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> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the change may not have much effect on climate change at all. Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas b

> But when you dig into the details, it seems like the change may not have much effect on climate change at all. Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change?

iamdamian 3y ago
> Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change? Yes. (Also, I welcome strong evidence to the contrary.)
- zbrozek 3y ago
  Space heating matters and everything else is basically noise.
- rlg2161 3y ago
  For the average American, 4 devices in their home - water heaters, furnaces, stoves and gas powered clothes driers - account 95% of residential emissions [1]. Residential energy use accounts for ~20% of US annual carbon emissions [2]. The 2nd figure accounts for carbon footprint of electricity generation used in the home as well as gas combusted in the home. The 4th chart from [1] suggests this is about a 50/50 split (if we bring grid emissions to 0 but don’t exchange these natural gas devices, carbon intensity remains at half of what it is today). Therefore, we can conclude that these 4 appliances in residential properties account for 10% of US carbon footprint. You could potentially make an argument that stoves are not the lions share of those emissions - but even if they only represent 10% of residential building emissions, that’s still 1% of US carbon emissions annually (which is a huge number when expressed in tons of CO2) [1] https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructure-home-report https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructu... - Chart 4 [2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117
  - iamdamian 3y ago
    I appreciate you digging up this information, this is exactly what's been lacking in press coverage of the issue. If you're telling me that fully eliminating gas stoves in the U.S. (something that will not happen in our lifetimes and will come at great political and personal cost) is going to reduce U.S.-specific emissions by just 1%, I think I'm even more convinced that this regulation should not have been passed. What am I missing?
    - justeleblanc 3y ago
      We can get rid of a whole percent in emissions by giving up nothing important, and you think it's not a regulation that the government should pass?! What should the threshold for a regulation to pass, in your opinion? Should it cut single-handedly emissions by 2% on its own? 5%? 10%? 50%?
      - iamdamian 3y ago
        Based on the information you've provided, I don't think we can get rid of a whole percent, since that would require the entire country to completely get rid of gas stoves and also for their new electric stoves to be powered by something that does not produce emissions. I know you'll disagree, but my take is that the upside (<1% savings over the course of, say, 30 years) is outweighed by the downside (lack of ability to cook or boil water during a power outage, far worse cooking experience).
        argiopetech 3y ago
        Agreed that 1% of the United States' 28% of global CO2 emissions is negligible in the grand global scheme. Additionally, the energy cost of creating new stoves with significantly more complex internals (both due to the constant march of technology and the relative complexity of electric or induction cooktops versus gas) can't be overnighted.
      - baggy_trough 3y ago
        You think it’s nothing important. Others disagree, and get angry when they are forced to obey your preferences.
speakfreely 3y ago
Did you know that almost 40% of NYC's electricity grid is powered by natural gas? Another 30% from nuclear and ~20% from hydroelectric. Since nuclear and hydroelectric can't be immediately stepped up, what do you think is going to be increased to generate power for all these new electrical appliances that will be drawing power from the grid? The heat transfer and energy loss of electrical appliances generally makes them less efficient than natural gas appliances, thus actually increasing the amount of natural gas that will need to be burned to accommodate this policy. This is literally going to increase the amount of natural gas that needs to be burned to maintain existing cooking patterns. This policy and ones like it are why people can't take environmentalists seriously.
- tcfhgj 3y ago
  What can be stepped up fast is wind and solar energy. And a heat pump is superior to gas even if the grid consists 100% out of gas. Further, you don't build a building built for gas when have to switch to electricity in the future anyway when the grid is even cleaner.
  - speakfreely 3y ago
    > What can be stepped up fast is wind and solar energy. I don't know who told you this. Can you point to any large city that is running on purely wind & solar right now? As far as I'm aware, there's not even a large regional city that has demonstrated this can work with current battery technology. I would be really happy to be wrong on this, but as of right now, it's not an option and we need to be realistic about that. "The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says nuclear power plants had a capacity factor of 92.6% in the US during 2022. This compares to 36.1% for wind energy and just 24.8% for solar photovoltaic technology. To a rough approximation, it takes three times as much wind capacity and four times as much solar to produce the same amount of electricity as a nuclear power plant over a given period. This is complicated by seasonality. Solar, for example, is particularly ineffective during the winter months when energy needs in the northern portion of the country are highest." [0] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_6_07_b https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
ilikehurdles 3y ago
The biggest effect would be the negative one from manufacturing and replacing all those stoves. Gas stoves are a molecule in a drop in a bucket of climate change.
- tcfhgj 3y ago
  Every single thing is a drop in a bucket. Still the drops make a full bucket in the end
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Why do we frequently go after the drops that cause a lot of headache and inconvenience, then?
    - tcfhgj 3y ago
      Because we have to go after all drops
      - pclmulqdq 3y ago
        How about we go after the coal power plants first? Or allow nuclear reactors on shipping vessels? Both of those will have 1000x more benefit than paper straws and electric stoves, whose benefits are questionable at best. There's plenty of lower-hanging fruit to go after.
        tcfhgj 3y ago
        How about not, unless there is a reason why it is not possible to do multiple things in parallel?
        pclmulqdq 3y ago
        Because we're not doing the things that are truly impactful and have no cost to individuals, and instead focusing on changes that are annoying and useless. Plastic bags, plastic straws, gas stoves, the list goes on and on. All the while, the Germans have turned the coal power plants back on. That does not suggest that anyone is taking the environmental effects of their choices very seriously, and that they just want to lower peoples' standard of living and intrude on our lives. If that's what this is really about, then how about none of it? I'm sure you understand that if people continue getting inconvenienced in the name of climate change while governments and big corporations go on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at industrial scale, that's what's going to happen: instead of everyone making the changes they need to make, the vast majority of people will do nothing. The hypocrisy is not lost on anyone.

iamdamian 3y ago

> Are you saying that if we got rid of all gas burning appliances in homes, that would not have much effect on climate change? Yes. (Also, I welcome strong evidence to the contrary.)

zbrozek 3y ago
Space heating matters and everything else is basically noise.
rlg2161 3y ago
For the average American, 4 devices in their home - water heaters, furnaces, stoves and gas powered clothes driers - account 95% of residential emissions [1]. Residential energy use accounts for ~20% of US annual carbon emissions [2]. The 2nd figure accounts for carbon footprint of electricity generation used in the home as well as gas combusted in the home. The 4th chart from [1] suggests this is about a 50/50 split (if we bring grid emissions to 0 but don’t exchange these natural gas devices, carbon intensity remains at half of what it is today). Therefore, we can conclude that these 4 appliances in residential properties account for 10% of US carbon footprint. You could potentially make an argument that stoves are not the lions share of those emissions - but even if they only represent 10% of residential building emissions, that’s still 1% of US carbon emissions annually (which is a huge number when expressed in tons of CO2) [1] https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructure-home-report https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/bringing-infrastructu... - Chart 4 [2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117
- iamdamian 3y ago
  I appreciate you digging up this information, this is exactly what's been lacking in press coverage of the issue. If you're telling me that fully eliminating gas stoves in the U.S. (something that will not happen in our lifetimes and will come at great political and personal cost) is going to reduce U.S.-specific emissions by just 1%, I think I'm even more convinced that this regulation should not have been passed. What am I missing?
  - justeleblanc 3y ago
    We can get rid of a whole percent in emissions by giving up nothing important, and you think it's not a regulation that the government should pass?! What should the threshold for a regulation to pass, in your opinion? Should it cut single-handedly emissions by 2% on its own? 5%? 10%? 50%?
    - iamdamian 3y ago
      Based on the information you've provided, I don't think we can get rid of a whole percent, since that would require the entire country to completely get rid of gas stoves and also for their new electric stoves to be powered by something that does not produce emissions. I know you'll disagree, but my take is that the upside (<1% savings over the course of, say, 30 years) is outweighed by the downside (lack of ability to cook or boil water during a power outage, far worse cooking experience).
      - argiopetech 3y ago
        Agreed that 1% of the United States' 28% of global CO2 emissions is negligible in the grand global scheme. Additionally, the energy cost of creating new stoves with significantly more complex internals (both due to the constant march of technology and the relative complexity of electric or induction cooktops versus gas) can't be overnighted.
    - baggy_trough 3y ago
      You think it’s nothing important. Others disagree, and get angry when they are forced to obey your preferences.

speakfreely 3y ago

Did you know that almost 40% of NYC's electricity grid is powered by natural gas? Another 30% from nuclear and ~20% from hydroelectric. Since nuclear and hydroelectric can't be immediately stepped up, what do you think is going to be increased to generate power for all these new electrical appliances that will be drawing power from the grid? The heat transfer and energy loss of electrical appliances generally makes them less efficient than natural gas appliances, thus actually increasing the amount of natural gas that will need to be burned to accommodate this policy. This is literally going to increase the amount of natural gas that needs to be burned to maintain existing cooking patterns. This policy and ones like it are why people can't take environmentalists seriously.

tcfhgj 3y ago
What can be stepped up fast is wind and solar energy. And a heat pump is superior to gas even if the grid consists 100% out of gas. Further, you don't build a building built for gas when have to switch to electricity in the future anyway when the grid is even cleaner.
- speakfreely 3y ago
  > What can be stepped up fast is wind and solar energy. I don't know who told you this. Can you point to any large city that is running on purely wind & solar right now? As far as I'm aware, there's not even a large regional city that has demonstrated this can work with current battery technology. I would be really happy to be wrong on this, but as of right now, it's not an option and we need to be realistic about that. "The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says nuclear power plants had a capacity factor of 92.6% in the US during 2022. This compares to 36.1% for wind energy and just 24.8% for solar photovoltaic technology. To a rough approximation, it takes three times as much wind capacity and four times as much solar to produce the same amount of electricity as a nuclear power plant over a given period. This is complicated by seasonality. Solar, for example, is particularly ineffective during the winter months when energy needs in the northern portion of the country are highest." [0] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=table_6_07_b https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...

ilikehurdles 3y ago

The biggest effect would be the negative one from manufacturing and replacing all those stoves. Gas stoves are a molecule in a drop in a bucket of climate change.

tcfhgj 3y ago
Every single thing is a drop in a bucket. Still the drops make a full bucket in the end
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Why do we frequently go after the drops that cause a lot of headache and inconvenience, then?
  - tcfhgj 3y ago
    Because we have to go after all drops
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      How about we go after the coal power plants first? Or allow nuclear reactors on shipping vessels? Both of those will have 1000x more benefit than paper straws and electric stoves, whose benefits are questionable at best. There's plenty of lower-hanging fruit to go after.
      - tcfhgj 3y ago
        How about not, unless there is a reason why it is not possible to do multiple things in parallel?
        pclmulqdq 3y ago
        Because we're not doing the things that are truly impactful and have no cost to individuals, and instead focusing on changes that are annoying and useless. Plastic bags, plastic straws, gas stoves, the list goes on and on. All the while, the Germans have turned the coal power plants back on. That does not suggest that anyone is taking the environmental effects of their choices very seriously, and that they just want to lower peoples' standard of living and intrude on our lives. If that's what this is really about, then how about none of it? I'm sure you understand that if people continue getting inconvenienced in the name of climate change while governments and big corporations go on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at industrial scale, that's what's going to happen: instead of everyone making the changes they need to make, the vast majority of people will do nothing. The hypocrisy is not lost on anyone.