- cross-posted to:
- newyork@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- newyork@lemmy.world
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Induction burners are of limited utility in some scenarios like restaurants or with certain cuisines (someone else mentioned woks) but 99.9% of residential needs are readily met with an induction burner. In fact, were I live electric coil stoves are the norm in homes anyway and induction is generally considered an improvement over those.
Their utility isn’t limited. Restaurant chefs love them.
We just don’t have the infra. Buildings and backbone would need retrofits.
And that would obviously be too much of burden for the betterment of things. Small changes but unfortunately dismissed as not a silver bullet.
Even if you have a gas stove, most people aren’t going to have one that puts out the amount of BTUs to really make traditional wok cooking work anyway, so it’s a bit of a non-issue on at least that front. If I was going to bust out a wok and start trying to nail Chinese food, I’d skip right past my rapid-boil burner and go to one of the portable propane stoves they sell in Asian supermarkets. In the US, at least, I wouldn’t expect to see a stove that can deliver that sort of heat output (aside from something custom made) anymore than I would expect an off the shelf oven to be able to replicate the temps in the pizza oven at a pizzeria.
I love electric stoves. So much more efficient, and you don’t have to pay a monthly bill just to have the option to use it. You pay for what you use when you use it. Wish they were available in more places.
That’s a fair amount of backup battery and inverter power to run a stove, too. Awesome that that’s cheap enough to install en masse.
Maybe if we go for 1,000,000 pilot programs we can piecemeal sneak ourselves into some kind of real change.
Now, if the Lemmy community could pour together funds, and concentrate on renovating key areas, we can make a drastic difference
The plan is to do a limited-scale pilot, then do 10,000 apartments once a smooth process doing the upgrade is in place
Yeah, test cases to feel out doing shit at scale is good cautious practice for not fucking upat scale
I just got an induction cook top and it’s amazing. WAY more efficient than alternatives, better indoor air quality as compared to gas. One problem: can’t cook if the power is out. Good ideas all around.
Some gas stoves require electricity to continue operating due to electric safety sensors that shut the stove gas off if the flame goes out. They too would be useless in a power outage because the valves would not open. So it’s not just electric stoves that would be out of luck.
If you have room to store one, a used camp stove and gas cylinder are fine for basics. No need to buy a fancy new one. Or even a gas bbq grill.
Don’t forget about the electric ventilation being out if theres a power outage. You don’t want to cook with a gas stove indoors with that off.
Regulations in my country require that the ventilation doesn’t rely on any device, it must be some hatch you can’t close. I’m pretty sure it’s the same elsewhere in the world, it’s too dangerous otherwise.
You peoplr are nuts. You need everything, PPE’s, Ventilation, a central AC unti, or you would just sit and wait to die, because nothing is “propper”.
I mean sure… but without the fan it’s not going to work nearly as well.
It doesn’t even work WITH the fan as we’re now finding out it’s still creating toxic air in homes.
How often does your power go out that this is a major concern?
Multi-day power outages are a yearly occurrence where I live (North Carolina), typically caused either by a hurricane, a tornado or an ice storm.
For me, enough for it to be a problem.
You’d be looking at another 2-3k but you could get battery that can support that (and other things in an outage)
That starts you down the rabbit hole of okay well what about solar panels to charge it in an extended outage…
Also not practical for so many people.
Really a microwave or single plate induction would be better for outage and cheaper battery.
There are some pros and cons like better for environment and health but also some people might think more about electricity being more expensive. Although, because of how efficient induction stoves are, it might be closer than I thought
Electricity could be more expensive per unit, but it also doesn’t generally have minimum amounts for delivery to keep the stove functioning, at least, so it’s a bit of a trade off. I remember growing up, we just stopped using the stove and oven and did everything on the grill, year round, because the company that served our area for cooking gas wouldn’t make a delivery for less than $200 worth of fuel. $200 was way more than my parents had to spare for it at the time, and also like pre-paying for 9-10 months at a time, versus month to month with the electricity bill.
I’d consider the health benefits a bigger benefit than the energy savings. Less chance of getting asthma and/or cancer is a pretty big boon.
And just yesterday people were arguing with me here, on lemmy, that induction is too expensive. There are literally single plate cook tops for like $50! And how expensive do you think the cancer will be?
I picked up a used/open-box Duxtop induction burner to avoid using my gas stove, and it works amazingly well. The only downside is that most countertop induction burners have relatively small coil sizes, so with bigger pans, like my 12" cast iron frying pan, the outer part of the pan doesn’t get hot enough to brown things.
As a solution, I’m planning to pair the induction cooktop with a separate infrared burner that has a much larger burner size for my bigger pans (and for my older pots that aren’t compatible with the induction).
Til cast iron is compatible with induction heating.
I mean I should’ve figured that out by now, but glad I know now. Thanks homie!
No prob ^^
I love how all these authorities are stacking 21st century requirements on top of 20th century infrastructure.
it’s like charging your electric car from your 120 year old knob and tube house.
It’s also a safety upgrade, as the risk of fires is much diminished.
As an added benefit besides the environmental ones - you can’t blow out a wall and collapse a house with careless use of an induction cooker. :)
All it takes is someone not knowing how to handle a grease fire, and you can make one of those on anything called a stove.
I don’t know what you’re trying to convey with this.
Also, very unlikely. You need a source of ignition to start a fire. So unless someone is letting grease get so hot that it is ignitable, then lighting a cigarette within inches of the, again, very hot grease. Then the likelihood of starting a grease fire with an induction cooktop is near zero.
That’s true. I’ve watched Fight Club.
This is important for those replacing gas or propane stoves and don’t want to add the cost of running a 240V line that most resistance and induction ovens require.
OK this makes sense. It answers my WTF reaction at the thought of a battery-backed range.
Still doesn’t make much sense, though.
Induction stoves are $1000. 5kwh of batteries are $500, retailing around $2000 in the form of a power station. So, let’s call it $3000 total. The Copper Charlie goes for $6000. That extra $3000 is enough to have a 240v circuit installed by an electrician.
For real? In Europe one can get induction for less than €200. Significantly less. And a “real”, full size one, 4 spots. And adding an oven adds additional €200.
I got one for 35€
I think you’re comparing the price of a cooktop to a cooktop/oven.
You’re right, I’ve updated my post.
To answer your question, induction stoves are a premium product in the US. Only newer houses are wired for it, and they’re more likely to be configured for separate cooktops and ovens. So there’s not much available on the low end. If you’re on a tight budget, you’d want gas, which is far cheaper to run, and gas stoves start around $300.
For comparison, in Australia, gas and induction are at price parity (a budget 4-hotplate setup costs about $200-300 either way). You can buy a single-plate induction cooker for $50 that plugs into the wall and has a temperature configurable from 60-200 C.
Edit: Stopped markdown converting Centigrate to Copyright symbol
PS: Also, electricity is cheaper than gas in Australia, because we have so much rooftop solar, electricity is soon going to be free during the midday peak.
I also see those batteries going bad and complications in the future with such a complicated system rather than a dedicated 240v circuit.
What makes it seem convoluted? It’s slightly more complex than a standard electric stove, but we have and use countless devices on a daily basis with this technology. Very rarely do they have any issues with the charging/discharge circuit.
Yes, the batteries will eventually need to be replaced, and it could be an issue during Thanksgiving (etc) when a ton of power is needed all at once. But I really think you’re overestimating the usage it will get.
In any event, this is why they’re running it as a pilot. Any real-world issues will come to light before a larger rollout.
Has the text changed? I can’t find any reference to 240v
I think this is the new section?
The winning submission came from Copper, a California-based company which designed a battery-equipped induction stove that plugs into a standard 120-volt outlet. That means the units can be used in existing NYCHA kitchens without the need for major electrical upgrades.
Ditto. I wonder if it could be more of a big capacitor, or if it is.
Seems to be LFP pack. Safe and long-lasting.
What’s so hard about 240v since it takes a thinner wire compared to 110v?
North American 240v is different from the rest of the world. You use single phase, we use split phase, which means our 240v has two hot wires instead of one. To retrofit a 240v circuit in, we need to run a new cable with an additional hot wire from the breaker box to the kitchen, a new set of breakers, and a new socket.
For new construction, nothing.
For existing construction, it requires you to run a new circuit.
Not sure but maybe, thicker insulation?
The battery induction stoves are pretty neat. You can plug them into a normal 120v outlet instead of needing to rewire. Plus they can be battery backups in the event of power outages.
How long can you run them before they run out of juice, though? I’m not sure I’d want to have “range” (pun intended) anxiety making Thanksgiving dinner.
https://copperhome.com/products/charlie
This one, as an example, has a 5 kWh battery. Having seen it in action it’ll run itself for several hours unplugged. Pretty much indefinitely if charging.
Remember, while induction ranges typically have high power ratings (10+ kW), they aren’t actually running the whole time. They use a decent amount of power for the initial heat up, or if youre running all of the burners on high trying to boil several large pots of water, but realistically that’s not how you use a range.
Once the oven is up to temperature, it just kinda oscillates on and off, using comparatively little energy. Induction burners rarely run on full power because if you’ve ever cooked with induction you know you’ll burn…everything… on high - they can really dump heat into a pan.
Actively cooking a big dinner with multiple burners, you may average about 2 kW. With 1 kW coming in from the wall, that gives you about 5 hours of sustained peak cook time.
A 5 kW peak stovetop is already more power than anyone can reasonably use with the amount of space available on a standard stove. Literally the only useful thing you can do at full power is bring water to a boil, because no actual cooking can happen at full power unless your diet is carbonized food. I have a 3.5 kW stovetop and it’s perfectly adequate.
After the first 15-20 minutes of cooking (bringing water to a boil while preparing some onions/garlic/sauce/seasonings) it gets very hard to keep using 1 kW. By that point you’ll be leaving things on medium heat at most. I can’t think of a single home-cooked meal that would require continuously drawing a full 2 kW from the stove for multiple hours, that’s a truly crazy amount of energy. Even an oven at full blast won’t use anywhere near 2 kW once it has reached 250 °C.
You know, I’m not sure.
But “range” anxiety gave me a giggle so thanks for that.
How long can you run them before they run out of juice, though?
They run by either an electrical outlet or by battery. Another article stated the battery backup for its induction oven was one hour. Hardly worth being a feature.
One hour of being able to cook in the midst of a 12+ hour blackout can make a world of difference to hungry people.
Currently they have gas stoves that can cook for 12+ hours of a 12+ hour blackout…
I wouldn’t assume the pumps moving that gas would keep working for an extended outage. If an outage lasts that long, it’s usually over a big area.
Most of the natural gas distribution network is natural gas powered, and what electric equipment exists generally has backup electrical generation equipment. It’s designed to operate independently of the electric grid, and is far more reliable.
In the last 15 years, my electricity has been out for 10+ DAYS three different times. Gas doesn’t stop.
In fact, 2 out of 3 homes in the neighborhood have Kohler style natural gas whole house generators.
There’s plenty of reasons to hate gas, but that ain’t one.
The reason you were down voted was in the first paragraph of the article - including breakdowns that can last for months at a time
Surely someone’s got an example of natural gas service failing during an electric outage?
They should’ve run the electricity wires next to the gas wires, i.e. buried.
however capacity and wear they have? Battery science is pretty curved.
Just a shame how expensive they are. Copper stoves (the ones that won the contract in the article) start at $5,999. They’re a small start-up without economy of scale on their side, but that still just seems wildly overpriced for an induction stove with a lithium battery stuck inside.
To put that price in perspective, an electric convection toaster oven that can handle most oven needs can be had for $150 to $250, and a high quality countertop induction cooktop can be had for $116 (or less used), both of which run on standard 120v outlets.
Standard 240v induction
ovensstove start at around $850.Induction oven? How does that work? Is it better than a classic electric oven, does it ‘just’ heat up faster?
Sorry, I guess I meant stove, not oven. I tend to conflate to the two. I think all induction stoves have standard heating element ovens.
Ah that makes more sense 😁 cheers and a happy new year!
Also some newer ones have temp sensors so you can keep a thing at the exact temp you need.
I saw one with magnetic removable knobs to make cleaning easier.
Also the outlet bits make installs drop-in for anyone, no electrician needed.
Also some newer ones have temp sensors so you can keep a thing at the exact temp you need.
I swear by induction cooking (for both soapmaking and food) for this reason - precise temperature control, even low temperatures that aren’t even possible to get on a gas stove.
- Setting the heater to exactly 40C means you can melt chocolate reliably, without the hassle of a bain marie
- At 60C you can combine cetostearyl alcohol and vegetable oil for moisturizer without boiling off your glycerine
- At 80C you can cook soap to trace without overcooking it and making it lumpy
- At 100C you can evaporate moisture and reduce a sauce with minimal effect on other ingredients
- At 100-160C you can cook a sugar syrup to a precisely desired level of concentration (as the boiling point goes up as the concentration increases) for making different types of candy
Those batteries can be used to provide backup power when the grid goes down.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/29/induction-ovens-with-big-batteries-solve-lots-of-problems/
I did not know this exists and I love the idea. However, the author clearly never has used an induction stove: “Because of this, they are more efficient than typical electric resistance stoves and also safer because the surface of the oven doesn’t get very hot.”
I actually thought both of those points were true.
I have induction and this is certainly true. The surface only gets heated by the pot on top. So only after a long time does it get very hot and never even close to a regular electric stove.
Okay, go ahead and touch it, if it does not get “very hot”.
That’s literally one of the advantages of induction over resistive. Resistive heat an element, that heats the pot. Inductive use a magnetic field to induce a current in the pot. That electric current then heats the pot directly.
The only heat in the stovetop is either bleed back from the pot, or resistive losses, which are quite low.
Again, go ahead and touch the surface after cooking.
Wanna make a bet that I can boil some water and safely touch (for a short time) the stove top right after? I’m willing to bet a lot of money. 'cause I’ve done it. And because of physics.
The pot is 100 °C (because of physics), which is heating the glass. Glass is not as conductive as metal, so it’s not as dangerous to touch. Touching a pot of boiling water is not pleasant, but not very dangerous if you immediately remove your hand, and touching the stove is even less dangerous than that. Completely different ball game to vitroceramic resistive heating which heats the stove itself well above boiling temperatures.
Big lol. Compares boiling water to frying. The author of the article was generally speaking. And by generally they were saying the surface does not get very hot. Yes. It does not get 800°C. But it still can and will get to 300°C. Is it less? Yes. Is it still fucking hot and causing severe burns? YES.
Stop saying it is safe, because that causes people to believe this and get harmed for no fucking reason.
Nope. Had induction. The ceramic gets just as hot, because you heat up the metal on top and the metal is touching the ceramic, thus it gets hot. Enough to cause severe burns.
Sounds like you didn’t have induction but had a normal flat top stove with electric burners.
Your mom says otherwise.
I’m would not trust her to know the difference since she’s never had one.
why battery backed???
One of the benefits of gas is that you can still use it to prepare food and boil water in the event of a power failure due to natural disasters and extreme weather. A battery backup is an essential part of an emergency kit in areas where this is a reasonable concern.
I mean I don’t have one but while we do have power outages my area does get priority for getting back online because we don’t get gas. I actually would love to get a whole unit battery system but there are many things that need renovation and I certainly am not in economic shape to tackle anything atm.
Mainly to avoid the extra costs of installing a 240v socket to kitchens that don’t have one (older kitchens with gas oven’s usually do not).
It appears the main driver for the replacements are frequent gas service outages. Presumably they didn’t want to just replace that with an equivalent vulnerability to blackouts.
Also, a battery can add to the power of a standard outlet, so these stoves can have some serious output even without a 240V connection.
Prevents data loss in the event of power failure.
Gas works during power outages. Electric doesn’t, but batteries help.
Also maybe to help smooth the power load for older homes without high current service.
The video of the stove setup seems great till they get to the part that you have to connect your stove to WiFi and pair it with their phone app. This means I’m never buying the Charlie stove.
If it was just a standard Matter device, I’d be fine with it. But fuck one off apps for smart devices. They are always shitty, and always get neglected or abandoned.
Yeah I’m using homeassistant first thing I do with devices is change firmware or change their phone home server address so they don’t leak data.
