The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

Oh look! They are lying to us again. These apparatchiks are conflating total energy usage with efficiency, but there are certain physical constraints that cannot be changed.

It takes one BTU (British Thermal Unit) to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree F. There is no way to change that, and because stove burners are incredibly efficient at burning natural gas, their efficiency is baked into the cake. What these mendacious scum are actually doing is decreasing the amount of gas that is legally allowed to be used by the burners, so that big burner you use to boil a few quarts of water for spaghetti is going to be a thing of the past.

Notice the problem? You will still have to use the same amount of gas, it will just take longer to boil that water.

Biden Admin Proposes to Block Half of Current Gas Range Models

An efficiency proposal by the Department of Energy (DOE) would block half of current gas cooking appliances from the U.S. market, an analysis by the federal agency shows.

The DOE proposed a maximum annual gas consumption of 1,204 thousand British thermal units (kBtu), also known as the EL 2 standard, for all gas cooking tops. If that rule is finalized, only half of those appliances that are currently on the market would be able to meet the new standard.

The department "estimates that nearly half of the total gas cooking top market currently achieves EL 2 and therefore would not be impacted by the proposed standard, if finalized," DOE stated in an updated analysis (pdf).

The department issued the updated analysis mainly because it excluded certain types of gas cooking tops in the previous analysis that was published on Feb. 1 (pdf).

These deep-state authoritarians want to pretend that decreasing the total amount of gas used is possible, simply by decreasing the output of stoves. That flies in the face of the physics of the systems. And that's okay with them, because their real goal is not to improve the environment, it is to decrease our total usage...which is tantamount to decreasing our standard of living.

Big ranges with lots of big burners? Gone! 100 gallon water heaters? Gone! Big washing machines and dryers? Gone! Furnaces that can heat our homes effectively? Gone!

They want America to become Europe, with small stoves and tiny appliances and very little air conditioning and everyone wearing sweaters indoors from September to May, then sweltering from June through August.

Well, I don't want to become Europe, and 247 years ago the founders of this nation decided that being Europe was a very bad idea. I see no reason to question their decisions, because the result of our break from that sclerotic and class-bound system that survives to this day has been the greatest country in the history of the world, and I would just as soon hold onto that for as long as possible.

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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