United States moving to ban Gas Stoves

We used to love gas stoves and ovens, but since we moved to where there is no gas,
We’ve gotten used to electric, and now think it’s better.
But government needs to do a better job of restricting runaway utilities, gouging consumers to provide high dividends to Wall Street

 

As a kid 45 years ago I remember almost all the old houses my friends and family lived in had that distinctive smell of natural glass from the pilot lights for the furnace, water heaters and stove... Home heating technology has come a long way since then... Seems like a good idea to not have that type of air pollution in the enclosed space you spend the most time in from now on.

 

This CPSC decision may be made based entirely on valid quantifiable evidence. Examples might include costs of appliance replacements, costs of disposal or recycling the previous stoves, and medical harm undiluted by other factors. That is sort of the Platonic ideal of govt decision-making, but it looks like a hard road to me.

Meanwhile there is a lot of political advantage to getting people to rally around the idea of govt overreach. In some form or another, that will be in the decision process.

Piping methane into enclosed living spaces it done to achieve several ends. Among them, cooking, space heating and gas fire log aesthetics (with a bit of space heating). I suppose only the first notably increases indoor concentrations of harmful gases. But piping always comes with some risk of leaking. Water damage ... is what it is. But methane explosions tend to remove entire structures along with any beings inside. This risk of harm might not get counted in.

Nor would it be entirely removed of all gas stoves went away and their supply lines capped off. Because the small but nonzero risk of leakage seems to persist..

 

All ready implemented by my County in Calif, for new construction.
A**H***s.
If I was a professional chef, or gourmet/ foodie, or even someone who enjoyed cooking and food tasting I would be livid.
But we elected these people, all you can do is vote them out next time.
Lets go Brandon and Newsom.

 

It has taken four months, but I just scheduled the installation date for our new induction range. (replacing traditional electric)

Absolutely psyched to get it, we love cooking.

On the other hand this makes me worry about the beach house- no electricity there, generator far too small to consider and the existing gas range is about due for replacement...

AFAIK true professionals learn both. Not much gas available on cruise ships or at mountaintop ski resorts, lots of electric cuisine happens anyway.

But it's okay to have a favorite!

 

My most important kitchen pot is a pressure cooker. Might not think it matters much that water boils at 93 oC, but it really does. Unfortunately the pot is aluminum and disregards instructions from induction plate to wiggle its atoms.

So in general I cook with gas. Most interesting is inspectors visiting to check for leaks. Their little sniffers are impressive. I'm old-school chemistry and use soapy water to see bubbles. Not even close.

 

I recall that part of building code in Rio de Janeiro calls for a large ventilation window for the kitchen, and there can't be a way to seal it. I think my apartment there had an electric cooktop, but there was a gas water heater mounted on the wall in the kitchen.

The enforced ventilation was great during the zika scare.

 

Induction cooktops rule!!
We got ours with our new house (6+ years ago). The induction is incredibly responsive and we both find it better than the old fashioned electric cooktops or gas.

The health aspects were frosting on the cake

 

You inductees won't care, but the typical methane 'sniffer' works on an interesting principle - it does not detect methane

Rather, it is highly sensitive to small changes in oxygen concentration in air immediately above a semiconductor chip. So, if 50 ppm of methane appears, that means there is 21 (ish) percent of oxygen, less 50 ppm, because Mr. Methane pushed them out of the local gas volume. After some downstream signal processing, beep beep beep.

Darn clever says I, and I'd never have 'looked it up' but for this thread. (as I've said before...)

 

Then wouldn't it react the same to other contaminating gases (CO2, or CO for example), or to low oxygen level for some other reason?

 

Mine reacts to my breathing on it (even if I haven't been consuming volatile organics). Even breathing anywhere in its general direction. I have to deliberately exhale away from whatever I'm trying to test.

 

While adding an odor to natural gas has eliminated most, but not all, major explosions of houses and neighborhoods you're probably correct in assuming that the risk of that is not considered in this instance, though it should be considered.

Here's the most recent explosion I've read about: https://www.pennlive.com/news/2022/12/residents-evacuated-just-before-gas-explosion-flattened-their-susquehanna-twp-home-with-a-sonic-boom.html

 

@CR94 you are completely correct according to my reading.

 

Yep, that report that stoves was "leaking methane, even when off" - is highly questionable. Just because the tool you were using was a methane sensor, doesn't mean the stove was leaking methane. Did they validate the gas was actually methane with a secondary chemical test?
There seems to be a lack of critical thinking skills these days. These research studies needs to go through peer review and findings reproduced and validated. New gas appliances no longer use pilot flames. They use spark or heat coil ignition and CPU controlled checks to ensure gas cut-off if no flame. While old gas appliances did spew lots of contaminates; that's not the case with the new stuff. As far as using a gas ignition source in an enclosed space; I'm sorry but that's just stupid... Most building codes forbids this; but I've seen a lot of filtering range hoods that don't ventilate to the building exterior.

I do live in California and I believe outlawing alternative fuel sources; simply makes us dependent on a single source - which sets up a system that is ripe for abuse. Don't even get me started on not enough electricity generating capability to move the state to EV only by 2030.

 

A parade of lemmings is in progress yet again.

OVER reliance on an electric grid to provide all of our energy needs will likely bite us in the backside big time somewhere in the future.
Russia is targeting the electric infrastructure in Ukraine.
Terrorists have hit two sub-stations in the US in the last couple of months.
Incompetence has halted air traffic again this morning and the same could happen to our electric grid.

Learn from history. Plan ahead and try to look BEYOND the obvious.
Believe only half of what you SEE and NONE of what you hear.

 

Yep, at it takes is an EMP and everything turns off.

 

The ‘one source’ over reliance is gasoline, not electricity.

Electricity can be sourced locally (residential solar), from wind, hydro, Nat gas, nuclear, geo, coal, even oil.

As for an EMP, gas cars will shut down just like electric ones.

 

Gas furnace and water heater need a chimney but a gas stove not. I see the problem.

 

I bought a bag of coffee roasted in a "zero emissions" all electric Bellwether roaster a few weeks ago. It was surprisingly good.

My home roasters are all electric, but can't say they are zero emissions.

If gas coffee roasters are banned in the US, we will have major coffee shortages.