real experience with all electric

jumper

Some years ago Montreal lost electricity for weeks. Another year Toronto did. Here's a letter printed in Wall Street Journal. Letter writer doesn't mind my posting here I believe.
The Great Risk in Pushing Every Home Off Natural Gas
The juxtaposition of news reports about Hurricane Ian and your editorial (“Progressive Mind Over Matter in California,” Sept. 24) brings to mind a vivid memory from my childhood. In October 1954, Hurricane Hazel struck upstate New York with particular ferocity. We lived in the Niagara Mohawk service district and, this being the age of Reddy Kilowatt, many of the houses in our neighborhood had been remodeled during the preceding decade to all-electric homes.
Our house, however, still had a gas range in the kitchen. For days afterward, the neighbors used our home to cook meals and heat a pot of coffee. Immediately, the value of redundant energy systems was stamped on my youthful mind.
This is a lesson of more general value to American society at a time when we seem to be lurching head- long toward the disaster of being solely reliant on the electric grid by orphaning natural-gas appliances and the utilities that service them.
DAVID L. NICANDRI
Tumwater, Wash.

Sal Santamaura

An induction range, photovoltaics and battery backup (LG, Generac, Panasonic or -- if one must -- Tesla) would serve just as well today.
It's perilous to take seriously anything by someone writing to one of Murdoch's propaganda rags.

pecmsg

I’ll keep my 1940 Chambers stove and un safe pilot light, Manual lighting oven 
ThankYou

Larry Weingarten

Hi, I think vehicle to grid (or home) power will play a big role in making sure your electric house has power even when the grid is down. It's sort of like having a mobile battery bank. All of the components for doing this exist. Here's an example: https://www.dcbel.energy/r16/ They just are not in widespread use yet.

Yours, Larry

ChrisJ

pecmsg said:

I’ll keep my 1940 Chambers stove and un safe pilot light, Manual lighting oven 
ThankYou

Meh, too new for me.
I like the older stoves with the exposed manifold.

JakeCK

I have a propane grill, and a multi fuel generator. I suspect if there is a long enough power outage I'll be the one powering my immediate neighbors in exchange for their propane cylinders and lawn mower gas.

pecmsg

But with all electric how do you get gas, LP,oil?

EdTheHeaterMan

pecmsg said:

But with all electric how do you get gas, LP,oil?

How will Burger King and Hardie's make "Flame Broiled" burgers. I guess they are out of business in the year 2023

Demolition Man (1993 movie about 2023)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpRzusd9Yi8

Hot_water_fan

Binary thinking really misses the point here: the goal is using less fossil fuels, so using LP 1% of the year is okay!

pecmsg

Ok
i see
we don’t have a choice but ……………..we’ll who does ?
IF No NG usage then that infrastructure fails for lack of funding and use so NO NG!
gasoline same thing, no gas stations!
how will the local LP distributer be able to pay the rent? Nope NO LP

So how are you powering that gen?

WMno57

http://www.priups.com/

EdTheHeaterMan

Hot_water_fan said:

Binary thinking really misses the point here: the goal is using less fossil fuels, so using LP 1% of the year is okay!

Economics 101.

Supply and demand.

If no one is using LP gas (except for 1% of the year) then who is willing to supply it? I'm not keeping my Oil company, Gas station, or LP delivery truck licensed and insured hoping for a natural disaster to happen in my neighborhood.
The Francis P Young Coal Company, one of thousands like it, does not exist today!@pecmsg still has a strong point!

Hot_water_fan

@EdTheHeaterMan surely the competent ones can adjust. Generators are wildly uneconomic vs. grid power but people buy them because they want an emergency power source and will pay a premium for it. If people want emergency heat, same deal. Some of us have wood stoves we use a handful of days/year yet there are wood suppliers.

JakeCK

Everyone used to use horse and carriages too. Not so much anymore today. But some how, they're still around. You just don't step in horse$*** as much anymore in the city. 

EdTheHeaterMan

Hot_water_fan said:

@EdTheHeaterMan surely the competent ones can adjust. Generators are wildly uneconomic vs. grid power but people buy them because they want an emergency power source and will pay a premium for it. If people want emergency heat, same deal. Some of us have wood stoves we use a handful of days/year yet there are wood suppliers.

WOOD. A renewable resource BUT also burns a carbon based fuel very similar to fossil fuels. And it will be more readily available than anything out of a refinery. those will go thew way of the Coal Delivery Trucks.

I understand the Coal is still mined. and probably will be, because we need to have something for the power plants to burn. But if you were in the refinery business making billions of dollars, and employing thousands of workers, then all of a sudden no one is buying your stuff. Are you going to operate at a loss? I think not. Then the Government will need to take over that job. (It will become a part of FEMA). And we all k now how that is going to turn out. No free gas for me. I make too much so I will pay over $499.00-9/10 a gallon, and the welfare recipients will get it for free to put in their inefficient, poorly maintained 2023, Hybrid car.

You know... fair is fair... I can afford it.

And who are the Competent ones? That is bordering on a political statement!

JakeCK

Hold hold hold. Just stop. Even if all new ICE vehicles and fuel burning appliances where banned tomorrow the installed base of these would still be in use for decades to come. Ya'll are acting like we're walking off a cliff tomorrow with regard to that. A good many on this forum won't even be alive to see the day where most of boiler and furnaces will be gone.

WMno57

Sure, fossil fuels will still be readily available to all, just like POTS telephone service. Oh wait, my hood was just out for 44 days. That would NEVER have happened back before cell phones, when every home had a POTS line.

JakeCK

WMno57 said:

Sure, fossil fuels will still be readily available to all, just like POTS telephone service. Oh wait, my hood was just out for 44 days. That would NEVER have happened back before cell phones, when every home had a POTS line.

The irony in that is that the downfall of POTS was entirely market driven. Cell phones provided a better overall value and people abandoned their landlines. No government agency mandated cell phones over pots. Quite the opposite really. The telco's are actually having to ask the FCC for permission to do away with it because they were so heavily regulated to maintain that level of service you remember.

Your memory of the good old days was a time when the utility monopolies were heavily regulated and controlled. Our dissatisfaction today  is from the era of deregulation. O.o

ChrisJ

Ok that's it I'm drawing a line.

It was all fine until @EdTheHeaterMan threatened the Whopper.

EdTheHeaterMan

ChrisJ said:

Ok that's it I'm drawing a line.

It was all fine until @EdTheHeaterMan threatened the Whopper.

Sorry!

And @WMno57... Can I get a line on where you are getting your POTS. Do they also have edibles?

WMno57

Make that an Impossible Whopper. Meat is bad for the planet.

fentonc

Cell phones might be a pretty good analogy - it turns out few people really valued the reliability and voice quality benefits of POTS compared to the other benefits of cell phones.  An A/C that also provides good enough heat could displace a ton of gas and oil even if it’s “worse” in some dimensions. I don’t know anyone in my neighborhood that can actually run their boiler off of a generator, even if that’s a hypothetical benefit, and the people that can afford hard-wired generators around here can probably afford big batteries and solar arrays too.

JUGHNE

Sal, I assume you have all of that hardware at your house, will it also charge your EV?

WMno57

This thread has convinced me to buy a Diesel Genset/Welder and another Diesel fuel transfer tank.
I should have bought that 93 Dodge Cummins a couple of weeks ago. Wonder if its still available?

EdTheHeaterMan

JakeCK said:

Hold hold hold. Just stop. Even if all new ICE vehicles and fuel burning appliances where banned tomorrow the installed base of these would still be in use for decades to come. Ya'll are acting like we're walking off a cliff tomorrow with regard to that. A good many on this forum won't even be alive to see the day where most of boiler and furnaces will be gone.

I picked 2023 because the 1993 movie DEMOLITION MAN takes place in 2023. Just a few years after the "Restaurant Franchise Wars"

I originally wrote 2050. But it is all in jest to make a point that politics don't belong here. I really don't care if you are a Federalist or a member of the Whigs. That is all history to me!

My favorite political slogan: "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too". The battle of Tippecanoe was from what war?

pedmec

So how do i run my generator if i can't use a fossil fuel?

EdTheHeaterMan

pedmec said:

So how do i run my generator if i can't use a fossil fuel?

You can get it. You just have to PAY BIG TIME. Unless you are poor. Then the government gives it to you for free.

Have you not been paying attention?

ConRail took over the profitable rail system when it no longer was profitable for the Millionaires. Billionaires by today's standards

ChrisJ

WMno57 said:

Make that an Impossible Whopper. Meat is bad for the planet.

You have no idea how hard it is not to hit dislike on that even though I know it was sarcasm.

Yuck.

Hot_water_fan

You can get it. You just have to PAY BIG TIME. Unless you are on welfare. Then the government gives it to you for free.

Please stop the welfare bashing, it’s off-topic, offensive and off-base too. 

JakeCK

I have a question, and I'm being serious here. In the event of a large scale natural disaster how likely is it that the gas infrastructure will continue to function? It is often brought up and assumed that when the power goes out that you'll at least have NG service. But in the event of a real disaster is that actually true? In hard hit areas of Florida is NG still available? I know water and power is out. Much of the grid in those areas has to be rebuilt not just repaired. Not that it matters much anyways because most of those areas don't have much left in the way of livable housing stock either. Water up to the second floor has a tendency to do that. And I wouldn't imagine those gas appliances are serviceable either. 

Now imagine something like say a solar flare that causes collapse of the entire grid or large parts of it. It could take months maybe even years to bring it back up in a shtf scenario. How long would the NG keep flowing? If the grid is down from that kind of event can we assume internet and cell phone service would even continue to work. How would the NG operators control the distribution network?

Just random thoughts and questions.

pedmec

Oh, i've been paying attention. I wrote about this happening last year and all i got reply's like i was asking for everybody's first born. I had to add a link to the article from the Boston Globe.

I'm just curious how long its gonna take to replace all the transformers on a city block when everybody tries to cook on the electric stove, their electric boiler kicks on, and the kids jump in the shower and the electric water heater turns on, all at the same time.

oh, almost forgot the electric dryer. need to do laundry.

fentonc

@JakeCK - Hackaday did an interesting general write-up on this topic: https://hackaday.com/2022/08/24/how-resilient-is-the-natural-gas-grid/

@pedmec - We've been upgrading and changing the grid to meet changing demand since it was first built, this probably won't be any different. The gas network might similarly have trouble maintaining pressure if everyone on a remote street turned on their gas dryer and gas stove and gas furnace (and gas generator!) and gas pool heater all at the same time. Infrastructure needs to be designed to meet the demands, just like anything else.

WMno57

Ed, not currently my cup of tea, but I may try it if my arthritis gets worse. Michigan is now a very "Green" state. You would pay lower prices for your green than the hipsters. Medical is cheaper than Recreational, both 100 percent legal. You might not like the Winters, but there are a lot of cheap houses in the Upper Peninsula with steam heat. Mining mansions from 130 years ago. I passed on a property pre-covid that was $900 per acre, including the wholly owned private lake. The home (1920s Sears) had been abandoned for 10 years. In retrospect I should have bought it and a D8, leveled all the buildings, and put the whole thing in the Forestry program ($1.25/acre annual property tax).
Then Sal and Fenton could call me a wealthy timber interest.

jumper

pecmsg said:

Ok
i see
we don’t have a choice but ……………..we’ll who does ?
IF No NG usage then that infrastructure fails for lack of funding and use so NO NG!
gasoline same thing, no gas stations!
how will the local LP distributer be able to pay the rent? Nope NO LP

So how are you powering that gen?

Well a pedal powered generator.......Nah, only if NG stays on. Original point is that without NG electricity is vital. You may be able to pedal power charge a battery enough to use some NG appliance. A gas bbq is better than burning old newspapers.

Jamie Hall

It all sounds so wonderful... and people like to make it all sound so easy... there is an old saying in engineering circles: give an engineer enough money and he can build you anything you want. Which is to say, in this constant, that yes, all electric is feasible. Can it be done in the short timespan wanted by some? Possibly, but it would be quite a push.

But.

It's going to cost money. A great deal of money. Money doesn't grow on trees nor yet on printing presses (well, except for some banana republics). The result is going to be a significantly lower standard of living particularly for suburban and urban folks. (Rural folks more likely will simply do without). It doesn't matter whether the money comes directly in utility bills, or indirectly from taxes via the government. The end user is going to pay, one way or the other -- and have less to spend on other things.

WMno57

EdTheHeaterMan said:

The battle of Tippecanoe

An hour from my house, which was built about 100 years later.

EBEBRATT-Ed

propane grill on the deck. propane Coleman camping stove. Recharge my Riobi flashlights in the truck using the little inverter. We survived a week with no heat one October and it was cold.

JakeCK

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

propane grill on the deck. propane Coleman camping stove. Recharge my Riobi flashlights in the truck using the little inverter. We survived a week with no heat one October and it was cold.

Growing up one thing my father always told me was that you can always put more clothes on but you can only take so much off. He loved cold weather. He used to live in Denver and skied a lot, and he spent a good amount of time in Alaska hunting too. It wasn't until his later years with arthritis that he could no longer handle the cold.

Sorry, random thought.

WMno57

@JakeCK Spoke w my Son who was living in Texas during the infamous 2021 power outage. He hung out at a friend's apartment. Gas stove and heater. No gas outage. My son's apartment was without power and water for a couple days. Not fun, but he survived. Approximately 250 people died.

JakeCK

WMno57 said:

@JakeCK Spoke w my Son who was living in Texas during the infamous 2021 power outage. He hung out at a friend's apartment. Gas stove and heater. No gas outage. My son's apartment was without power and water for a couple days. Not fun, but he survived. Approximately 250 people died.

And yet the power failures were caused by a lack of oversight, cost cutting measures, and failure to winterize the infrastructure, including most importantly the natural gas infrastructure. So while the NG supply wasn't cut to everyone, it failed where it was needed most to continue to generate electricity. 

random12345

Jamie Hall said:

It all sounds so wonderful... and people like to make it all sound so easy... there is an old saying in engineering circles: give an engineer enough money and he can build you anything you want. Which is to say, in this constant, that yes, all electric is feasible. Can it be done in the short timespan wanted by some? Possibly, but it would be quite a push.

But.

It's going to cost money. A great deal of money. Money doesn't grow on trees nor yet on printing presses (well, except for some banana republics). The result is going to be a significantly lower standard of living particularly for suburban and urban folks. (Rural folks more likely will simply do without). It doesn't matter whether the money comes directly in utility bills, or indirectly from taxes via the government. The end user is going to pay, one way or the other -- and have less to spend on other things.

People may have a change of heart about this yet...All those people who are pushing for gas bans on one hand and also make a big deal about "affordable housing" for minorities and low-income earners on the other are going to have to face the fact that they can't have their cake and eat it too unless the added cost of the gas ban for those people, where it exists, is paid for some other way.