Coincidentally while I was reading this thread, our area lost power. Judging by the sirens shortly after the power went out, I am presuming a car wreck, so likely going to be out a few hours. We were without power for a few hours less than a month ago when a neighborhood transformer blew. Living in the South/East, it's not uncommon for us to lose power for days (and on occasion, even a week or more) at a time due to hurricane/tropical storms or winter ice storms. Ice storms were an equal threat when I resided in the North/East too. We increasingly hear of rotating power outages during extreme hot & cold spells as electricity demands exceed capacity. We have natural gas to tap into with highly efficient dual heat source HVAC systems, and a whole house generator to automatically step in during outages, so we are well covered. Power outages are a real enough threat in these parts that I would estimate 30% of homes in our area have whole house natural gas or propane generators and another 50% portable gas generators to at least keep the fridge and cell phone chargers running, and in rural areas, the well pumps running. The generators have been procured due to the frequency and duration of untimely power losses. I would suspect as we add more electric car charging to a grid that at times is already overtaxed, we're going to only have more power issues. My point is that electricity has a long way to go before it is 100% reliable when needed most. I'm unaware of a natural gas outage anywhere I've lived in my 60 years of life.
We do our part to minimize energy consumption by using the most efficient of appliances and HVAC gear, but it's going to be a while before I'd be willing to give up on gas as a second energy source.
We do our part to minimize energy consumption by using the most efficient of appliances and HVAC gear, but it's going to be a while before I'd be willing to give up on gas as a second energy source.