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My parents just went a week without natural gas. When the power goes out it’s rarely for that long and EVs and generators are alternate sources. Looks to me l

by mulmen 3y ago

My parents just went a week without natural gas. When the power goes out it’s rarely for that long and EVs and generators are alternate sources. Looks to me like electric is more redundant than gas.

Brian_K_White 3y ago
You can't heat a house on backup electricity, unless it's in the form of an entirely separate full fat distribution along side the primary, the way the gas lines or oil trucks are along side the power lines. And this means diffent modes too, one up on poles, the other buried. Not both together and both subject to the same risks at the same time. Anything less, and you are losing something you currently have. Which is what will hapoen of course. And idiots will tell each other "this is better".
- mulmen 3y ago
  With a generator or an EV/powerwall a heat pump can keep at least part of the house warm in a power outage. When the gas goes out there’s no alternative. The furnace is just off. When the gas went out my parents survived on electric space heaters and blankets for a week.
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    A generator that can run heaters, even a heat pump, for more than 10 minutes, needs to burn natural gas or propane or gasoline or deisel. You can't store enough in batteteries. Electricity serves as a backup for gas because it's the grid, or a generator, not a battery. A big generator works for efficient heat pumps, but in the all-electric future (if it comes too fast like now, before we actually have enough grid and better storage), there will be no generators or gas to fuel them. There will be batteties and solar that can do everything light and nothing heavy. Even with a generator, it needs to be a pretty big generator that most people don't have, and if you tried to use space heaters you could only use a couple small ones and you've maxxed out the generator. A big but not crazy generator can run a whole house heat pump, and that almost uses up the entire generator. Whole house non portable generators can run on piped natural gas, which gives you not only heat but electricity while the power is out. If you only have power, there is no effective backup for it, unless as I said you actually have an entire 2nd grid that duplicates the efgective entire 2nd grid that is the gas pipes. Different physical distribution infrastructure (so 2 sets of independant cables) operated by 2 different organizations, in 2 different physical locations (one buried, one not, whena truck takes out a pole, it doesn't affect the buried, when a backhoe or ice heaving takes out a buried, it doesn't affect the poles, etc) That level of redundancy sounds outlandish but we actually have that right now, and will be losing it. Maybe it's not valuable enough to maintain, but there is no way around the fact that it is something that will be lost.
    - mulmen 3y ago
      Are you talking about backing up the entire utility? Because I have been talking about on site backup. An all electric house is much easier to back up on site because all you have to do is maintain power source(s). Some combination of solar panels, a powerwall, EV, and a backup fueled generator can run everything in your house. Generators are even portable and can be brought on site or connected to local grids. I honestly can't see the benefit to gas service to a house. I have no idea why anyone would chose it for a new construction in 2023 when we have so many options for electrification. It's cheap now but it's still a fossil fuel and prices will go up over the life of the home. The same way 1950s constructions faced expensive conversion from oil to gas the current cohort of natural gas homes will be electrified, or demolished to make room for electrified homes.

by mulmen 3y ago

Brian_K_White 3y ago

You can't heat a house on backup electricity, unless it's in the form of an entirely separate full fat distribution along side the primary, the way the gas lines or oil trucks are along side the power lines. And this means diffent modes too, one up on poles, the other buried. Not both together and both subject to the same risks at the same time. Anything less, and you are losing something you currently have. Which is what will hapoen of course. And idiots will tell each other "this is better".

mulmen 3y ago
With a generator or an EV/powerwall a heat pump can keep at least part of the house warm in a power outage. When the gas goes out there’s no alternative. The furnace is just off. When the gas went out my parents survived on electric space heaters and blankets for a week.
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  A generator that can run heaters, even a heat pump, for more than 10 minutes, needs to burn natural gas or propane or gasoline or deisel. You can't store enough in batteteries. Electricity serves as a backup for gas because it's the grid, or a generator, not a battery. A big generator works for efficient heat pumps, but in the all-electric future (if it comes too fast like now, before we actually have enough grid and better storage), there will be no generators or gas to fuel them. There will be batteties and solar that can do everything light and nothing heavy. Even with a generator, it needs to be a pretty big generator that most people don't have, and if you tried to use space heaters you could only use a couple small ones and you've maxxed out the generator. A big but not crazy generator can run a whole house heat pump, and that almost uses up the entire generator. Whole house non portable generators can run on piped natural gas, which gives you not only heat but electricity while the power is out. If you only have power, there is no effective backup for it, unless as I said you actually have an entire 2nd grid that duplicates the efgective entire 2nd grid that is the gas pipes. Different physical distribution infrastructure (so 2 sets of independant cables) operated by 2 different organizations, in 2 different physical locations (one buried, one not, whena truck takes out a pole, it doesn't affect the buried, when a backhoe or ice heaving takes out a buried, it doesn't affect the poles, etc) That level of redundancy sounds outlandish but we actually have that right now, and will be losing it. Maybe it's not valuable enough to maintain, but there is no way around the fact that it is something that will be lost.
  - mulmen 3y ago
    Are you talking about backing up the entire utility? Because I have been talking about on site backup. An all electric house is much easier to back up on site because all you have to do is maintain power source(s). Some combination of solar panels, a powerwall, EV, and a backup fueled generator can run everything in your house. Generators are even portable and can be brought on site or connected to local grids. I honestly can't see the benefit to gas service to a house. I have no idea why anyone would chose it for a new construction in 2023 when we have so many options for electrification. It's cheap now but it's still a fossil fuel and prices will go up over the life of the home. The same way 1950s constructions faced expensive conversion from oil to gas the current cohort of natural gas homes will be electrified, or demolished to make room for electrified homes.