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Australia must rapidly transition away from gas to renewable energy for environmental and economic reasons.
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Gas is not a transitional fuel, and its climate impacts may be underestimated due to methane leakage across the supply chain. Phasing out gas is critical to meet climate targets.
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Electrification powered by renewables can meet energy needs more cheaply and cleanly. Heat pumps, induction cooktops and electric vehicles are mature technologies ready to replace gas.
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Gas demand is declining globally while renewables are booming. Investing further in gas risks billions in stranded assets. Renewables create more jobs than fossil fuels.
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Government policy should support electrification, ensure no new gas infrastructure is built, and assist workers transition from gas industries. Phasing out gas by 2030 is feasible with political will. Our future depends on acting swiftly.
I tend to cook volume, and surface space in the kitchen is at a premium, so I’m not keen to buy new electrics. I assume the CO2 from the production of those would exceed environmental benefits too. The microwave is about the only additional device i use.
I might consider that induction hob for balcony cooking though… I do avoid cooking some things due to smell and smoke.
TLDR - Your gas stove is likely emitting somewhere between 2kg and 10kg of CO2 “equivalent” per hour. It’s difficult to know exactly how much but even at the low end that’s a massive amount of carbon. It might actually be more missions than commuting to work every day in a 4WD.
There’s a lot of miss-information around on the subject - and the gas industry has been caught spreading miss-information (or at least misleading information).
For example often they only cite CO2 - they ignore Methane entirely and Methane causes 84x more warming than CO2. Often they say “Methane only lasts for 12 years in the atmosphere, but CO2 lasts for hundreds of years!” when in reality after the 12 years are up, all of the Methane becomes CO2 and continues to contribute to climate change for hundreds of years.
Another thing they often ignore is leaks - gas is very hard to contain especially in remote locations where they pump the stuff out of the ground. The surrounding area near the gas plant literally has methane seeping into the air through the ground. How much methane? Who knows, because they’re not as diligent at taking measurements as they should be and they call the police whenever they catch anyone else taking measurements. Sometimes you can see methane bubbles if it happens to leak underwater… but most of the leaks don’t happen underwater. When it leaks int to the air it’s impossible to detect without expensive equipment.
Kmart sells them for fifty bucks, they are tiny and light weight. About the same size and weight as a lid for one of your pots.
They’re not as good as a fancy 10 kilowatt unit that needs to be installed by an electrician — but they’re still very very good. Better (and cheaper) than all but the most expensive gas cooktops… and since you’re renting, I assume you have a cheap gas cooktop?
The main advantage of an induction cooktop is they heat your pot directly. A gas stove heats up the air underneath the pot which is radically less efficient. Really the only drawback is how well it works depends on the materials in your pot. Some of yours might not work (pretty much all modern “good” pots do work).
Noted, thanks. I didn’t realise quite how much gas contributes.
I assume I have a cheap gas stove as well, but it’s the only time I’ve ever had gas, so I would never know the difference.
Time to check my pans with a magnet!
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Ugh fine, maybe I can find a bit of wood for the stove to convert it to a surface and then put an airfryer on top. Goddamn it.
I can’t do anything about my gas hot water though.
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Depends what I can find really, I’m on no income at the moment but surrounded by people who are constantly throwing out furniture, so odds are I’ll find a piece of laminate MDF that fits.
The gas water is a communal apartment block thing, all I know for certain is that I pay for what gas my hot water uses. Truth be told 95% of my cost is just the monthly connection fee for AGL.