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Comment by ct0 | Hacker News Reader

What will people do when the power goes out?

I actually had a few power outages yesterday and it reiterated to me how utterly dependent I am on electricity. Fortunately I have a propane grill and a gas stove I can manually ignite. Otherwise I probably would've just eaten a box of goldfish for lunch and dinner.

Even though some gas appliances (like ovens and heaters) don't work without electricity, I think stoves and gas fireplaces could be really helpful in life or death situations such as extended power outages caused by "the big one". On the other hand I suppose gas lines are one more thing that can be damaged, so there's a tradeoff there.

I actually know some people in outage prone areas who have invested in natural gas generators. Much cheaper than a Tesla battery pack and similar storage solutions

Oh please, California never loses power for extended periods of time.

Most gas heaters today still use electric ignition. If the power is out I can't turn on my heat. Also it takes electricity to run the blower.

My gas stove has 4 D-sized Batteries underneath, haven't replaced them in nearly a decade.

For the less fortunate, if you don't own a single spark source to light a gas fire in your house it's highly likely you have far greater immediate survival issues to face.

I can light the gas stove without power, but I can't heat my house with my gas heater without power.

Sure, but that has nothing to do with ignition - the blower won’t run even if you get it lit.

This doesn’t apply to gas fireplaces or smaller room sized radiant gas heater though.

That was exactly my point. That I can't run the gas house heater without electricity.

oh please, never had a stove top not light before? Matches do wonders.

I can light the gas stove without power, but I can't heat my house with my gas heater without power.

Huh? Electric start on my gas/propane appliances doesn’t prevent me from using alternate ignition, ie a match or lighter.

if you have central air you need a fan to blow the air and a thermostat to start it

Ah, fans. Gotcha. We don’t have those on our system.

CA's power demand is already greater than supply because our politicians close nuclear. But we see relatively few outages related to supply because CA just buys more and more power from other places like Utah (where it is generated with coal and ramping up due to demand from CA)

Most of our power outages is related to obsolete and un-maintained power-grid being fragile to high loads and wind.

All new homes have solar, if there is storage included, it will allow offline power access.

gas furnaces and water heaters don't work when the power goes out anyways. Only thing that works is the range.

Many gas water heaters will definitely work. New tankless style ones may not if their thermostats rely on power, but the last 3 tanked water heaters I installed didn’t have any electrical hookups..

my non-tankless that I got this year is hooked up to the electricity. I don't know if that's just to ignite the pilot light though (and therefore would continue to work if the power was out and the light was on).

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