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Comment by swebs | Hacker News Reader

Nah, natural gas is just so much cheaper than electricity in the USA.

Supporting this model, the Pacific Northwest traditionally uses electricity for everything because it is extremely inexpensive. This part of North America has seemingly limitless hydroelectric power, and consequently having some of the lowest electricity rates in the world.

At $0.08/kWh, Washington not only has the cheapest electricity in the US, it is also much cheaper than any part of Europe. It makes sense that local building would take advantage of that.

Natural gas is still popular in colder parts of the country that have cheap electricity, because it's much cheaper to heat with.

Fair point. The PNW has both mild winters and mild summers, which moderates energy requirements for temperature control.

I was paying a whole lot more than 8c kWh in Seattle, my rates are actually lower in Texas, and my new roommate was paying less in New Mexico.

Even with the maintenance of the gas lines? Unless you use gas for something else (e.g. heating) then you have an opportunity to stop paying expensive gas line maintenance costs and use that money to buy more expensive electricity.

That's what's happening in some city centers in Europe as fewer and fewer residents use gas, those that do need to share the maintenance costs for the gas network, which makes it more and more expensive to keep using it so there is a spiral of people leaving. In stockholm it's now north of $200/year for a studio apartment even before buying any gas. You get quite a bit of cooking electricity for $200!

Good point, I'm sure the gas line maintenance is passed through the monthly bill.

Typically though gas is used in the U.S. for more than cooking (stoves): heating water. More and more people are shifting to on-demand tankless heaters but even with those the perception is gas is better than electric.

A home with natural gas stoves often has natural gas for heating too. Usually the latter is what enables the former, because there's no incentive if you're already using electric heating.

In our area (NY, north of the city) if you can't get natural gas, you heat with oil not electric. Plenty of people also get propane just for the gas stove. The yearly propane tank rental is about $100, since you'll never meet the minimums for a free tank with just a stove.

> if you can't get natural gas, you heat with oil not electric.

Is this the case for new construction too? Why aren't heat pumps used these days?

> Why aren't heat pumps used these days?

They lose efficiency in very cold conditions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_source_heat_pumps#In_cold_...). Albany, New York (https://www.weather.gov/aly/SpecialDataALB) has an official all-time record low of -28F (-33C), which is well below the point where air-source heat pumps have any meaningful efficiency advantage over even resistive heating.

Heat-pump solutions that use the ground as their heatsink are much more expensive because of the excavation required.

Majority of new single homes in Finland have used geothermal heat pumps for the last ~5 years now (source e.g. https://www.energiatehokaskoti.fi/suunnittelu/talotekniikan_...).

Yes same in Sweden. I mean I’m sure upstate New York is equally freezing occasionally, but if heat pumps work in Northern Finland/Sweden one would think few places would be “too cold”.

What we do have in Sweden is cheap renewable electricity so choosing heat pump over oil/gas doesn’t just mean electric it means renewable over fossil too.

> Why aren't heat pumps used these days?

Heat pumps are likely not used in New York state because most of them cannot warm the house sufficiently during the coldest winter temperatures (0F or less).

Air heat pumps are common in the Nordics with as cold, or coldet, climates. But ground heat pumps are better. (You want good insulation too obviously)

My home is heated with natural gas. The kitchen stove is also natural gas. In the post fracking era, it has been quite inexpensive. Natural gas is knocking on 20 year lows right now. There is a few dollar charge per month, regardless of use, for the connection.

Yes. It makes a world of difference that Pennsylvania is one of the largest gas production regions in the world, and can supply the population-dense northeast corridor. In Sweden, you have to pipe gas in all the way from Russia.

Seriously, Russia? Norway is much closer, and has cheaper gas. Is there some animosity between your countries that I don't know about?

My mistake, I thought the Nord Stream serviced Sweden.

Same here, and in fact in countries that have some sort of access to gas. It's the same reason heating is usually done with gas rather than electricity.

So this is not the reason why the US has less induction stoves. In fact, cooking isn't a big expenditure on your energy bill. Heating is, and yet plenty of homes have central (gas) heating yet still have an induction stove. Simply because it's possible and convenient.

If the US indeed has less induction stoves than the EU, the fact that it would be less convenient due to the electrical wiring of American homes is a more likely explanation than gas prices.

> If the US indeed has less induction stoves than the EU, the fact that it would be less convenient due to the electrical wiring of American homes is a more likely explanation than gas prices.

Any house wired for electric cooking appliances should be able to handle an induction stove. Electric stoves are fairly common, but induction stoves are rare.

> Electric stoves are fairly common, but induction stoves are rare.

That suggests the cause is inertia. Plain electric stoves are very impractical, but they've been around for a long time.

It may also be cost of the appliance (rather than the fuel). The few induction stoves I was able to find are quite a bit more expensive than equivalent-output gas and resistive electric stoves. Not sure how much that is driven by inertia either, though.

Induction stoves cost a bit more because the BoM and complexity are higher than the regular radiant stove. But since this is the kind of appliance in use for years it's possible you can make up for the initial investment with the lower operating costs and maintenance.

I think the driving factors are cost and unfamiliarity. Induction has historically been seen as a premium option, but in the US, if one is getting a premium stove, they're usually going to get a gas stove.

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