Gas or Electric Ovens

[Mike Cutler]

Gas for the range top, or stove. No question there. You cannot install an electric stove top, in a normal residential application, that can even begin to compete with gas, btu for btu. Gas wins, hands down.
We have a gas wall oven, that we like quite a bit. But I know that electric works well also. We just prefer gas.No good reason, just preference.
I would also go out on a limb and say that btu per btu, electric is the most expensive energy source across the country. It might be 100% efficient, but electricity is not cheap, nor carbon free. Ever!

[Ole Anderson]

Dual fuel for me. We have a GE mid range model, the Cafe. Just not comfortable with a gas oven. However it seems that an induction stove top range is really up and coming, offering a fast heat, unlike a glass top conventional electric range. They are sure a lot easier to clean than a gas stove top though.

[Ted Calver]

We'll stick with the gas cook top and electric oven. Induction would require getting rid of all of the really nice copper and stainless steel cookware we've acquired over the years.

[roger wiegand]

For an oven both work well, excellent convection and decent interior hardware is more important than fuel type. Ours is gas and eats $120 igniters, which is a pain. If self-clean is important to you electric is probably the better choice (it's been decades since we had one, I just live with the patina that develops over time, it doesn't affect the cooking in any way). Neither gets hot enough to cook a pizza properly, which is why my most used oven now is wood fired.

For cooktop I strongly prefer gas.

[Ron Citerone]

I agree with the comment made that Gas Broilers aren’t that great. I don’t use mine. I use my gas grill for that stuff. No complaints about gas oven though.

[Jim Becker]

Induction would require getting rid of all of the really nice copper and stainless steel cookware we've acquired over the years.

It depends upon the actual construction of the cookware's core...a lot of it still has steel core because of the heat retention and is compatible with induction. But yes, what you state can be a factor if you have cookware you absolutely love (and it really is a personal thing for sure) and would have to give up if you make the move to induction. I've been careful with choosing my cookware over the years and AFAIK, only have one particular (really small) sauce pan that wouldn't be compatible.

[Peter Kelly]

While I have never used one I heard induction can boil water faster than gas. But unlike gas you lose the visual aspect when adjusting the heat. The smooth top of induction is very easy to clean.

With most induction cookers, you select the temperature you want the pan to be at which is considerably more accurate than just setting to a gas mark. When you need to adjust or cut the heat, it reacts instantly.

Cleanup is also about 1,000x easier than a gas hob.

[Walter Mooney]

Prashun, gas all the way! Much easier to control the temperature (IMO), and, possibly best of all, the oven and stove will still work when the power goes out! All you'll need is a match!

[Art Mann]

Natural gas (methane) has exactly two combustion products. Those are carbon dioxide and water. How is that different in one environment versus another? I cannot believe that less total CO2 is generated when generating electricity to run a stove eye than would be consumed by direct burning.

Natural gas is mostly methane, which is a greenhouse gas. I suppose some natural gas leaks and that's my guess why they want to push people to electricity.

More and more, electricity is being generated by methods other than fossil fuel and even if you have a fossil fuel generation unit, you can better control the emissions in a single unit than you can in dispersed units.

Mike

[Jim Koepke]

Natural gas (methane) has exactly two combustion products. Those are carbon dioxide and water. How is that different in one environment versus another? I cannot believe that less total CO2 is generated when generating electricity to run a stove eye than would be consumed by direct burning.

There are many facets to this equation.

A provider of electricity has their system under control so as to produce as much energy as is needed and not a lot more. Compare this to each individual in a home who may turn the burner on full when not needed for the job.

Also as an installer for a phone company many years ago, many of the homes visited would have all the burners on the stove on full to provide heat. This is a very inefficient use of energy.

CO2 capture and sequestration technology will be easier to have installed in a generating facility than in homes and apartment units.

Also not all electrical generation in California is produced using natural gas. In California over 40% of electrical energy is produced by a combination of hydro electric, wind, solar and geothermal generation. (SOURCE) With natural gas production about the same, it might be reasonable to say the use of electricity for heat would use half the volume of gas than if the end consumer was burning the gas.

jtk

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

Another vote for INDUCTION top. Much faster than gas, much easier to control temperature. Easier to clean. If you want visual of the gas - Samsung make blue light on the stove, exactly like gas.
One negative side of the induction - you will need a different pans, not all material good for induction top. And another negative - no power, no cooking (
Ed.

[Kev Williams]

Multi-heat sources, past and present...

Our business, and us, are living in what was my parents house, we sold our house in '06 and moved in to take care of my parents. Years before in our old house I got the wife a JennAire gas range with a convection electric oven. Wonderful combo, I love gas (in my youth I was a Denny's cook which is where my love of gas cooking started), and the electric oven was a great compliment. My parents had an early 80's electric JennAire, it was working fine, no problems, then one day I'm at a home furnishing's place, in the 'clearance items' room. And sitting in a box, with 'reg price $1749' tag with several lowered prices hanging from it, is a white, 5 burner ceramic top JennAire, for under $300. Brand new, one knob was missing, all else was there. Once installed I was very surprised. The heating coils in these things get cherry red in about 5 seconds, and the ceramic top over them heats up very quickly. The larger the burner, the more coils, and each burner could control 1, 2 or 3 coils working from inside-out, so even the largest burner could function as a small, medium and large burner without wasting heat. And the ceramic would cool down quickly too, the thing was nearly as quick to react as gas. I really did like how it worked. It's main drawback, needs cleaning after every meal, Bar Keepers Friend and Scotchbrite is a necessity

We'd still be using it, but the wife really wanted a bigger oven than the 24" in-wall thing that was here, so I found a nice big GE 'European Convection' oven, but the only place to put it was in the cabinet under the cooktop, but under the JennAire was its blower and exhaust plumbing. So like Ole, I ended up getting her a semi-matching GE Cafe gas cooktop to replace the JennAire. (we still have both JennAire's stored away)...

However, all cooking sources have issues, and gas has many in my opinion. For one, it's dirty. Good range hood or downdraft exhaust helps.. Second, particularly with the JennAire in our last house-- with the downdraft blower running, it would suck the flames towards it, which took heat away from the cooking. So much so that it was hard to keep water boiling. Third, most burners suck, flames typically exit the edges of the burner outward, wasting a lot of heat IMO. The flame should exit upward or inward, where more heat will actually heat the pot! While I love the Cafe, it only has one decent burner, the big 'power boil' burner in the middle- because it's big, AND has a secondary small burner in the middle that helps with center heat and acts as the keep-warm burner (and the 'one-egg-wonder' pan). The other burners, have to be careful when stirring to not burn the hair off the bottom of my arm!

As to induction, I have one of those single cooktops they sell on TV, LOVE the thing! I use it about as much as the big center burner on the Cafe- But IT has its own issues, main one being, how 'fast and accurate' is dependent on the cooking utensil. I have a very thin el-chepo steel fry pan that I love to show off, it will literally sear meat in 10 seconds, at 15 seconds it'll be burnt. I can put 1/4 cup of veg oil in the thing and have 3 corn tortillas ready for tacos in a little over a minute. It'll boil a cup of cold water in about 30 seconds, less than half the time of our 1200w microwave. But the temp settings are almost useless with this pan, 170 is about 350 actual. But normal pans, much slower, and great control. And fwiw, my parents 60 year old SS waterless cookware works great! As much as I like induction, I'm not sure I'd want the whole stove induction.

In the end, I still give the nod to gas, with our ceramic cooktop in a near dead heat... pun intended

[Dan Friedrichs]

The flame should exit upward or inward, where more heat will actually heat the pot!

FYI, if you end up going with gas, I'd suggest looking into some of the models that have a star-shaped burner (I think Viking makes some) that solves exactly this problem.

[Brian Elfert]

Grew up with gas, now electric. Gas cooks more evenly and gas cook tops are preferred because they are infinitely adjustable by eye, and they work even if the power is out. Note that the new gas ovens/cooktops require electricity as well, to run the timer and ignition. If not already piped for gas to the oven, it can be expensive to run the pipes.

I have a pretty new gas cook top with electric ignition and the burners will still emit gas even with no power. They would have to be lit with a match or a lighter. The oven is electric so no oven if the power goes out.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Natural gas (methane) has exactly two combustion products. Those are carbon dioxide and water. How is that different in one environment versus another? I cannot believe that less total CO2 is generated when generating electricity to run a stove eye than would be consumed by direct burning.

You're probably right, because there are losses in the electric transmission system.

However, I think there are a lot of facets to this that are lost when thinking about it only in relation to stoves.
-Earthquake risk
-Indoor air pollutants (combustion products)
-Losses during the extraction process (ie - methane leaking from wells)
-Better environmental controls at large power plants than individual homes
-Potential to sequester carbon produced at large power plants
-Future ability to shift from natural gas-fueled power plants to alternative energy sources
-Perhaps just a good way to get people thinking/talking about it, even if the policy makes little sense, as it has little immediate impact

Ultimately, Berkeley is one of the best-educated, wealthiest, healthiest cities in the country. If they thought it was a good idea, I'd be inclined to defer to their judgement until/unless I'd done extensive research to understand the issue at the same level as they have.