Natural gas space heating is a good backup solution for extreme cold. When Texas's power grid went down, people were freezing to death. AFAIK, gas delivery wasn't affected.
But again, it's more of questioning the scale. How big of an issue is leaks in the natural gas grid? I'd like to see some actual numbers as to the damage that is done. Promote electric space heaters as primary option, sure. But this smells like all hype and little bite
Most natural gas space heating involves a blower fan of 500W or more.
We don’t know exactly how much leaks, but the estimates have been growing and most sources cite 2-4%. Given the 80x multiplier on methane as a GHG compared to CO2, that’s potentially a really big problem.
One of the reasons to be aggressive here is that building codes are upstream. You won’t see the impacts on the market (reduced gas consumption, strong demand for induction stoves & electric space heating) until many years after this change, and it’s precisely those shifts in demand we need to drive further advancement in electric stoves and heating to make them even better quickly.
I work for a utility with ~260km of gas pipe, ranging between 60 year old cast iron to brand new polyethelene pipe, and everything in between. We aim for <2% UAFG (unaccounted for gas) and our regulatory requirement is <2-4% depending on the network classification.
This is leakage from between our recieving gas and it being metered to the customer. On the customer side, there's another estimated 2-4% loss.
Gas worked during the power outages. I ran my gas fireplace to keep everyone from freezing to death, and used my gas range to boil water. Would have been an even more horrific nightmare otherwise. I actually started looking into stuff like wood pellet heaters because of it.
Researchers found that frozen wells caused natural gas production to fall by 85 percent in the days leading up to Feb. 16, with up to two-thirds of processing plants in the Permian Basin experiencing an outage. Researchers looked at a sample of 27 natural gas processing plants, and found that as many as 18 of them had zero output at the worst of the storm. Natural gas producers are not required to weatherize their equipment in Texas.
The desperate scramble to power up natural gas facilities again exposed a major structural flaw in Texas’ electric grid: Oncor and other utilities didn't have good lists of what they should consider critical infrastructure, including natural gas facilities — simply because natural gas companies failed to fill out a form or didn’t know the form existed, company executives, regulators and experts said.
Moreover, this very similar situation happened 10 years ago already and that had natural gas curtailments to retail customers. So, no, not a good backup solution.
I get the impression this isn't typical, but for me "gas" usually means a 150-gal propane tank, filled asynchronously, often by truck rather than gas main. A benefit of this, like most asynchronous systems, is that no amount of disfunction in the backend will have any immediate effect on local usage.
I don't know anyone who, when talking about heating, says "gas" and means "propane". "gas" is usually shorthand for "natural gas", usually from the grid. If they were talking about propane, they'd say that.
But yeah- in my neck of the woods, anywhere outside the city has a propane tank on the property somewhere.
Or, depending on local attitudes and media, any amount of dysfunction can have an immediate effect on availability, as people stockpile in response to fears of disruptions that never materialize at all :(
> an []immediate[] effect on availability, as people stockpile
Actually, that is a specific thing that this method does help with: if people stockpile in a given month, it has no immediate effect on me, because my gas tank still has gas left in it. It might cause non-immediate problems, but a lack of local buffers doesn't help with that, and I've at least bought weeks or months of time for those problems to clear up.
These are totally different distribution systems, and I've heard of several anecdotes of people using gas while the elecetricity was out during that storm. I'm not going to bother bypassing bloomberg's paywall to verify you're just speculating, sorry.
My mom has a beautiful house in Plano Texas. Her homeowners association forbids installing solar power panels. This should tell you what you need to know about Texas. But I agree gas is a great backup solution and her gas powered generator saved her butt this past winter
Texas Property Code Section 202.010: HOAs and POAs cannot prohibit or restrict a property owner from installing a solar energy device
I also live in Plano. This law was passed many many years ago, so if the HOA is really saying that they should change their tune if you point them to that relevant passage.
“ This should tell you what you need to know about Texas.”
It’s not a helpful comment. If you have something to say… say it. If you don’t like the HOA rules don’t move to the HOA neighborhood. It’s hardly a Texas specific problem.
Unreasonable homeowner associations are everywhere, sure, but homeowner associations that hate solar power do seem restricted to the states that didn't vote for the guy who won the last election in my experience.
Not my house, I wouldn't have moved to that neighborhood, but my mom didn't have a whole lot of time at the time but of course that doesn't matter we must all embrace the free marketplace of ideas because no other solution is possible here I know I know... Bored now...
The funny thing is that my conservative friends complain about exactly this sort of mindset in California. And I tell them to move to Florida or Texas instead of perpetuating their own misery but they rarely do. One of them seems to have killed himself last year over this. I conclude that I do not understand people and why they can't just do the simple obvious things because you're right that my mom shouldn't have moved there but there's a story behind how she ended up there and you've completely neglected that. Maybe my late friend has a story too.
> but homeowner associations that hate solar power do seem restricted to the states that didn't vote for the guy who won the last election in my experience.
I find this unnecessarily political, but I also find the more "conservative" minded people to be more supportive of independence, including solar. Not sure how many HOAs are in your experience, maybe it is a lot more than mine.
My friend in DC said her HOA tried to ban her from getting solar panels but she pushed back using a similar law saying they can’t prevent her from getting solar, and the HOA shut up. It’s not just red states, Karens are ubiquitous.
I think your first assertion is pretty misinformed since it's republicans are pushing texas to go over to renewables, if for no other reason than it just makes business sense. Run as much as your state renewably as possible, so long as it's cheaper than oil/gas and export oil/gas outside the state. And in texas currently renewables are cheaper than oil/gas.
If I'm not mistaken California has made it law that your HOA simply cannot stop you from having solar if you want it. Hard to imagine Texas doing that.
> If I'm not mistaken California has made it law that your HOA simply cannot stop you from having solar if you want it.
While the protections have been extended and clarified by subsequent legislation, its worth noting that this policy (the Solar Rights Act) was adopted in 1978 in California.
Using the law to force your HOA into something, though, sounds like a really good way to ensure that your HOA will fuck with you by every possible means for the rest of your natural life.
How many houses have natural gas space heaters that work without power?
I'm sure lots of people used an oven or a range as emergency heat, but a point in favor of keeping those going is not a point in favor of natural gas space heating.
Powering a ~500w blower is not a big deal if you are flexible with diy options. You can backfeed 50A 240v into your panel with about $150-200 worth of hardware (and to code if you follow a few basic rules). A ton of Houston homeowners did this after Ike. I was able to keep my furnace going continuously through a 24 hour outage with a 12kw generator. I know of some who used even smaller ~2kw units to similar effect (albeit they had to be more conservative with other household loads)
How many houses have natural gas space heaters that work without power?
Quite a few. Older through the wall gas panel type gas heaters work without power. Often found in low-end apartments and trailers.
Newer ones tend to require power, mostly for a fan, but sometimes for "cloud connectivity".
Gas stoves are more collateral damage than culprit, in my opinion, although the indoor air quality issues are a compelling health concern.