I agree that nothing is going to come of this right now; there’s too much resistance from industry and the population. But do you really think it’ll never fly, or maybe just not in the next 50 years? Induction is a mature tech, and creative configurations are mitigating a lot of the shortcomings that we complained about years ago. As you showed all of us several years ago, even non-ferrous cookware could be usable at some point.
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The only sure ways I see it being possible is if electricity generation (direct and infrastructure) can more completely divorce itself from fossil fuels, e.g., hydrogen fusion or “cellular” fission reactor generation. There’s little environmental point to replacing gas appliances with electrics if the gas will be burned in any event–for that or a different use. A wildcard may be some major advance in carbon sequestration, which might capture power plant emissions in ways that aren’t practical on a household scale.
Or price. I am on propane, and when I built my house in 2001 it was about 80¢/gal. Now it is three to four times that so I swapped out everything except the furnace for electric.
Yes, natural market forces may be the impetus for the change from gas to electric.
But aside from the invisible hand of Adam Smith, whether such a change from gas to electric occurs on a national level may ultimately depend on who ends up in the White House and who controls Congress.
California is sort of leading the way towards the shift from fossil fuels to renewables (not just for kitchen appliances but all gadgets) because it is arguably one of the more progressive states in the Union.
Not making a political statement, just stating facts. Or at least trying to.
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Sure. But look up the share of household energy utilized by cooking appliances. It’s quite small compared with HVAC and heating water. You can do a LOT of cooking on a single 20-pound propane tank.
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Yup, but if I would have known then what I know now, I would have gone with electric underfloor heating, which would have eliminated gas/propane completely (and get that big ol’ tank out of my yard).
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So do nothing until we know it is too late. OK. Sure.
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Meh, I like to have redundancy in terms of heating and cooking.
Growing up, my parents only had electric register units and a fireplace. I kept the registers in that house AND installed a heat pump and a big freestanding fireplace insert. I’m not going to depend 100% on my electric utility and my 5KW generator.
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Not what I read, not what I was thinking.
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Yeah, well… if I went with electric heat and no propane I would have installed wood burning stoves/fireplaces instead of propane. My main heat in my first house up here was wood, and while it was effective, it was just as inconvenient.
Wait? It did? I thought it is very difficult to get incandescent lightbulbs now.
Nope. Amazon has pages and pages of incandescent light bulbs.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=light+bulbs+incandescet&rh=n%3A328865011&ref=bnav_search_go
They’re still widely available on line and in true lighting stores.
And, I presume, dryers and generators.
Because the ban hasn’t taken effect yet.
I wonder if that includes oven lamps. I’m pretty sure mine is incandescent, and I’m not sure how LEDs function in high heat.
ETA: they don’t.
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The new incandescent/halogen lamp efficiency rules cover general service lamps. Appliance lamps are technically in that category.
PowerPoint Presentation (energy.gov)
That said, there was quite a bit of talk in the backstop proceedings about appliance lamps being exempted, and oven lamps for now in particular because the appliance-rated LED replacements are specialized, expensive and generally not ready for prime time.
Energy Conservation Program: Backstop Requirement for General Service Lamps
BTW, that paper does helpfully include an e-mail address to write to if people have any questions about the “light bulb ban.” Out of courtesy, I won’t post it here–but it’s in the PDF file (search for “FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT”).
The rule doesn’t single out incandescent and halogen lights, by the way. It’s an efficiency metric, not a technology metric. For general lighting, I found some ultra-high CRI LED bulbs which put out some pretty amazing-quality light and fit within the new efficiency standards; most cheap LED bulbs are unfortunately mediocre at color accuracy (even the “90+ CRI ones” which aren’t ultra-high CRI). I’m still using halogen lamps in the oven and non-LED lamps for bug attractors–the lone holdouts.
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The lightbulb can will be kicked down the road in perpetuity, IMO. It’s political Kryptonite.
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Correct, it’s an executive agency (DOE) rule, not law.
A different administration can change it, just as easily as it was put in place.
A better way to encourage transition to LED is to incentivize industry to lower the costs of producing LED technology.
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Bit of a weird reply to my post @Dean
I read the research about astma & gas cooking.
The data and set up of trials don’t convince me.
I read more than the research posted and in multiple languages
Do nothing till it’s too late?
Too late for what?
If you are referring to fossile fuel and its use, then I agree. We got to become less dependent.
But the astma & cooking on gas has nothing to do with that
