During the freeze, gas stove was essential
Food for thought
Regarding “Why gas stoves matter to the climate — and the gas industry: Keeping them means homes will use gas for heating, too,” (Jan. 18): I wholly support our efforts as a nation to develop cleaner ways of energizing the world. To me, there is no downside to doing things that help “this Eden” we were given stay healthy. That being said, when the lights went out in Texas in 2021, our gas stove was cooking some much-needed hot meals, which we then ate in the cold darkness. Food for thought!
Dean Muths, Seabrook
As a professional engineer, I would like to suggest that the efforts to build new homes as all-electric and to replace gas cooking, heating and water heating appliances in existing homes is misguided when it comes to the attempt to convert our grid from relying on fossil fuels to renewable energy. Gas home appliances of all kinds account for a very small percentage of emissions that supposedly impact our climate.
At the same time, they can arguably be a more efficient utilization of energy in the overall consumption of energy, which matters to our society much more than the climate agenda perceives. Increased total energy demand will likely result in higher emissions totals. Houses with all-electric appliances create a high load upon the energy transmission and distribution system, and create an exponential increase in energy demand during extreme cold spells. Traditional electric water heaters use resistive heating, which can be an incredibly inefficient use of electrical energy. Heat pumps are large users of electric energy (they are an A/C unit run backwards), and when the temperature drastically drops, they have to resort to resistive electrical heating as a backup. In recent cold snaps, the energy demand projection has been missed by ERCOT, likely, in part, because the computer models they are using don’t accurately take into account the impact of backup resistive load during extreme cold snaps.
If we really intend to convert our generation to all or mostly renewable resources, that effort will be greatly enhanced by reducing the size of the demand curves during cold snaps. ERCOT is presently planning to change the structure of our “deregulation” to potentially offer payments to incentivize extra generation resources that are only available for use during extreme events. Why not reduce the need for this generation reserve cost by installing more, rather than fewer gas appliances. It would seem that the current agenda focused on needing to eliminate gas appliances is counterproductive.
David Patlovany, Houston
Another event canceled
Regarding “Katy ISD cancels bestselling author Emma Straub’s visit over use of ‘F word’ on social media,” (Jan. 17): Well, fudge. I guess it’s no surprise that Katy ISD, one of the book-banniest school districts in the country, has canceled yet another bestselling author’s reading event, this time due to Emma Straub’s “repeated use of the ‘F’ word’ ” on social media. Maybe the school board could get Kyle Rittenhouse to fill her vacancy, since Southern Star Brewery canceled his recent event. Of course, the fact that his was billed as a “rally against censorship” might be a little too meta for them to wrap their puritanical minds around. But maybe — dare we presume — they’d come to see Rittenhouse as other self-anointed conservative gatekeepers do: A free-speech champion who just happens to punctuate his thoughtfully nuanced discourse with an AR-15 instead of an exclamation point. Forget bullets. We’ve all seen the devastation that results from an F-bomb. Thanks for protecting us, KISD.
Robert Campbell, Katy
Back the Cougars
Regarding “Marcus Sasser’s big second-half leads UH to a win in the Big Easy,” (Jan. 17): Wednesday’s print coverage of the Cougars basketball team in the Chronicle is just ridiculous! They are the No. 1 men’s college basketball team in the nation right now. Where is the support for this amazing team? They won Tuesday night 80-60 over Tulane. Also, part of the story is that No. 2 Kansas and No. 7 Texas lost. The Chronicle needs to get behind the home team.
Tammy Cooney, Kingwood