1) Getting natural gas plumbed to your generator is expensive.
2) If you're running this generator for an extended period of time, things have pretty much by definition gone to shit and aren't working as designed. You have a lot fewer dependencies to go fill a couple of jerrycans with gas at the nearest gas station (that has both gas and power to pump it [0]) than you have to restore piped natural gas service to your property.
[0] And if a gas station loses power, getting it hooked back up restores its utility to everyone, whereas restoring power or natural gas service to a home only restores its utility to the person living there. Prioritizing gas stations over private homes makes a lot of sense.
If your threat model involves civilization deteriorating to the point where natural gas stops working then sure, a generator with fuel storage on site probably makes more sense. I'd argue that gasoline is the worst of available options though. Diesel and propane are much more shelf stable and typically more reliable than small gasoline engines.
Storing fuel is dangerous in general, but I believe that liquefied gas is more dangerous. It is more tricky. For example you need to store it in a ventilated environment, to prevent gas buildup. If you turned wrong nut you'll may be not able to turn if back due to pressure.[1] It can be treated safely, but it much more tricky that with liquid fuel.
Liquid Propane requires surface space to “gasify”, and more space the lower the temp. That’s (one reason) why propane “pigs” are horizontal cylinders.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many small horizontal tanks.
Down the line I figure I'll be building some sort of generator "shed", and perhaps look at using the generator exhaust to warm the tanks. A loop from the heating system would positively solve the problem, but that feels like way too big of a circular dependency.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104061902...
Massive landslides and floods will wipe out your natural gas lines, your propane tanks, your wind and solar generators, your battery backups...
Gasoline is a terrible choice in any case, it goes bad quickly if you don't stabilize it. The only time I ever see gasoline being used it's with little portable generators. Even then, I see a lot of people starting to choose propane instead now.
Of course, once you run out of gasoline or propane, you are once again dependent on the infrastructure.
[1]: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4896585-texas-g...
The most significant laws Texas enacted after the freeze — HB 3 and 5, SB 1015 and 2627 - mainly establish new funding for gas-fired plant construction, cut funding for renewable construction, and allow energy companies to raise rates on customers more frequently.
Observers will note that gas fired plants had the most unplanned outages, while renewable sources had the fewest. In any case, what matters is that the $9/kWh costs are duly distributed to the customers and tax payers, to the benefit of energy traders.
A natural gas powered permanent standby generator is amazing for peace of mind but they're a significant investment.
If something goes wrong with a generac, you likely need a service tech to come out. If my portable unit acts up I have a 2nd new one in a box just in case. They're so cheap you can basically afford to keep one fresh for each disaster.
I've had my 26kW generac for almost two years and it's done several multi-day outages without issue. I just have my mechanical contractor come out and do the annual maintenance on schedule, keep track of the weekly self-tests, and otherwise don't worry about it.
When we were shopping for houses out in the sticks, I had that generator budgeted right into the price of the house. If I got a multi-day outage very year, it's a no brainer.
It'll never pencil out in terms of dollars saved on lost food and hotels, but just knowing that the power will be out for a max of 15-20 seconds makes it worth it for us.
A portable inverter AC unit (ideally a dual-hose unit) will pull ~1700w on the high setting. You can cool a solid 1000 sqft even in the Texas heat with something like this while also running your lamps/wifi/starlink/fridge/etc.
Combine with something like an EcoFlow battery, and you can actually shut it off completely while you sleep (and lock it up inside safely). Setting the AC to the low setting will reduce its consumption to ~400w intermittently which will easily run on a 2.5kWh battery all night. The other advantage of the EcoFlow is that you can temporarily run much larger loads than the generator is directly capable of. Really good for induction cooktops and getting your washing machine spin cycle up to speed.
4 LiFEPO4 batteries run our fridge for about 8 hours. two 30lb propane tanks would run it for about a week, and the 30 gallon gas tank just recharging the batteries to just power the fridge could probably go 2.5 weeks.