This is an excellent way to solve the housing crisis in San Francisco: sarcasm fully intended.
Stories like this just reinforce the obvious: the housing crisis is a problem of our own making. Wealthy residents and NIMBYs consistently show they have no interest in helping the poor, the homeless, or working-class people who simply want a place to live. The ones hit hardest are usually younger generations.
This should not be a political issue. Whether on the left or the right, rich people will always find a reason (legal, aesthetic, environmental, religious, etc.) to avoid fixing the housing problem. The excuses vary, but the outcome is the same.
They could easily get more public support if they pushed this as a seismic retrofit initiative rather than continue to gaslight the public and doubling down on their environmental foolishness. A direct-vent natural gas-fired water heater is probably the simplest, most reliable appliance you could own. It requires no electricity. And now bureaucrats (not plumbers) made them illegal.
SF is probably the only place in the country where this makes sense, solely because of the earthquake problem. (Do you know how to shut off your gas meter in an emergency? Probably not.)
Yet same people who insist hopscotching amongst piles of human feces is part and parcel to living in the city, not the public health hazard it is, want you to believe your gas stove is killing you.
Totally sensible policy that the average American thinks is crazy because their overton window is so skewed.
In Australia they're looking to identify larger areas to remove from the gas grid at the same time. Otherwise the few remaining on gas bear the entire cost of upkeep of the grid.
I'm in another state with a liberal, climate-oriented govt, and I just got a fresh gas range and new gas car. Felt like my last chance to do so given how long I hold onto such things. Carpe diem.
How do San Francisco homes get heat? As I understand it, it gets cool enough in SF to require heating a lot of the time. If gas is banned, a lot of people switch from gas to electric heat? Straining an already strained grid?
A lot of places have centrally pumped steam, believe it or not! It's pretty neat, although difficult to control depending on the system install date. (Many places are quite old)
Gas cooking is still much better. I have both. Induction just isn’t as enjoyable and you can’t do things like move your pan and have it keep heating like with a flame. Not to mention, induction is rough on pans. Banning things is aggressive and uncalled for.
It’s really not. We built an all-electric ADU for my parents, then ended up living in it while renovating our house. As someone who cooks pretty much all meals, the induction range is better in almost every way than the fancy gas range that came with our house, so we’re replacing it with an induction cooktop in the renovation.
I would say that using a high-pollution method of cooking when cleaner options are easily available, simply because it's more enjoyable, is aggressive and uncalled for.
"Yes, this is bad for kids with asthma who have the misfortune of living in my neighborhood, but it's great for quesadillas! So you have to look at both sides."
+1 - there are just so many Asian recipes that can not be done anywhere near as easily on induction stovetops (high heat from direct flame for flatbreads, etc).
Plus a whole bunch of cookware doesn't work with induction (clay pots, non ferromagnetic bases, etc). I do wonder if any of these "environmental" estimates factor in the environmental cost of replacing a bunch of cookware just to satisfy induction requirements.
Induction is not rough on pans, it just has a massively higher range of power output. The higher end options should only be used for boiling water. Usually a 6-7 out of 9 on induction is equivalent to full flame gas.
When I was looking for an apartment in SF, it seemed like half the places we viewed smelled a bit like gas in the kitchen. And then the apartment we ended up renting turned out to have leaking gas pipes basically throughout the entire plumbing run. (Fortunately, the landlord was able to coordinate a brand new gas line installation in a matter of days.)
I think a lot of people live with gas leaks without even knowing, especially in older buildings. This is a good change from a public health and safety perspective.
Natural gas is burned to generate electricity in the peaker plants near Reno that supply SF with their power needs.
That's hundreds of miles of power lines running through Northern California forest to get power to SF because of state regulations. Downed power lines are directly responsible for a pretty large % of wildfires.
Same thing in LA, where a significant amount of power is sent from peaker plants near Las Vegas.
These regulations can't do anything to lower demand, they'll only serve to make things even more expensive.
19 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 45.1 ms ] threadStories like this just reinforce the obvious: the housing crisis is a problem of our own making. Wealthy residents and NIMBYs consistently show they have no interest in helping the poor, the homeless, or working-class people who simply want a place to live. The ones hit hardest are usually younger generations.
This should not be a political issue. Whether on the left or the right, rich people will always find a reason (legal, aesthetic, environmental, religious, etc.) to avoid fixing the housing problem. The excuses vary, but the outcome is the same.
SF is probably the only place in the country where this makes sense, solely because of the earthquake problem. (Do you know how to shut off your gas meter in an emergency? Probably not.)
Yet same people who insist hopscotching amongst piles of human feces is part and parcel to living in the city, not the public health hazard it is, want you to believe your gas stove is killing you.
As a wok owner, I'll take that chance.
In Australia they're looking to identify larger areas to remove from the gas grid at the same time. Otherwise the few remaining on gas bear the entire cost of upkeep of the grid.
"Yes, this is bad for kids with asthma who have the misfortune of living in my neighborhood, but it's great for quesadillas! So you have to look at both sides."
Plus a whole bunch of cookware doesn't work with induction (clay pots, non ferromagnetic bases, etc). I do wonder if any of these "environmental" estimates factor in the environmental cost of replacing a bunch of cookware just to satisfy induction requirements.
I think a lot of people live with gas leaks without even knowing, especially in older buildings. This is a good change from a public health and safety perspective.
That's hundreds of miles of power lines running through Northern California forest to get power to SF because of state regulations. Downed power lines are directly responsible for a pretty large % of wildfires.
Same thing in LA, where a significant amount of power is sent from peaker plants near Las Vegas.
These regulations can't do anything to lower demand, they'll only serve to make things even more expensive.