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Comment by dgacmu | Hacker News Reader

You're somehow ignoring the fact that natural gas is ... an energy source. Cooking uses energy, period, whether it's delivered in a pipe or a wire. The difference is that electricity _can_ be generated in a carbon-neutral way, but methane can't.

The other underlying question is about the conversion efficiency of, e.g., natural gas to electricity to heat (generation station -> house -> induction stove) vs directly burning gas at the stove. And the answer is -- induction often wins out, because gas stoves are pretty inefficient (they let a lot of heat energy bypass the pan). And it wins from an indoor air quality perspective. Where it may not win is cost, depending on the relative prices of gas and electricity where you live. But full electrification of your house allows you to save the costs of the monthly gas hookup and may reduce insurance costs.

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I don’t necessarily agree nor disagree with your position. However

> save the costs of the monthly gas hookup

For anyone wondering how much a common gas (propane) stove costs: I have a 100 gallon propane tank that cost ~$300 to fill and lasts multiple years without a refill.

My whole-house generator also runs off the same propane tank. So I refill it maybe once a year (where we average 1-2 days without power per year).

One unspoken benefit of gas: it works without electricity.

I hate the inside air pollution, though.

I could see myself maybe trying induction. I could never switch ti electric. Personal preference but when I turn on a stove I don’t have patience to wait for it to warm up.

Funny.. here in Pennsylvania, that 100 gallon tank is over $800 to fill and lasts only half the winter. Here I was thinking we had low propane costs.

> lasts only half the winter

Are you also running your heat off the tank? Because it sounds like your parent isn't.

In Pittsburgh, my summertime natural gas bill is about $25 - That's with a gas stove, gas, water heater, and gas dryer. Of that, $14.50 is just the cost to be hooked up to gas. IOW, the connection fee is substantially higher than the cost of the energy I use to cook.

(My winter time bill is much higher; we heat the house with a gas boiler.)

But there's $174/year of savings available if we went all-electric. Which we won't do any time soon, alas.

You won't be saving with eclectic though - since in majority of the US electric is more expensive per unit of power than natural gas.

There's really no reality where you save $14.50 per month by switching to full electric. Rather, your electric bill will skyrocket.

It's more expensive per unit power but heat pumps are more efficient than natural gas boilers. I can't easily retrofit, but a very high SEER heat pump comes out to a similar annual cost as my existing 96% efficient natural gas boiler. But only a very high efficiency one; a middle of the road heat pump loses, partly because I have a very high efficiency condensing boiler and partly because PA has fairly affordable gas rates.

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