while increasing the chances of hitting the peak simultaneously by increasing load. Where are they going to get this extra power from?
peace4all 4y ago
I wonder how come gas stove, an artifact of the 20th century, became a "traditional" thing? The way people cook on gas stove is just one of many ways it can be, and I'm sure in year 1900, cooking on coal was rather different, and gas must have been an improvement, but also met with skepticism, and probably laments about the lack of charcoal smell or taste. Gas isn't a tradition written in stone. It has serious issues like hot surfaces and higher chances of burning your skin, scurf on the pans, benzopyrene in the air, and risk of suffocation, heating of the indoor air, etc. Personally, I switched to induction for all these reasons. It looks like the only downside to induction is that some users need walls hot (I don't) and need cooking to continue if they raise the pan up. I think this is doable with different forms of the oven, and with thicker iron pans: iron absorbs EM waves, it conducts heat well, and it will add thermal inertia. These pans will be heavier, but IMO that's a small price for all the benefits of induction.
chmod775 4y ago
If the goal was carbon neutrality, why would you start with gas stoves instead of first removing (non-electric) cars from your city? That's like trimming someone's beard when they're currently bleeding out from five stab wounds to the chest. You shouldn't even be thinking of that yet, unless you've already given up.
xony 4y ago

166 points by fortran77 4y ago

I get wanting to move off these fuels for the big stuff, but surely there can still be some room for novelty. Korean BBQ is fantastic.

rob74 4y ago
Yeah, I also think it's the wrong priority - I mean, what are you going to replace them with? Electric stoves? Then you'd better make sure that the electricity is 100% from renewable sources, otherwise you'll be burning fossil fuels to convert to electricity (with limited efficiency) and then using that electricity to heat stuff (again, with limited efficiency). Then it's much better to burn the fossil fuel to directly heat stuff... And I don't think it's only Korean chefs that are worried, most professional kitchens use gas stoves.
- scrollaway 4y ago
  Removing local gas means removing a massive network of gas that leaks a lot. And yes it also means that it’s easier to go fully renewable down the supply chain, even if it’s not immediate. There are advantages to all this regardless. And for exceptional cases, it’s worth noting gas can be bought by the canister… this is how my mother uses her gas stove in Athens, no gas distribution network reaches her.
- jl6 4y ago
  > Then you'd better make sure that the electricity is 100% from renewable sources Yes, that is also the plan, and we can work on more than one thing at a time.
- amluto 4y ago
  Induction stoves are quite efficient. Gas stoves, perhaps counterintuitively, are not. This is mostly because the considerable majority of the heat from the flame goes around the pot without heating it. (A pot on a grate is a terrible heat exchanger.) So it is not obviously a loss to burn gas to make electricity and then to use that electricity to cook. It may even be a win. All of this ignores that electric cooking can use renewable sources and that gas fired plants can control NOx emissions.
  - al_borland 4y ago
    I've been looking into replacing my terrible electric range with one that has induction burners. One consideration I saw when looking at comparisons was that electric and induction really require a flat bottom pan. If your pan is curved, you need gas to evenly heat it. So when it comes to something like a wok, you need gas. To eliminate gas is to eliminate the wok as a means of cooking.
    - wumpus 4y ago
      Sounds dire! But there are multiple solutions, and you can find a lot on the Internets about them.
    - amluto 4y ago
      For a wok, you need an actual electric wok, a special induction stove for woks [0] (of course this is a thing!), or gas. On the flip side, if you have a mediocre pan with a thick base but thin walls, an induction stove won’t heat the walls the way a gas stove would, which will reduce burning. [0] https://www.atcooker.com/products/commercial-induction-wok/ https://www.atcooker.com/products/commercial-induction-wok/ for example. I have no idea if this is any good.
      - al_borland 4y ago
        Interesting. I wonder if the law makers are looking at the environmental cost of producing all these new cooktops vs using what has already been produced. Kind of like the plastic Nalgene bottle you already own, and functions perfectly fine, is better for the environment than throwing it out to buy a new stainless steel bottle. Granted, the water bottle example doesn't require a fuel source for continued use.
- GoldenRacer 4y ago
  I was trying to figure out how much CO2 burning natural gas creates to get a grasp of how big of an issue this is. I found a source claiming 116.65 pounds of CO2 per million BTU produced by burning natural gas. Even if we assume chefs have a really hot burner cooking at 20,000 BTU per hour, that's 2.3 pounds CO2 per hour. Add on a little more for the methane released (some sources say 1/3) if you want. Let's just round up to 3 pounds CO2 equivalent/hour cooking for what is likely an overestimation. If anyone has better estimates or sees an error in my math, I'd be happy to hear. Meanwhile producing a pound of beef causes 22 pounds of CO2 equivalent emissions. So, if you order a 16 oz steak that was cooked for 15 minutes on a gas stove, the stove was responsible for <3.5% of the emissions. So yeah, seems like a feel good measure that doesn't actually make much of a difference. But maybe that's the point? https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/co2_vol_mass.php
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    The impact of something else doesn't change the impact of what you do. If someone hands you a $1 million check, you don't say 'this is nothing compared to a $1 billion check; I'm not going to cash it'. If you create an open source project, you don't say 'it's not Linux, so I'm going to abandon it'. It's an absurd rhetorical argument. Just cut the GHG where you can. This relative impact argument is the latest FUD, IMHO. It's incredible to see whoever come up with one reason after another to resist action on climate change, and then see everyone repeat it. Meanwhile, the world is warming up.
    - GoldenRacer 4y ago
      > Just cut the GHG where you can. I 100% agree and wasn't trying to discourage anyone from cutting where they can. I just think it's important to actually cut where you can and not make insignificant changes, pat yourself on the back, and call it a day. Imagine you had an employee that spent 7 hours a day browsing reddit 15 minutes a day smoking cigarettes and 45 minutes actually working. You approach them about wasting time and they respond "You know what boss, you're right. I'll cut out my smoke breaks." You'd be correct to tell them the 15 minutes of smoke breaks aren't the problem, the 7 hours on reddit is the problem! In the context of my above comment, if you really wanted to cut your CO2 production, you'd stop eating beef. Producing a pound of beans results in around 1 pound of CO2 emissions. When people start eating those instead of steak to cut their emissions, I'll start taking their desire to get rid of gas stoves seriously. Meanwhile, the world is warming up.
- russdill 4y ago
  LA is working towards a 100% carbon-neutral power grid by 2035.
krallja 4y ago
Korean BBQ should use charcoal, methane grills are a weak imitation at best.

WalterGR 4y ago

Actual article title: "The end of Korean BBQ in L.A.? What the gas stove ban means for your fave restaurants" Subtitle, emphasis mine: "Chinese and Korean chefs in Los Angeles are worried that a ban on future gas stoves may alter their kitchens forever."

jillesvangurp 4y ago
Authentic BBQ would use a char coal grill, not gas. Gas bbq's are a lot less nice in terms of flavor. I guess, they could just switch to using gas in containers instead of getting it via a pipe into the building. I assume that would still be legal.
WalterGR 4y ago
(Originally submitted title was editorialized and has since been corrected. It was something like “Los Angeles gas ban will destroy Korean BBQ.”)

ars 4y ago

This is such a foolish law, environmentally speaking. I totally understand doing this once we've phased out burning natural gas for electricity. But we are not there today, today we are burning natural gas for electricity. So using electricity instead of natural gas in your home is wasteful. And yes I'm well aware that induction stoves are a thing. But induction stoves of today cannot run all four burners and the stove at the same time. We would need to basically double the electric supply to the range to do that. The standard 50 amp plug is not enough. And a lot of homes go with the cheaper 30 amp. Each burner needs around 15 amp and then the stove needs maybe 30. Basically you need around 100 amp supply, or more realistically two 50s. Of course homes typically max out at 200 amp service, so 100 amp for the stove plus 50 amp for the car plus 30 amp for the dryer plus 30 amp for the water heater plus 30 amp for the AC, and you can see we're in trouble.

basedgod 4y ago
you don't know what you're talking about or anything about induction stoves induction stoves are far more efficient in terms of heat transferred to food vs gas, which mostly heats the air instead and yeah it's a bummer the one time every 2 years you go to use all 4 burners at once you won't be able to max amp it
- ars 4y ago
  I use all 4 burners at the same time at least every week, if not more often. You must not cook very much. It's not hard: boil water for pasta, potatoes, make a soup, and then cook a protein, and bake a cake. That's not a complicated meal - you could do than on any random day. > which mostly heats the air instead That isn't actually true, which you can tell for yourself by simply putting your hand near a fire, and a fire with a pot on it.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > bake a cake I'm willing to bet most people don't bake cakes daily. When i cook it's usually 2, max 3 at the same time, even with a multi-course meal.

meatsauce 4y ago

cthalupa 4y ago

I've got a Control Freak, probably the highest end induction cooktop available for a home chef, and is even used in 3 michelin star restaurants like Alinea. It's amazing for consistency, holding temperature, and a dozen other things. It's quite responsive in general! But I still reach for my Iwatani butane stove and copper saucepot sometimes. These are still significantly more responsive even than a top of the line induction cooker, and I don't have a gas line. Gas still has a place in cooking. It has all sorts of drawbacks, from air quality issues for humans, safety issues, etc., but as of right now, there are thermal properties around materials like copper which will not work with induction that mean there are things that simply can't be done with them, and resistive electric is horribly non-responsive. At least with current materials science, there's no true alternative.

kkfx 4y ago
Well... I'm full-electric since years and I still have to find a device that really match gas... Induction for me is NEVER able to hold a certain temperature, essentially all plate I've used at low temp just run-and-stop continuously witch combined to very thick pot allow a nearly-constant temp but definitively not much constant. Classic resistance on aluminum alloy and non-stick PTFE coating on contrary can regulate temp far better BUT can't really heat much more than a bit. Combining them I can cook at home like with gas, but definitively not the same experience, it's surely comfortable the ability to move gears anywhere, to have simple systems to clean etc but that's is. Cooking quality is far from being the same. For me, at home, suffice. For a pro, for someone who really want good cooking I doubt.
- AstralStorm 4y ago
  The cooker needs to work on continuous mode for setting the power, rather than pulse mode most (all?) of them do. Perhaps there exist such pro versions.
  - kkfx 4y ago
    Perhaps, so far I have seen "relatively few" induction plate of various vendor and shape, none do that at low/mean temp, only pushed to the maximum (witch is used normally just to boil since for frying means melting the fryer itself, so where "the right temp" does not count that much). IR models, including some pro one from a restaurant of some friends, do the same, but at least heating outside the pot the effect is less seen inside. Classic resistance direct coupled with the pot (coated aluminum, BBQ-alike plachas etc) do the same, all seems to be unable to regulate the heat, that's means they can only run full power and regulate temp choosing how much alternate on-and-off states... Theoretically I can imaging an induction plate made of many very small coils stitched together in a matrix so it's possible power only some of them using the metal of the pot and round-robin rotation of powered coils to keep the heat well spread and a constant transfer of little heat as needed, but so far I do not see anything like that on sale. I only see some pot with small steel inserts in an aluminum alloy to spread better the heat in the pot, some others mix different stratus of materials to achieve something similar but all can't compensate the irregular source of heat much. Theoretically I suppose IR plate can do the same, so classic resistance instead of a single bend costantan-alike "pipe" (sorry for my English, not my motherlanguage) can be a set of smaller ones with a controller to power just some, but again I do not see anything similar on sale. Perhaps having a thermometer inside the pot instead of in the plate might be of help to mitigate the effect, but it's hard to achieve, similarly tie a plate with specific pot to ensure a certain behavior can mitigate, but definitively not solve the issue. We have apparently no way to compensate heat dispersion - heat generation... Just try yourself: put a pot on a plate, with a very thin stratus of cooking oil (<1mm) or just a thinker (<4mm) of water and set the plate to the minimum, you'll see alternation of frying/boiling moment and "low heat" ones. An optical thermometer can easily confirm. For induction even noise can confirm the origin, a power meter can equally certify that.

fulafel 4y ago

If only there was something renewable we could make or grow and could make a flame... but even if sucha thing was invented i guess that wouldn't have the centuries old traditional essence of natural gas any more?

mhio 4y ago
Is this a wood joke? I'm not sure you want everyone burning wood.
- fulafel 4y ago
  Just the korean BBQs. Wood, or other biofuel that gets you a flame.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    How is that better than natural gas for climate change and air quality?
    - Hello71 4y ago
      biofuel is carbon-neutral. it might cause some particulate pollution, but if it's minimal enough for use in a restaurant dining area, then the environmental impact is probably negligible.
      - jrockway 4y ago
        The occupational risk seems pretty high. I recall hearing that using a wood stove indoors to prepare 3 meals a day is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. People would be upset if their employer forced them to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. For the customer that's in there for an hour or two, though, not a big deal.
        Hello71 4y ago
        that's true, I didn't think about that. a restaurant probably has better ventilation and better fuel than a crappy household wood stove, but even, say, half a pack per day is a lot.

SenHeng 4y ago

Lots of Korean bbq (yakiniku) restaurants in Japan have shifted to electric hot plates over the last decade. It's honestly a more comfortable experience, no more hot air rushing over your face, or cooking your wrist while turning some meat over.

carabiner 4y ago
This is how many korean families do it at home. You have a plug-in, table top griddle. They certainly don't all have gas grills inside their dining areas.
- fomine3 4y ago
  Same in Japan, but so I think yakiniku with gas stove at restaurant is special.
  - carabiner 4y ago
    It definitely is.
    - dghughes 4y ago
      Is gas preferred over charcoal? I've no clue about what you are talking about but I figure charcoal would have been the oldest cooking method anywhere. Gas has no flavour or soul compared to charcoal cooking.
      - bobthepanda 4y ago
        Smokiness adds more flavor, sure, but is also generally a bigger indoor hazard.
      - zumu 4y ago
        No. Charcoal is preferred. Gas is for cheap bbq places, so it makes sense they would swap to an analogous cheap energy source.
      - 4y ago

rbanffy 4y ago

Rising sea levels can also end Korean BBQ in LA.

the_third_wave 4y ago
What does sea level have to do with Korean BBQ in LA? Here's the last ~90 years of tide gauge readings from LA, a slightly rising straight line: The relative sea level trend is 1.04 millimeters/year with a 95% confidence interval of +/- 0.22 mm/yr based on monthly mean sea level data from 1923 to 2021 which is equivalent to a change of 0.34 feet in 100 years. https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station.shtml?id=9410660 https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends_station....
- rbanffy 4y ago
  > What does sea level have to do with Korean BBQ in LA? You can't have Korean BBQ in LA if there's no LA ;-)
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    Strange to see my previous factual post with a link directly to NOAA downvoted, I'd say let the data speak for themselves? Here's some more data: LA lies quite high, somewhere between 80 and 130m above sea level: https://elevationmap.net/los-angeles-us-1002042754 https://elevationmap.net/los-angeles-us-1002042754 Long Beach lies at 10 m, Monterey at 5 m over sea level. With an average sea level rise of 1.04 mm/year it will take 5000 years for Monterey to get its feet wet. By that time there is a fair chance of the interglacial taking a turn for the worse with temperatures plunging back down for the next glaciation. LA will burn down (and not from Korean BBQs) before it is swamped by the ocean.
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      I think the issue is that you tried to confront a joke with a fact. It was a joke, after all (LA will last a lot longer than Florida, for instance). I suppose there won't be any Korean BBQ in Florida by the turn of the next century.

breadloaf 4y ago

I always find laughable when governments are scolding or limiting peasants for basically nothing, while ignoring the elephant in the room. * You need to conserve the water, California peasant! Ignore the fact that 80% of water in California is consumed by agriculture and we are not going to do anything about it. * You need to stop using your gas stove, peasant! Ignore the fact that we are going to switch off Diablo Nuclear Power plant and replace it with gas plants.

tlogan 4y ago
Sad but true. This is all about politicians are trying to be “woke/progressive” without actually trying to solve the problem. Would keeping Diablo nuclear plant and focusing on replacing other plants with clean energy help global warning? Yes! But that is hard.
D13Fd 4y ago
- throwaway27727 4y ago
  If you really want to optimize for the long term, obtaining goodwill by not making the forced habit changes first would be better.
  - D13Fd 4y ago
    That doesn’t obtain goodwill, it just delays the inevitable while we continue putting these gases into the atmosphere.
    - forum_ghost 4y ago
      Populations of insects have collapsed, fish stocks have collapsed, biosphere is polluted by millions of tons of forever chemicals dumped into the Pacific ever year. Chemicals that keep accumulating in every life form. Earlier puberty in girls by several years, lower testosterone in men by more than 50% in two generation. Intersex fish. Some species are even reproducing asexually which for some was thought impossible. This is NOW. TODAY. CO2 has become such a convenient misdirection device that the industry uses to keep your attention away from rather current things that can very well implode life as we know it well before any "climate problems" actually become disruptive as these all other pollutants are today. Why else do you think Exxon is rated 100% ESG compliant? Yes! They bought some credits or whatever, but still dump a few million tons of actual pollutants that destroy life TODAY. Just keep everyone spinning on the carbon hamster wheels. It's the green way.

neonate 4y ago

https://archive.ph/1nRQk https://archive.ph/1nRQk

zomg 4y ago
you're the real hero, thank you!
- noasaservice 4y ago
  "Bypass paywalls clean" for firefox addons also works to see the content (and a whole lot other news sites too).

Mikeb85 4y ago

In Europe almost everyone and many (most?) restaurants are electric-only. It means nothing for restaurants except they'll need to get electric appliances and grills will be slightly less common (since electric grills aren't great and solid fuel grills require their own hood vent).

chrisseaton 4y ago
> many (most?) restaurants are electric-only. Are you in the restaurant industry? Maybe you know more than me, but about 3/4 of restaurants I go to in Europe have open kitchens, and I mean it's completely obvious that every single one of them is using gas, as you can literally see the flames, and I guess those with closed kitchens it's similar, so I can't square what you're saying with my own eyes.
- forum_ghost 4y ago
  European restaurants (in any EU country, even Germany) absolutely do use gas, and it's fairly common. Depending on the restaurant, i'd go as far as to say "all" of them use it. At least the ones worth mentioning. Heating up hotdogs can probably done one something other than gas. Fewer natgas stover in Germany, more in Italy. Netherlands has like 92% of households hooked up to natural gas. Restaurants are mostly gas or induction.
  - Mikeb85 4y ago
    > At least the ones worth mentioning Of the top of my head can name a fair amount of 2/3 star restaurants that are all electric. BTW, Germany is among the MOST addicted to gas in the EU, despite their greenwashing. Generally the nations with the most nuclear energy are the lost likely to choose electric > gas.
    - forum_ghost 4y ago
      the famous french restaurants are cooking on electric, really?
- 4y ago

mschuster91 4y ago

It's fine if the construction of new gas lines is banned because gas heaters can live for over three decades, even as it makes construction of new housing slightly more expensive because any alternative to gas is more expensive to build, but the real elephant in housing costs is the land anyway. Restaurants and anyone else wanting gas in a new construction can go and use bottled gas.

m0llusk 4y ago

It seems like an alternative might be to use induction to warm a small heat exchange device, then blow air through it so that extremely hot air similar to a gas flame comes out. Probably some engineering would be needed, but not that much. There are already serious problems with water vapor condensation from burning natural gas so this could potentially be a superior alternative with more opportunities for controlling the heat output.

qbasic_forever 4y ago
Charcoal is another option and doesn't have the water vapor problem either (it also cooks better and hotter than gas).
kemiller 4y ago
No point to induction then. Just use a resistive element. Seems like it would be hard to heat the air fast enough to compete, but who knows.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Spivak 4y ago
  This is basically my holy grail electric stovetop. I want a ring coils just like in my broiler sitting just below a normal stove grate because heating the air is basically the only way to get even heat distribution. Induction can also do that i know but I’m not really a fan of my stovetop being basically not user serviceable and a sealed box of electronics and glass.

danShumway 4y ago

From what I can tell, gas stove bans would really just be a side effect of the broader measure, which is requiring homes to be "emission free". The measure seems to be more directly about heating/water/etc... Which makes me wonder if it might not just make sense to add some exclusions for some specific appliances for places like restaurants. I don't know the numbers, but I doubt that stoves in specific are the highest carbon emitters, even in restaurants. But I could very well be wrong. Ignoring the environmental debate, purely for your own benefit I see light-to-medium-confidence evidence that gas stoves should be avoided just because they decrease the quality of air inside your home while you're cooking. It's not something I'm willing to make a strong claim about, but if I was buying a house or redoing a kitchen I personally would not put in a gas stove, and if I was renting I would avoid an apartment that has one. Again, I'm not going to make a strong claim increased particulate count during cooking is even something that's worth worrying about in the first place, but I do think the evidence is strong enough to at least warrant additional attention, and assuming that it turns out that gas stoves really do significantly lower air quality nearby during use, I could see a somewhat reasonable argument to be made that they shouldn't be allowed in newly constructed homes just on that basis, or at least a requirement that there be better ventilation attached to them than often currently is.

gwbas1c 4y ago
I live in MA, and in my old house I heated and cooked with gas. In the summer my gas bill was $30. In the winter my gas bill would go up to about $200. One extremely cold January in 2015 nearly cost $300. So, yeah, space heating uses much more gas than cooking.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  I wonder what affected your air quality more? I could see it either way.
  - Kirby64 4y ago
    Inherently gas furnaces pipe their fumes out outside, so air quality should be better for the furnace than the gas stove, even though the furnace uses way more gas. Exterior though, obviously the furnace is worse since its all going outside.

adolph 4y ago

I've seen this topic pop up on HN from time to time. Most of the discussion comes from folks concerned about climate change saying inductions fine and folks die hard about gas cooktops. Where are the people interested in new ways to prepare compounds for digestion? Is anyone charring surfaces with a laser? Retuning microwave antenna to target lipids? Levening with organisms other than yeast?

gwbas1c 4y ago

Is hydrogen practical? What about other forms of bio-gas? Personally I wonder if shutting down the gas network for cooking, and backup generators, is short-sighted. It seems to make more sense to push for mixing in carbon neutral gas sources and letting cost be more of a motivating factor. IE: I pay about $20 a month for gas in the summer when I just use it for cooking and grilling. They could swap in carbon-neutral gas and double my bill and I wouldn't care. BUT, if I was paying for gas to heat my house, you betcha I'd switch to a heat pump if my cost of gas doubled. (I have solar and heat with a heat pump. I only have gas for cooking and a backup heater.) Carbon-neutral gas: Figure out how to harvest methane from decaying plant matter.

elil17 4y ago
Yeah, it's absolutely short sighted. Gas appliances are more efficient than electric appliances powered by natural gas fired power plants. While hydrogen might be a way's away (plus it requires redesigning everything), people (for example, Oberon fuels in California) are already mixing renewable dimethyl ether (similar to propane, but the central carbon atom is an oxygen atom) with propane in tanks for gas grills. Storing fuels is cheaper and better for the environment than storing electricity. Expanding the electric grid will be more challenging than repurposing the gas grid.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Doesn't that omit the impact of natural gas on climate change?
  - elil17 4y ago
    I mean it impacts the climate whether it’s burned in a burner or in a power plant. We shouldn’t do either, but if you stop just the appliances you’ll just end up burning more in a power plant.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      > if you stop just the appliances you’ll just end up burning more in a power plant That power plant doesn't have to use natural gas.

TameAntelope 4y ago

I know this is about the environmental impacts, but isn't it also bad for you to have in your home? Surprised that's not more discussed here.

giraffe_lady 4y ago
It's discussed prominently every time gas stoves are even sideways-relevant to an article?
- TameAntelope 4y ago
  Apologies, maybe I'm blind but can you point me in the right direction in this comments section?

kmtrowbr 4y ago

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.

danans 4y ago
> 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.
lkbm 4y ago
> 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-asthma.html https://slate.com/technology/2020/12/gas-stoves-hazardous-as...

sudden_dystopia 4y ago

Because the electricity isn’t generated by mostly natural gas anyway and will continue to be for the foreseeable future…this doesn’t reduce emissions, it’s just authoritarian virtue signaling. If they tell those of us that live in a cold climate that we can’t have gas furnaces and gas water heaters, they are going to be rudely awakened by our response.

timbit42 4y ago
It is easier to capture CO2 when using it at a plant to produce electricity than when burning it in a stove.
russdill 4y ago
Generating electricity with natural gas is not surprisingly more efficient than cooking with natural gas. Also, in California, less than half of the electricity is produced by natural gas.

elil17 4y ago

Your home stove is probably around 7,000 BTU/hr (perhaps up to 20,000 if you have a fancy stove). Professional woks use 100,000 at the very minimum.

chociej 4y ago
That's only 30 kilowatts, which is really modest in terms of power demand for a commercial kitchen. And electric cooking can often deliver heat more efficiently to the cookware. Electric equivalent to 100k BTU/hr gas is not very hard to achieve.
- elil17 4y ago
  There are certainly 100k BTU/hr induction woks

jeffwask 4y ago

Sure, gas stoves in restaurants are going to save us but shit like this is fine. https://jalopnik.com/lufthansa-group-admits-to-flying-18-000-empty-planes-to-1848330865 https://jalopnik.com/lufthansa-group-admits-to-flying-18-000...

carlgreene 4y ago

Do residential and commercial gas stoves even have a material impact on our emissions? Just like the paper straw debacle, I find it comical that legislators waste so much energy on ridiculously trivial things instead of putting that energy into something with larger returns.

droopyEyelids 4y ago
Not emissions, but their combustion byproducts have been shown to be dangerous to people breathing in the enclosure. https://rmi.org/insight/gas-stoves-pollution-health/ https://rmi.org/insight/gas-stoves-pollution-health/

hristov 4y ago

Wow. So much bullshit. Where do I start. Most importantly, the motion only bans gas appliances in new construction. Now think about this and re-read the article with this important fact in mind, and you will discover that nothing in the article is actually the least bit relevant for the proposed ordinance. Everything they talk about refers to existing restaurants in existing buildings, which will not be affected by the ordinance. Even in todays time of massive construction the percentage of actual new buildings is incredibly small. This is a necessary result from the high cost of construction. I am trying to remember if I ever stepped in a genuinely newly built (i.e., less than a year old) building this year, and I cannot. And I live in a city with massive construction and cranes everywhere. In a city like LA, where most of the area is already built up, there is are so many existing buildings, that it will be many decades before anyone has any difficulty finding a fire grilled meal. Now about cost. They talk about how expensive it will be to rip out all the gas stoves and put in electric. Again completely irrelevant. If you already have gas stoves, then you are in an existing building, then you will not be affected by the proposed ordinance. The theory about how there will be a glut of used gas stoves on the market is equally stupid. The part where a restaurant owner compares his gas bill to his electric bill is especially dumb. What does that have to do with anything? He has no electric stoves, his electric bill is mostly for air-conditioning, lighting and ventilation. (Ironically a lot of it I am sure goes for air-conditioning to remove the heat from his kitchen and ventilation to remove the smoke from his gas appliances.) What the article does not say is that if you stick to the actual proposed ordinance, everyone's costs will go down significantly. When you are talking about new buildings, avoiding the need to build the gas infrastructure results in significant savings and so does skipping all the chimneys, vents and fans needed to remove the smoke from the kitchens. Gas pipes are much more expensive to build than electrical wires, considering they have to move gas under pressure and ensure there are no leaks. Furthermore, if this ordinance is passed, it will result in savings not only for the developers of new buildings but for all people with gas hookups. This is because the way things currently stand, all gas company customers pay for any new capital outlays of the gas company. Thus, when the gas company has to put in a pipe to feed a new building they charge all their existing customers for that, and include a nice profit margin in their charges. Well, with this new ordinance these charges will be avoided. By the way, this is why the gas company is paying for articles like this. Regarding quality of food, all of the issues are solvable. You can make an electric wok to heat up fast. If you absolutely need a gush of hot gasses, you can create that with electricity and heat pumps. If you need the smoky smell of barbecue and grill you can achieve that by heating up wood chips with electricity while controlling their temperature without combusting them. This will actually smell and taste better. Gas smoke is not pleasant at all. The pleasant smoky smells and tastes come from chemicals in the wood that evaporate without combustion. Thus, for example, wine that has been casked in wooden barrels is often said to have a pleasant smoky smell, even if the barrels are not actually burned. All of this is possible and it will be created once there is demand. But there has to be some demand, or at least a promise of demand. And to create initial demand in new buildings, where you are actually making significant savings by not hooking up gas at all, is just an easy slam dunk decision.

macspoofing 4y ago

>that would ban most gas appliances in new residential and commercial construction in the city, citing an effort to combat climate change I thought it would be due to some sort of safety issues, but no, it's a lot dumber than that. This is nothing more than a costly performative action that does NOTHING for climate change.

Ekaros 4y ago

I wonder what are the particulate emissions of gas cooking? Is it entirely sootless? It is not really so big issue with powerplants as those can have more effective control of process and cleaning of output. But at poorly ventilated situations it seems possible to cause lot of harm.

macspoofing 4y ago
>I wonder what are the particulate emissions of gas cooking? Is it entirely sootless? Yes. It is entirely sootless[1]. There are no health concerns with gas cooking. There are certainly related concerns, like gas leaks leading to fires or CO poisoning - but of course this isn't the reason for the ban. [1] Kind of ... all cooking (i.e. the act of applying heat to particles) results in some level of 'harmful' emissions either from the burning of fuel itself, or from the act of heating food particles. In the grand scheme of things, gas stove emissions are just not a big deal.
- ryukafalz 4y ago
  > There are no health concerns with gas cooking. Citation needed. https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/5/7/21247602/gas-stove-cooking-indoor-air-pollution-health-risks https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/5/7/21247602...

smallmouth 4y ago

California banning gas stoves in restaurants means normal people need to find a way out of the state as soon as possible.

oehpr 4y ago

Arn't their wok induction stoves? Something like this: https://www.amazon.ca/Commercial-Countertop-Induction-Cooker-Stainless/dp/B01CZOPA44 https://www.amazon.ca/Commercial-Countertop-Induction-Cooker... Honestly I don't see why you couldn't make a curved emitters anyway. Or just several emitters. This seems needlessly dramatic.

laveur 4y ago

For me I think this misses another issue that may or may have not been pointed out: The bigger issue isn't people or resturaunts using gas, but the gas pipelines themselves leaking and emitting green house gasses. Natural Gas isn't going anywheres anytime soon even if we switch over to electric. So why isn't the government making sure leaky gas pipelines get fixed and maintained?

KingMachiavelli 4y ago

A large reason electric (restive and induction) are seen as inferior to gas is that portable units are limited to 120v/15a (few are 20a) so the total possible power is technically less than a gas stove; <1800w vs >2800w effective. However, gas stoves are very inefficient so in reality it's not a huge problem and 240v electric stoves could even be hotter (~4000w) than a gas stove. > Xie estimates that he pays around $500 to $700 a month on gas, and about $1,200 on electricity. Since gas stoves are so inefficient, natural gas should provide no cost benefit. It's likely that much of that electricity use from higher AC and refrigerator compressors demand due to gas stoves heating up the interior space (commercial kitchens can get very hot). It's interesting that Korean BBQ is mentioned since I already see many places using induction stoves for obvious safety reasons; customers are cooking their own food. Hot pot and Hibachi places also seem to either be using electric as well. IME doing KBBQ at home with a portable induction stove and it works very well. I think overall its ideal for even commercial kitchens to move to electric, it would greatly improve indoor air quality and likely make the kitchen environment more comfortable due to less waste heat. That said there are some cases where having an actual flame is important so it would be nice to see some solution for those dishes - perhaps larger portable propane tanks?

presentation 4y ago
I live in Tokyo and some yakiniku places even have charcoal table grills.
karmicthreat 4y ago
I miss Korean BBQ on a gas or charcoal burner. The only places I have ever managed to have it that was at Jongro in NYC or everywhere in Korea. The electric burner experience just isn't as fun.
- joshgachnang 4y ago
  Huh, I've never used an induction one, and I've been to a bunch in Chicagoland and LA. Even at home we use a butane grill.

smm11 4y ago

Parents smoked for decades, and now tell me I'm crazy for still using a gas stove. I'll take my chances.

pao 4y ago

Seems like a lot of the interest in these bans is coming from new research like this [Stanford study](https://news.stanford.edu/2022/01/27/rethinking-cooking-gas/ https://news.stanford.edu/2022/01/27/rethinking-cooking-gas/) showing gas stoves emit more methane than previously thought. They say all residential stoves in the US emit GHG equivalent to 500,000 cars. There are 276 million cars in the US. So, this problem is about 1/500 of the car problem. If you eliminated all stoves today (eliminate, not replace with induction), you would make an impact equivalent to reducing driving by 0.2%. Of course it only applies to new construction. If it disincentivizes construction, that's widely considered a feature, not a bug. California is the Land of Unintended Consequences.

brewdad 4y ago
Why would this disincentivize construction? If anything, building a home without gas infrastructure should be cheaper. Lower building costs. One less utility meter to be installed. Reduced "impact" charges. Assuming it doesn't lead to a decrease in new home demand vs older homes with gas, this should be a boon to the construction industry.
- sroussey 4y ago
  People don’t want a lack of gas line. Those that care can turn their own gas off, yet sell to someone that does care.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    Do we have statistics on people's preferences? Anecdotes: I've yet to live in an apartment/house that actually had a gas stove. No one I know made gas a criterion when house/apartment hunting. They use whatever the place has. When leaving a place with a gas stove, none of them cared if the new place would be electric or gas. On the flip side, I know quite a few people that exclude places with gas stoves when hunting for housing, because they're used to electric and are worried about fires (never mind if their worry is reasonable or not). So I've definitely met more people who insist on electric than on gas.

dynm 4y ago

This article is all about climate change and cooking. But in case anyone is interested, I got interested in the health effects of gas stoves vs. induction a few months back. I was frustrated that no one seemed to give the magnitude of the harm. My conclusion was that using a gas stove for your entire life rather than an electric cooktop plausibly creates enough enough NO2 to reduce life expectancy by a couple of months: https://dynomight.net/stoves/ https://dynomight.net/stoves/ (this is high uncertainty, of course)

colin_mccabe 4y ago
It seems questionable to evaluate what happens when you cook without any ventilation. You need ventilation to avoid smelling like food later on. Poor ventilation also has other bad consequences.
- agentdrtran 4y ago
  I have never lived anywhere, in my entire life, that vented stove air outside — it just "filters" it through a filter nobody ever replaces and blows it back at you, if you're lucky.
  - clawlor 4y ago
    Most of the places I've lived have vented stove air outdoors. I've had the kind you're referring to as well, but outdoor venting hasn't been uncommon in my experience. Maybe it's a regional thing; I'm on the east coast FWIW.
__turbobrew__ 4y ago
Gas stove usage may cause a few months shorter lifespan, but it really is low in my list of health related concerns. Eating a wholesome non-processed diet and staying active are going to be much more impactful on my health. Worrying about micro optimizations like gas stoves just seems like small potatoes when people are eating processed junk food and are horribly out of shape.

ripper1138 4y ago

Manpuku Tokyo BBQ in LA does charcoal bbq at the table. As long as they don’t ban that, we’ll be fine.

uberdru 4y ago

Cooking is absolutely the last human process that should be de-carbonized.

jhbadger 4y ago

I grew up using traditional electric (not even inductive; just the normal 1970s kind) and it was absolutely fine. Where I live now has gas (the first in my 50+ year life) and I don't think it's something amazing; I actually find it kind of irritating to be honest. I think it's just what people are used to. Going to electric from gas is irritating, but so is the reverse.

Spivak 4y ago
Non-induction electric has the huge huge advantage of being user serviceable but is absolutely garbage to cook with. The coils heat non-uniformly and pans aren’t perfectly flat and so make uneven contact with them. Now there are “radiant” cooktops but for some dumb reason they encase them in glass which I’m sure is for safety or efficiency but also makes them annoying because, again, pan aren’t flat. We are perfectly capable of making literally a gas stove but with electric coils just like ovens but we don’t. It would solve basically every issue with them except the speed to adjust temperature but I could live with that.

tristor 4y ago

Interestingly, I take significant steps to reduce my emissions footprint, but the one thing I won't give up is cooking with a gas stove. It's simply better /as a cook/ than other options. I've used high-end induction, I've used radiant electric, I've used different pan types. Gas is simply the best all-rounder, and has some unique properties that can't be replicated any other way. I take my home cooking very very seriously, and consider it a requirement to have a dual-fuel range.

joshe 4y ago

Propane is a good alternative, especially for the home cook. With good ventilation, charcoal is an option too. Both can actually be hotter that the standard or pro gas stove.

kderbyma 4y ago

why does everyone assume that humans are supposed to be carbon neutral.........it's not based in anything except postulated opinions.....

jrockway 4y ago
We don't need to be carbon neutral if we find another planet to fuck up and find a way to get everyone there. In the meantime, it seems easier to just tone down how much fossil fuel we burn.

Melatonic 4y ago

While I like gas stoves for cooking in my current apartment I occasionally would smell small amounts of gas and didnt think much of it. I took apart the stove and discovered that not a single fitting from the wall to internally had been done properly (they must use a special type of teflon tape on the threads or a special type of grease. They had neither). The stove was constantly leaking gas. On top of that it had THREE pilot lights constantly running (two for the top, one for the oven) that ended up creating actually quite a bit of heat. I disabled the two top pilots and left the bottom and now light it by hand. Can't imagine all that gas was great for my health though.

cronix 4y ago

> All that may change by 2023 — at least in new Los Angeles buildings. The L.A. City Council last week passed a motion that would ban most gas appliances in new residential and commercial construction in the city, citing an effort to combat climate change. I understand this article is aimed at the effects this will cause on restaurants, but I think this could have much larger implications for everyone in the area. This sounds like it's going to put an artificial larger load on an aging electrical grid that is already failing due to lack of generating capacity, without adding any additional generation capacity. So more brown/blackouts during peak loads while increasing the chances of hitting the peak simultaneously by increasing load. Where are they going to get this extra power from?

peace4all 4y ago

I wonder how come gas stove, an artifact of the 20th century, became a "traditional" thing? The way people cook on gas stove is just one of many ways it can be, and I'm sure in year 1900, cooking on coal was rather different, and gas must have been an improvement, but also met with skepticism, and probably laments about the lack of charcoal smell or taste. Gas isn't a tradition written in stone. It has serious issues like hot surfaces and higher chances of burning your skin, scurf on the pans, benzopyrene in the air, and risk of suffocation, heating of the indoor air, etc. Personally, I switched to induction for all these reasons. It looks like the only downside to induction is that some users need walls hot (I don't) and need cooking to continue if they raise the pan up. I think this is doable with different forms of the oven, and with thicker iron pans: iron absorbs EM waves, it conducts heat well, and it will add thermal inertia. These pans will be heavier, but IMO that's a small price for all the benefits of induction.

chmod775 4y ago

If the goal was carbon neutrality, why would you start with gas stoves instead of first removing (non-electric) cars from your city? That's like trimming someone's beard when they're currently bleeding out from five stab wounds to the chest. You shouldn't even be thinking of that yet, unless you've already given up.

xony 4y ago