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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31617 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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And gas is much less efficient energy-wise; not only does it shed a lot of heat in the energy transfer to the cooking vessel, it's in general less efficient than electric (but often cheaper depending on your locale).

I very much doubt that burning natural gas in a power plant, converting the heat into electricity, transferring it to your home, and then converting it back into heat is more efficient than transporting the gas and burning it for heat directly, even if electric is more efficient at transmitting the heat to the cookware. The first source I found with a quick search said the same:

https://home.howstuffworks.com/gas-vs-electric-stoves.htm

The clear winner in the energy efficiency battle between gas and electric is gas. It takes about three times as much energy to produce and deliver electricity to your stove. According to the California Energy Commission, a gas stove will cost you less than half as much to operate (provided that you have an electronic ignition--not a pilot light).

The potential climate-change argument against gas stoves would be that, in a hypothetical future with plentiful and very low-carbon electricity generation, a gas stove might lock in fossil fuel consumption. But unless you live in an area where the electricity is already all hydroelectric/nuclear this is a risky gamble, if during the timeframe the stove is operating your area is still using fossil fuels to generate electricity the electric stove will cause more emissions. I don't anticipate the energy-generation mix changing that dramatically early in the lifespan of a stove bought today. (If the "three times" figure is true it would have to happen less than a third of the way through its lifespan.)

in a hypothetical future with plentiful and very low-carbon electricity generation, a gas stove might lock in fossil fuel consumption.

Unless the gas is produced from said low-carbon electricity generation....

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