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Comment by miguelazo | Hacker News Reader

Seems like the better approach to address the problem you raise would be to harden the electric grid, which needs to happen anyway for wildfire safety, extreme weather, etc. State governments and even the feds need to mandate burying cables and upgrading old equipment. Gas lines are not foolproof either, just look at what happened in Texas.

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> Gas lines are not foolproof either, just look at what happened in Texas.

That was above-ground equipment at natural gas power plants. It takes a hell of a freeze to affect below-grand natural gas pipes. We've had a couple really hard freezes here and the only thing that worked fine was natural gas, while we were out of electricity & internet for the better part of a week.

What do you mean by "a better approach" here? The key is that the poster you responded to survived by virtue of owning a gas stove, so it seems to me like step 1 is simply not banning them, which costs nothing and requires no work. If I were in their situation, I would demand that the grid be made so reliable that this situation be impossible even in a hundred year storm, before a ban even be considered.

No one is banning gas stoves entirely. It's banning gas in new construction. If you're trying to survive a 100 year storm, you're better off with a Coleman camp stove running off of a propane cylinder.

I understand why a Coleman camp stove might be a viable substitute, but why would you be better off with a system which performs worse in every way? This perspective also sweeps aside the living conditions of rural Americans, many of whom own a large gas tank which is refilled a few times a year via truck. They go this route because many regional electrical grids are simply not reliable enough even in the absence of a major storm, and a gas connection is not possible.

> Coleman camp stove running off of a propane cylinder.

And people will be running those inside w/o proper ventilation whereas they could have been using a much safer gas range.

We're talking about emergency situations. A few days of that is still nothing compared to several years with a gas stove, even with "proper ventilation," which is pretty rare in my experience.

This “fix” would cost billions and take years to implement. You would also have to deal with companies against the loss of pole rights and the control that goes along with it. It’s basically costly, time consuming, and politically messy.

People need a solution until something like that can be pulled off.

I agree, but it's a thorny political problem. Nobody wants to pay for burying the lines, even after above ground lines caused one of the biggest fires in state history. Rural communities can't afford it, and the county or state won't pay for it.

Harden? I'd be happy if they were even maintained, much less hardened. There is zero reason that densely built areas can't have buried lines.

I hear you. It should have been a big part of the IRA. Would be a great jobs corps program a la New Deal. Who knows, maybe something for the next big recession.

So long as we have politicians that absolutely refuse to pass any infrastructure bills, for-profit energy companies doing things like NEM 3.0 and somehow making harnessing the free sunlight with rooftop solar a financially non-viable option, and voters that continue to support them despite these things, what can realistically be done?

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