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Obviously the oil spike, while not a relatively massive price hike historically, is clearly accelerating the pace of electrification, similarly to how COVID acc

Obviously the oil spike, while not a relatively massive price hike historically, is clearly accelerating the pace of electrification, similarly to how COVID accelerated the use of zoom and other remote work platforms. But also similarly, it will probably be the case that gas is still used for some needs, just not nearly as many as today. People still do prefer their gas ranges, and its not as if natural gas is a great pollutant. But electricity is easier to manage than ever now, given battery capacity.

girvo 6mo ago
Induction is better than gas in basically any way you can care to slice it, and natural gas in your home is actually quite bad for air quality. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/kitchen-pollutants-study-australia-looks-at-gas-stove-health/102109372?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/kitchen-pollutants-st...
- taeric 6mo ago
  I mean, if you are looking at unventilated kitchens, you are going to get bad values cooking. Pretty much period. Yes, by products of burning gas are bad. But by products of cooking are already bad. Ventilate your kitchen.
  - eigenspace 6mo ago
    Even with very good ventilation, gas ranges will pollute your air to a surprising degree.
    - taeric 6mo ago
      Right, I was not intending this as a defense of gas ranges. More surprised that they would baseline with a non-ventilated kitchen. Cooking, itself, will pollute your air to a surprising degree.
  - tom_alexander 6mo ago
    Induction is also faster to boil water, easier to clean since it's just flat glass, and safer since an induction stove without a pot/pan stays room temperature (in fact, they usually can detect if a pot/pan is present and automatically turn themselves off) Induction is also particularly nice for certain types of cooking because many induction stoves can be set to a specific temperature instead of just to a power level.
    - taeric 6mo ago
      Agreed that folks should look more favorably on induction. I did not mean my comment as a defense of gas. Just pointing out that most of the pollution from cooking is one where you want a good range hood that vents to the outside. And you need to clean it. Our last house did not have a vent to the outside and it was eye opening to realize how much grease throughout the entire house was from that.
- chongli 6mo ago
  Induction requires your cookware to sit flat against the surface or it won’t heat up (and the range will shut off after a certain time). With natural gas the flames rise through convection and wrap around the contours of the pan. This means many traditional pieces of cookware with round bottoms simply will not work on induction but work fine on natural gas. Induction also requires the cookware to be ferromagnetic. This rules out a lot of traditional cookware materials such as clay, copper, brass, and stone. Many of these traditional materials are also accompanied by traditional shapes (round bottoms, gently sloped sides) that take advantage of the convection properties of open flame cooking. Many recipes rely on these traditional vessels for optimal cooking performance. Woks, for example, work much better with a round bottom so liquids can pool in the middle, letting you use less oil for stir frying but still allowing ingredients to spend time in the pooled oil. The temperature profile of a round-bottom wok over gas flame is also superior to a flat-bottom wok on induction: the traditional wok has a bright hot spot at the bottom (where all the oil is pooling) in addition to heat up all around the sloped sides, for rapidly reducing liquids that come out of foods and cooking sauces (soy sauce, shaoxing wine) with an arc-splash technique. The flat-bottom wok on induction has a uniformly hot surface on the bottom but the sides remain cool, causing all liquids in contact with the sides to run down to the bottom and begin boiling, just like when you try to stir-fry in a frying pan. Candy-making is another cooking process that benefits greatly from the convection of natural gas combustion, since molten sugar will crystallize around the sides of a pan if they are not hot enough. Traditional candy-making is done in thin-walled, tin-lined copper pans. These pans don't work at all on induction (no ferromagnetic materials) but even if placed on a ferrous plate they would not perform well due to lack of heating of the sides.
  - girvo 6mo ago
    > Induction requires your cookware to sit flat against the surface or it won’t heat up Not really. You’ve obviously not used modern induction cooktops (though if you’ve gone to a restaurant you’ve eaten from it). > The temperature profile of a round-bottom wok over gas flame is also superior to a flat-bottom wok on induction Explain why induction cooktops are incredibly widespread across modern Asian restaurants. You’ve really got to update your priors. Don’t listen to me, listen to a professional chef (who runs an awesome restaurant in Shenzhen): https://youtu.be/vgv_IiSZarY?si=fgl1w1udQ72xqY3n https://youtu.be/vgv_IiSZarY?si=fgl1w1udQ72xqY3n Candy making, I’ll concede because I have no experience. In every other way induction is still better.

girvo 6mo ago

Induction is better than gas in basically any way you can care to slice it, and natural gas in your home is actually quite bad for air quality. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/kitchen-pollutants-study-australia-looks-at-gas-stove-health/102109372?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-17/kitchen-pollutants-st...

taeric 6mo ago
I mean, if you are looking at unventilated kitchens, you are going to get bad values cooking. Pretty much period. Yes, by products of burning gas are bad. But by products of cooking are already bad. Ventilate your kitchen.
- eigenspace 6mo ago
  Even with very good ventilation, gas ranges will pollute your air to a surprising degree.
  - taeric 6mo ago
    Right, I was not intending this as a defense of gas ranges. More surprised that they would baseline with a non-ventilated kitchen. Cooking, itself, will pollute your air to a surprising degree.
- tom_alexander 6mo ago
  Induction is also faster to boil water, easier to clean since it's just flat glass, and safer since an induction stove without a pot/pan stays room temperature (in fact, they usually can detect if a pot/pan is present and automatically turn themselves off) Induction is also particularly nice for certain types of cooking because many induction stoves can be set to a specific temperature instead of just to a power level.
  - taeric 6mo ago
    Agreed that folks should look more favorably on induction. I did not mean my comment as a defense of gas. Just pointing out that most of the pollution from cooking is one where you want a good range hood that vents to the outside. And you need to clean it. Our last house did not have a vent to the outside and it was eye opening to realize how much grease throughout the entire house was from that.
chongli 6mo ago
Induction requires your cookware to sit flat against the surface or it won’t heat up (and the range will shut off after a certain time). With natural gas the flames rise through convection and wrap around the contours of the pan. This means many traditional pieces of cookware with round bottoms simply will not work on induction but work fine on natural gas. Induction also requires the cookware to be ferromagnetic. This rules out a lot of traditional cookware materials such as clay, copper, brass, and stone. Many of these traditional materials are also accompanied by traditional shapes (round bottoms, gently sloped sides) that take advantage of the convection properties of open flame cooking. Many recipes rely on these traditional vessels for optimal cooking performance. Woks, for example, work much better with a round bottom so liquids can pool in the middle, letting you use less oil for stir frying but still allowing ingredients to spend time in the pooled oil. The temperature profile of a round-bottom wok over gas flame is also superior to a flat-bottom wok on induction: the traditional wok has a bright hot spot at the bottom (where all the oil is pooling) in addition to heat up all around the sloped sides, for rapidly reducing liquids that come out of foods and cooking sauces (soy sauce, shaoxing wine) with an arc-splash technique. The flat-bottom wok on induction has a uniformly hot surface on the bottom but the sides remain cool, causing all liquids in contact with the sides to run down to the bottom and begin boiling, just like when you try to stir-fry in a frying pan. Candy-making is another cooking process that benefits greatly from the convection of natural gas combustion, since molten sugar will crystallize around the sides of a pan if they are not hot enough. Traditional candy-making is done in thin-walled, tin-lined copper pans. These pans don't work at all on induction (no ferromagnetic materials) but even if placed on a ferrous plate they would not perform well due to lack of heating of the sides.
- girvo 6mo ago
  > Induction requires your cookware to sit flat against the surface or it won’t heat up Not really. You’ve obviously not used modern induction cooktops (though if you’ve gone to a restaurant you’ve eaten from it). > The temperature profile of a round-bottom wok over gas flame is also superior to a flat-bottom wok on induction Explain why induction cooktops are incredibly widespread across modern Asian restaurants. You’ve really got to update your priors. Don’t listen to me, listen to a professional chef (who runs an awesome restaurant in Shenzhen): https://youtu.be/vgv_IiSZarY?si=fgl1w1udQ72xqY3n https://youtu.be/vgv_IiSZarY?si=fgl1w1udQ72xqY3n Candy making, I’ll concede because I have no experience. In every other way induction is still better.