Author Topic: It's official, New York State almost banned gas heating in new construction  (Read 14127 times)

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Offline Seekonk

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I have a friend that manages a grid peaking station.  He has told me that many times he has to shut down generators due to excess household demand of natural gas in winter.  They would rather drop the voltage on the grid than run out of natural gas. Just three years ago our NY utility was pushing gas and brought gas to our street.  Now we are running out.  Just got a letter from our discount gas supplier. They are giving me back to the utility! The party is over.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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I have a friend that manages a grid peaking station.  He has told me that many times he has to shut down generators due to excess household demand of natural gas in winter.  They would rather drop the voltage on the grid than run out of natural gas.
Perhaps it's time to have peak time demand charges on natural gas as well?
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Online coppice

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[...] Cooking fundamentally is controlled removal of water from the ingredients. [...]

There's quite a bit more to it than that...  it is chemical reactions on many levels, organic and inorganic!
The most important part of cooking is denaturing the proteins. That's what makes the food safe to eat.
 

Online Marco

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Perhaps it's time to have peak time demand charges on natural gas as well?

Normal people aren't very responsive to such hugely delayed punishments/rewards until the cost gets really crippling.
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Normal people aren't very responsive to such hugely delayed punishments/rewards until the cost gets really crippling.
Ohmconnect solved that problem by providing quick feedback through an app. It shouldn't be that difficult to extend it to natural gas.

Another solution is to have some sort of remote controlled limiter to limit heating to 68F and cooling to 78F during peak demand, with a discount for having it installed. Or in the case of natural gas, why not just lower the pressure?
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Offline Someone

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Normal people aren't very responsive to such hugely delayed punishments/rewards until the cost gets really crippling.
Ohmconnect solved that problem by providing quick feedback through an app. It shouldn't be that difficult to extend it to natural gas.

Another solution is to have some sort of remote controlled limiter to limit heating to 68F and cooling to 78F during peak demand, with a discount for having it installed. Or in the case of natural gas, why not just lower the pressure?
Was tried, resulted in lols:
As most of these problems exist in other parts of the world, there are solutions:
1) Demand management, digitally broadcast to homes when there is an over/under supply of power in their area. Whatever automatic system is in place can offer to increase/reduce by X kW, requires say fiber optic internet for low latency.
I believe that one came up on the forum before, but will repost the original here:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/06/texans-regret-opting-into-power-plan-that-remotely-raises-thermostat-temps/
Consumer received (likely upfront one-off) payment to participate in minor load shedding, then goes mental when thermostat is raised to 78° F (26° C) from 74° F (24° C).

You'd be amazed how demanding of absolute/selfish convenience the general public are. "why should I slightly modify my behaviour if its for the benefit of others" while completely ignoring the non-linear cost/inconvenience of complete failure/blackout.

Gas is the easy one, consumers* in Australia are seeing the effects of market pricing pushing spot price of gas to be more expensive than the average electricity cost:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-03/gas-crisis-threatens-manufacturers-jobs-and-rising-prices/101114712
(typically more businesses are exposed to the market rate for gas than they are for electricity)

With a well oiled market, gas should be slightly more expensive than electricity since co/tri-generation at large facilities can make better use of the raw input.

* of both/all kinds
 


Offline NiHaoMike

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Los Angeles is not far behind:

https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2022-06-02/gas-stove-ban-chinese-korean-bbq-electric-new-buildings-restaurants-future
What about renewable fuels like hydrogen or biogas? Instead of completely banning gas cooking appliances in new construction, require them and the plumbing to be able to run on pure hydrogen as well, with the goal of replacing the natural gas with hydrogen.
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Online Marco

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People making an important cultural ritual out of gas grills which have been used for only a couple generations ... that's a bit myopic. You'd think that given how young it is, they would realise that a tradition is as easily forgotten as it is created.

The petulant children will adapt, the smart ones will get ahead of the game and get together with a manufacturer to start designing high power electric grills. A restaurant can easily use 3 phase 480V, they aren't as restricted for power as consumer appliances.

PS. for wok hei, just have a pilot light next to induction burner ... putting 90% of your power into the kitchen air just to light a bit of the wok oil during tossing is just stupid.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2022, 04:12:33 pm by Marco »
 
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Offline SilverSolder

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Maybe we are close to a breakthrough in fusion power...   which would suddenly make all this make sense!  :D
 

Online nctnico

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Los Angeles is not far behind:

https://www.latimes.com/food/story/2022-06-02/gas-stove-ban-chinese-korean-bbq-electric-new-buildings-restaurants-future
Not a problem. They'll use gas tanks. Where I live there is no natural gas infrastructure in most of the city (by design!) and restaurants that need gas for cooking use gas from tanks.

For woks there is also the alternative to go to induction cooking which actually can get a wok pan much hotter compared to gas and might even be better than a gas stove.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2022, 04:44:58 pm by nctnico »
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Offline David Hess

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People making an important cultural ritual out of gas grills which have been used for only a couple generations ... that's a bit myopic. You'd think that given how young it is, they would realise that a tradition is as easily forgotten as it is created.

Part of the experience is customers grilling their own food at the table.  Without that, these restaurants have no reason to exist.

Not a problem. They'll use gas tanks. Where I live there is no natural gas infrastructure in most of the city (by design!) and restaurants that need gas for cooking use gas from tanks.

That is what I suggested when I heard about it, but zoning may not allow it.

Quote
For woks there is also the alternative to go to induction cooking which actually can get a wok pan much hotter compared to gas and might even be better than a gas stove.

They do not use a pan.  They literally have a gas grill built into each booth where customers sit.
 

Online coppice

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People making an important cultural ritual out of gas grills which have been used for only a couple generations ... that's a bit myopic.
People were happily grilling for many generations using wood. They were pushed off wood and onto gas. Some people still use wood, of course. I've had mesquite BBQs in Arizona, If you look at how long mesquite takes to grow. that's a kinda bizarre use for it.
 

Online coppice

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For woks there is also the alternative to go to induction cooking which actually can get a wok pan much hotter compared to gas and might even be better than a gas stove.
In Europe they make special curved induction hobs for woks, but few people use them. That might be mostly due to cost. In East Asia, where there make 10's of millions of induction hobs per year, nobody heats a wok with an induction hob. They are considered somewhere between annoying and utterly useless. When we remodel our kitchen in the UK I'm not sure what to do about a job that will allow really good wok cooking. The output of European gas hobs is much lower than Asian ones. Have you seen a professional cook using a wok? There's a fearsome fire going on under those things, to get the kind of rapid cooking they expect.
 

Online Marco

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Part of the experience is customers grilling their own food at the table.  Without that, these restaurants have no reason to exist.

Grills can be electric.
 

Online coppice

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They do not use a pan.  They literally have a gas grill built into each booth where customers sit.
If you go to Korean BBQ restaurants in Korea, some of them now use electric radiant grills. They may also be heating electrically from below, but part of the heating is radiant heat from above. In East Asia you can also buy products like these https://www.germanpool.com/eng/products_cat/list_kb.php which work pretty well for home use.

« Last Edit: June 04, 2022, 08:43:34 pm by coppice »
 

Online Marco

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In Europe they make special curved induction hobs for woks, but few people use them. That might be mostly due to cost. In East Asia, where there make 10's of millions of induction hobs per year, nobody heats a wok with an induction hob. They are considered somewhere between annoying and utterly useless. When we remodel our kitchen in the UK I'm not sure what to do about a job that will allow really good wok cooking. The output of European gas hobs is much lower than Asian ones. Have you seen a professional cook using a wok? There's a fearsome fire going on under those things, to get the kind of rapid cooking they expect.

There's a fearsome amount of heat going into the kitchen air.

Lestov has an induction burner which they show to heat water at around 3x the speed of a 150000 BTU burner. Assuming they aren't cheating, that's enough power.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2022, 09:00:53 pm by Marco »
 

Online coppice

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In Europe they make special curved induction hobs for woks, but few people use them. That might be mostly due to cost. In East Asia, where there make 10's of millions of induction hobs per year, nobody heats a wok with an induction hob. They are considered somewhere between annoying and utterly useless. When we remodel our kitchen in the UK I'm not sure what to do about a job that will allow really good wok cooking. The output of European gas hobs is much lower than Asian ones. Have you seen a professional cook using a wok? There's a fearsome fire going on under those things, to get the kind of rapid cooking they expect.
There's a fearsome amount of heat going into the kitchen air.

Lestov has an induction burner which they show to heat water at around 3x the speed of a 150000 BTU burner. Assuming they aren't cheating, that's enough power.

PS. I hate how this forum turns every youtube link into an inline video, I rarely want inline videos, they disrupt the thread too much.
If you simply want to boil water a kettle will beat an induction hob. However, this is pretty unrelated to practical uses of a wok, where the wok is mostly kept in constant motion.
 

Online Marco

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If you simply want to boil water a kettle will beat an induction hob. However, this is pretty unrelated to practical uses of a wok, where the wok is mostly kept in constant motion.

In motion, but staying in contact with the burner. In that respect wok cooking is easier for induction, none of the half lift off which western chefs use for finishing. If a wok is moved around the induction burner is just temporarily putting a little more power into the sides of the wok instead of the bottom, still useful heat.

With a couple of those 18 kW induction burners a Chinese restaurant would still only get close to the power of one fast car charger, a lot of power relative to residential use but still practical. Just need to add a pilot light to light the oil vapours inside the pan for authenticity and bob's your uncle.

PS. or better than a pilot light, have a little cage with a bunch of electrical spark emitters inside near the edge of the pan to light the oil vapours on fire, keeps it all electric.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2022, 09:19:09 pm by Marco »
 

Online nctnico

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Have you seen a professional cook using a wok? There's a fearsome fire going on under those things, to get the kind of rapid cooking they expect.
Quite a few times. Both gas fired and induction. With induction the content is stirred while using fire it is shaken. That would only make a difference to Mr Bond.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Online coppice

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Have you seen a professional cook using a wok? There's a fearsome fire going on under those things, to get the kind of rapid cooking they expect.
Quite a few times. Both gas fired and induction. With induction the content is stirred while using fire it is shaken. That would only make a difference to Mr Bond.
We typically use a wok shovel to move the food at home, but I can't imagine a professional chef using something like that to move things around a large commercial wok. Chefs so hot from the waste heat of the gas burners, that I'm sure they'd love the more directed heat of an induction hob, but they wouldn't like the inefficiency with which the food can be moved with a stationary wok and a shovel.
 

Online Marco

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I can't imagine a professional chef using something like that to move things around a large commercial wok.

Moving them around seems to work just fine, he's not doing a couple kg of food at the same time like would often happen in a restaurant ... but 450k BTU gas equivalent should be able to do that too. Only question is if the induction surfaces can take the violence from doing a small bit of lift off to flip the food, but I doubt it's an impossible engineering challenge.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=366793360636764
« Last Edit: June 04, 2022, 09:31:58 pm by Marco »
 

Online nctnico

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Have you seen a professional cook using a wok? There's a fearsome fire going on under those things, to get the kind of rapid cooking they expect.
Quite a few times. Both gas fired and induction. With induction the content is stirred while using fire it is shaken. That would only make a difference to Mr Bond.
We typically use a wok shovel to move the food at home, but I can't imagine a professional chef using something like that to move things around a large commercial wok. Chefs so hot from the waste heat of the gas burners, that I'm sure they'd love the more directed heat of an induction hob, but they wouldn't like the inefficiency with which the food can be moved with a stationary wok and a shovel.
Well, a wok is used to heat single portions anyway otherwise you can't heat the foot fast enough. A cook trying to wok 10 portions at the same time doesn't sound like a professional to me.

You do see Asian cooks using bigger pans but these are more for regular frying (bami goreng for example) or deep frying (submerged in oil). There are several cooking techniques in use by Asian cooks and not all of them are intended to heat food quickly even though the pans they use may look similar.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2022, 09:31:59 pm by nctnico »
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Online coppice

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Well, a wok is used to heat single portions anyway otherwise you can't heat the foot fast enough. A cook trying to wok 10 portions at the same time doesn't sound like a professional to me.
Chefs cook quite a few portions at the same time during the busy times of the day. Even a small place only has to wait 5 minutes to gather up orders for 10 portions or more of the things on the "today's special" list. A big restaurant needs a constant stream of the popular things from its main menu. Even at home I'm usually cooking 3 to maybe 8 portions at a time, depending how many are in the house. A restaurant would go bankrupt cooking everything portion by portion. There's a reason why the woks in restaurants are something like 800mm across.
 

Online Marco

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Which is not a problem, you can build the induction burner as large as you want and the power required is not a problem either.

Induction can replace gas just fine for commercial Chinese kitchens, easier in fact than western kitchens. High power requirements is less of a problem than basting with a tilted skillet.
 


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