gas stoves vent toxic fumes into the house, run the risk of blowing your house up, and are inferior to induction stoves in almost every way.
Any time this comes up I love to singe the praises of induction!
Any time this comes up I love to singe the praises of induction!
Funny story and rather infamously, the researchers who studied the fumes from gas stoves almost immediately ripped out their gas stoves after the results came back from the studies. Several states are passing or have passed copy-paste laws, written by gas companies, making ripping out gas stoves cost a fee even if the gas company isn't ripping out the gas stoves themselves.
Ah, that's lovely. :)
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Also pilot lights: older gas ranges have tiny flames burning 24/7 just in case you want to cook something in the middle of the night. (Most newer models use electric sparks "on demand" to light.)
the one way in which they surpass induction stoves is the only thing that counts, instant control of the heat applied to the pan.
No gas stove I’ve used has had this functionality. They let you set the exact output you want, which is not the same (and induction cooktops can do that too).
Yes, if you want to set a specific temperature induction cooktops will cycle, but you can also use them the same way you’d use a gas stove and then they don’t.
My experience with induction cooktops is admittedly mostly with portable ones, because I’m renting for now and can’t install my own stove. I suspect mine’s just not sophisticated enough. :)
Gas stoves would likely cycle as well if they had a temperature set feature. It's what gas ovens do.
> cycling is just usually a good way to maintain a temperature when you've got a pan and some food sitting on top of it since there's quite a bit of inertia in actually changing the temperature of whatever is on the stove.
Why precisely is cycling more effective than attenuating down (better word please?) the output? I don’t see what the thermal inertia of what’s on the cooktop has to do with making the optimal (for cooking) choice between cycling and modulating the power.
Without detailed knowledge of the precise energy and time costs, I think it’s a fair default assumption that continuous power modulation should be more efficient, because it’s in a sense a superset of cycling, with much more fine grained control, but you can always set the continuous power output to 0 or 1 to accomplish cycling if in a specific scenario it is helpful.
Maybe when you say “a good way” you mean “a good enough way”? That makes sense, but doesn’t really sell induction stoves relative to gas (if you want to sell induction stoves relative to gas, I suggest to downplay any cycling and promote the continuous output modulation)..
Increasing temperature is a function of the range, and in my experience induction is significantly faster.
To the extent that "it must vary on and off to maintain temperature" is true, that's not really relevant. As a sibling poster states, you're not setting a temperatures. You're setting a level of output on both induction and gas. Your food is separated from the output by a heat reservoir and cannot possibly respond quickly enough to induction's on/off switching for this to matter. This does however, seem to be an area where induction can vary greatly in quality, and I suspect most of the complaints people have about induction have more to do with dodgier induction units than they do with the technology versus gas.
They are slower to heat.
They are more expensive to operate.
They are more fragile.
They rely on complex electronics vs. simple mechanics.
They require specific cookware made out of only certain materials.
They require direct contact with the "burner" to work.
In what possible way are they superior?
Pot handles don't get hot from the hot air going up the side.
They are much easier to clean. Spills don't get burnt onto the cooktop.
There's no risk of fire or burning oneself.
No risk of a gas leak from bumping a knob.
No harmful pollutants emitted by combusting fossil fuels in an interior space.
Power failure is very rare where I live so it didn't occur to me. I have never experienced a power outage for more than a few hours in my entire life.
I would think a lot of the advantages of induction are really obvious, so I don't think your statement that they are "inferior to gas in every way" is particularly in good faith. No gas in a building should be obviously advantageous. Reduced ability to cause burns or fires too. Reduction of use of a potent greenhouse gas.
It's a bit like saying, "if you care about the neighborhood being quieter, then you're free to turn off your own radio at night, but don't yell at me for blasting a boombox at 4AM, that's my choice". The greenhouse gases you let out don't stay on your property, they "trespass" onto everybody else's -- so it's more difficult for me to view pollution as a purely individual choice because air pollution is effectively dumping waste onto other people's land.
Of course, sometimes there are ways we can influence outcomes without outright banning things. Maybe you're allowed to play your boombox at full volume at 4AM but have to pay an noise tax? Maybe we subsidize replacing your boombox with an iPod and some decent headphones? Policy is complicated.
But even if you approach this from a pure Libertarian perspective, Libertarianism has a concept of conflicting rights and acknowledges that a recursive "right to infringe other people's rights" doesn't actually work and is reasonable in many situations to ban. I suspect that the pure Libertarian perspective would be that you can burn as much carbon as you like as long as those emissions stay entirely on your property and aren't being dumped into the collective atmosphere for everyone else to deal with.