Induction vs Gas Cooking

[ScotYount]

I still have CNG and my 40 year old stove is like brand new. My local chandlery has CNG tanks so all good there for now. When there is no more CNG I will go to alcohol. I love cooking and make a living making television about food and cooking. No hot plates for me.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by kmgiunta

If one looks at the issue from a purely practical perspective, Induction could be a viable alternative. For Chefs, as I am, gas wins. Always has, always will. The level of control that exists for gas is incomparable. For us, it's about the food and the art of preparing it, not what is convenient. But, each to his own.

I'm no chef, but the degree of control which exists with my Viking gas range at one of my land homes, and with the weenie lpg stove on my boat, are worlds apart. No question control vastly better - on my boat - incomparably better, with induction. YMMV if you've got a Viking etc range on your boat.

[Ktyhwkpete]

One other thought. Forget your aluminum cookware. Forget using a glass pyrex fry pan. Induction needs iron/ferrous metal to work. On a delivery, we tried to get a meal and had to boil water on a stainless pail using induction. Just another thought on the beauty of induction.

[christinekling]

My husband and I are building a new powerboat that will use a Bosch induction cooktop and a Bosch microwave/convection/broiler oven. No gas after 40+ years of sailing on boats with everything from alcohol to kerosene to propane.

But the boat is big and as a powerboat, she has the room for eleven 320W and three 295W solar panels, along with 14 MPPT controllers, one per panel to help alleviate shading issues. We will have 3 Multiplus inverter/chargers for the 240V AC and two Multipluses for the 110 AC side. No diesel generator, but two 250 ah @ 224V alternators on the single main engine. And just to make it more interesting, we are putting in a Gardner engine.

As to Dave's ongoing argument that the electrical system is the most dangerous thing on a boat, we are overseeing every meter of cabling, oversizing everything and we're very aware that our immensely complicated system has amplified the number of possible points of failure. But I have o=gone from my first Pacific crossing in 1975 aboard a boat with no refrigeration, an alcohol stove, and not even a VHF radio, to this new beast. I love a challenge.

We have absolutely no data yet as to how well all this is going to work, but it is an exciting experiment. We hope to launch in late summer or early fall, and we will start to see how well this boat will work. I have cooked on an induction hobb on a 50-cat that we delivered, and I absolutely love the control.

Funny thing though, after trying to go to a single fuel boat, no propane or petrol, our new Vitrifrigo freezer drawers were delivered recently, and the refrigerant in them is R290, aka propane. It is only 150 grams in each compressor, but still!

If you are interested in the build, we have a blog at Möbius World where Wayne has been writing with more technical details than most would ever want for the last two-plus years.

[ben2go]

This is the unit I plan to install in my boat. I'll have the capacity for it electrically. Requires 220~240 Volts wiring with 40 amp breaker, 9000 watts total. I doubt I will use more than two burners at a time and I'm pretty sure they won't be on high the entire time. With that said, I may actually use only 3000-3500 watts.



https://www.amazon.com/Empava-Electr...language=en_US

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by Auspicious

...For the record solar is NOT green. That's marketing hype. If you look up where panels come from and where they go you'll see they are not green. Hint: not renewable either.

I tried, I really tried, but in the end I just couldn't let this one pass (troll much?). Should probably move the discussion thereof to a separate thread.

Concessions:

• There is a large quantity of hype on the subject.
• Boat installations are unlikely to last the 25 or 30 years on which many solar life cycle studies are based.
• Most life cycle estimates do not include the construction cost (both dollars and emissions) that are required to keep the grid capable of 100% non-solar, non-wind for days when the "renewable resources" aren't available (i.e. there have to be idle traditional power plants available - in today's world - to fill in for solar and wind plants - storage is only in the initial stages of potentially feasible installation)

If you want the short bullet:

Total life cycle GHG emissions from renewables and nuclear energy are much lower and generally less variable than those from fossil fuels. For example, from cradle to grave, coal-fired electricity releases about 20 times more GHGs per kilowatt-hour than solar, wind, and nuclear electricity (based on median estimates for each technology).
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/57187.pdf

Or there's this work from nearly 10 years ago, using 14% efficient PV modules that shows PV has about 4% the GHG emissions of coal (and about 10% those of natural gas) on a life cycle basis that includes manufacturing, use, and disposal.

Then there's the more recent Cradle-to-Cradle certification of Sunpower (more manufacturers in process) solar modules that includes recycling of >65% of the materials contained in the modules (and yes, the aluminum frame and glass are the most easily recycled).

On a dollars and cents basis, the fuel and oil costs over the last four years (~600 engine hours) for our engines have alone exceeded the total installed cost of our 960W of solar, and produced far less total electricity at the same time (a single data point and very non-scientific).

Bring out your big guns, but first please define "green" so that we all know on what field we are playing.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I would gang them. It's true that if one goes down, the whole system goes down, but it's a 5 minute job, or 3 minutes job, to reconfigure the surviving one to run as stand alone. You just flip 3 dip switches.

When electronics are linked, such as ganged inverters, a fault in one will sometimes take down both units. The other consideration is that a system fault condition such as a dead short will effect and can therefore damage both units.

Better reliability is achieved with two separate inverters. As inverters are available up to 5kw, a single inverter should be capable of running most systems on a cruising yacht (air conditioning is the possible exception). This dual system could be arranged on a changeover switch similar to the way dual autopilots are often configured. Alternatively (even better) they could be arranged to supply separate outlets.

The above would be a more expensive solution than a single large inverter, or two smaller inverters ganged together.

This focus on reliability and redundancy may seem like overkill, but especially when cruising remote places these qualities are important. The phrase “cruising is fixing things in exotic places” is often heard for good reason.

Completely separate systems such as propane and electric or diesel cooking are more reliable again than the above totally electric solutions.There is a slight reduction in safety, but I am not convinced this is of any practical consequence.

[bclaude]

As some have said before most fires on yachts are caused by overload of electricity circuits and heating appliances do put enormous load on the system and wiring. The great benefit of gas for cooking is that gas is highly concentrated energy. Yes gas is dangerous but if you apply rigorous safety steps that risk can be mitigated. Installing an automatic gas shut of valve that can be controlled from the galley and get in the habit of shutting off the gas supply after each cooking session is a must. Before we had a shut of valve we used to go outside to turn the gas on and off every single time but that did get old. If you plan a long voyage you want to keep your installation to something that is simple and reliable and you want to pack with you as much energy as you possibly can and electricity is not the best way to do that. To me it does not make sense to have to start the generator every time we want to cook and eggar make coffee. On long voyages we do bake quite a bit (such as baking fresh bread) and baking does take a lot of energy. Also you want to avoid single point of failure for anything that is critical on your boat and I view eating warm food as critical. For all these reasons, our boat came with an induction range and we replaced it with a proper gas appliance. We do keep a stand alone induction range on board as a backup, just in case we run out of gas, our gas regulator freezes or something else goes wrong. As it turns out we never used it in 12 years of heavy duty sailing including 2 round the world trips. We do have a Microwave Oven and use it quite a bit to heat things up quickly and efficiently and that can be run straight off the batteries/inverter. They draw a lot of juice but for a very short period of time and therefore they do not drain the batteries very much. Perhaps I would see things differently if we were coastal sailors and spent lots of time in marinas but for water sailing">blue water sailing gas cooking is the only way to go IMHO.

[mako]

Originally Posted by ben2go

This is the unit I plan to install in my boat.
https://www.amazon.com/Empava-Electr...language=en_US

Really nice unit and great price. I’d probably go with the 24” unit though

[gulfislandfred]

No one has mentioned the origo type alcohol stoves. For a small boat, especially in the 30 foot and under range, I like them. After the old primus type pressurized alcohol stoves (half hour to boil water) I didn't believe the origo would be any good, but my Hunter 27 trailer sailor came with one, so I tried it. No pressure, relatively cheap fuel (here in Canada, we can buy varsol lacquer thinner, actually says stove fuel on the can), completely self contained, and they cook hot and quick. I've had origos in three different boats now, and I cook a lot when I'm cruising. Haven't had one with an oven, but I cook a fair amount with a "dutch oven", heavy cast iron pot on the stove top. It will bake bread, or cook a roast.
Discussing this with some other senior sailors, somebody said "and if the fuel spills and catches fire, you can piss on it to put it out." another fellow said, "well, maybe, when I was 35, but now I think I'd better have a bucket handy. I can just see myself standing there - waiting, while the curtains over the stove go up in flames"

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Sure, but why would you ever try to repair an induction hob? It's not meaningful. With a choice between a field-repairable gas system and several disposable induction hobs on board, I would take the latter. Even easy field repairs take time, parts, tools.

Replacement vice repair is viable. No question. You have to have the spare and the spare has to work. Aside from storage space, on board spares all too often don’t work. The stories of spare alternators that are lumps of rust or water pumps that leak are legion is because that commonly happens. When I spent some time on the USS Whidbey Island (I was there working on the tie-down manual for LCAC) and ate in the Chief’s mess. I overlapped spares inventory which the senior chiefs did for their departments. Why not delegate to some junior enlisted? Because the chief would be responsible if something got pulled from spares and didn’t work. Inventory was not counting boxes. It was inspection of every item, including in some cases bench testing. In our world, are you really going to open up your spare hobs and plug them in for testing once or twice a year?

There is more to my concerns about RMA (see above) of induction hobs than the glass top. I’ve already flogged plugs on power leads. Heat sensitivity has been addressed. The boards in consumer electronics are generally not conformally coated so are subject to damage from water intrusion and corrosion. For liveaboards very often dust is a bigger problem than water; how often do you open up your hobs to clean out dust to maintain good cooling from ventilation. Digression: I say the same about laptops; I generally think Macs are overpriced and make life awkward due to availability of niche software but you have to respect hardware that doesn’t need a ventilation fan. Air cooling on your fridge? When was that last cleaned?

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I would gang them. It's true that if one goes down, the whole system goes down, but it's a 5 minute job, or 3 minutes job, to reconfigure the surviving one to run as stand alone. You just flip 3 dip switches.

I strongly agree. I would mount a placard on or next to the inverters with those directions. You could put the error blink codes on the same sign.

I point to the analogy of generators on most platforms. There are usually multiple identical generators that are brought on line as demand dictates. This allows maintenance without losing generation capability, easy response to faults, and assurance that everything is working because you use it. “Monday we run Alice and Betty, Tuesday we run Betty and Carol, Wednesday we run Alice and Carol.” Doesn’t everyone name their generators? *grin* A motor yacht I worked on was replacing their 12 kW and 6 kW generators. The owner accepted my proposal for three identical 6 kW units and a frequency synchronizer. We found a model that used the same lube oil as his mains. We had to do some welding for mounts but we cut down on onboard spares and consumables and made ordering and inventory really easy. Two identical mains, three identical generators, one lube oil, filters and other bits accordingly. He runs without professional crew and is really happy with the setup.

I know we’ve talked about “limp home” earlier in this thread.

The efficiency gained here is you get to a higher capacity but you have fallback "limp home" capacity built in. I would do 2x of the 3000VA Victron ones (about 2500 realistic watts, about 5kW surge). That would comfortably run any combination of gear you would normally run off shore power (typicallyl 3.6kW). If you had to use just one, then you have to be a bit more careful, but I have been running my boat on a single 3000VA Victron for 10 years by now, including induction cooking, and it's fine.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Downside of dual ones is the idle power overhead is greater by 10 or 15 watts. If you wanted to live within 3000VA and get rid of this overhead, you might then want to wire them up like Nick's on Jedi.

Or install two identical 3000W inverters to be ganged, bypass one, and run on one until and unless you need it. Flip them periodically so you have confidence in your hot spare.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

My own feeling is we underestimate the risks with gas. It's a fairly small risk of something very, very bad happening, which is the type of risks that human nature typically underestimates.

There is also confirmation bias. You may be underestimating the danger of fire despite statistics.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

We go 20 years without getting blown up and think we're supermen of maintenance.

Personal experience is not statistically significant. Ask your little brother. *grin*

Originally Posted by Dockhead

With gas, the potential screwups are legion. Lord Trenchard I think is an extremely illustrative case, as that was a British military training vessel which was FANATICALLY maintained, maintained by the book. Yet they missed a tiny leak between the gas locker and the hull, and missed a tiny leak in hose. I can assure you that those guys went to their bunks every night thinking -- we're the most thorough people in the business, nothign gets by us, gas is perfectly safe in our hands. Only slobs blow themselves up. They even pumped out the dry bilges every night to get any possible leaked gas out! That's how thorough their procedures were.

Which doesn’t mean their procedures were well-informed. Had they not ventilated bilges every night someone might well have smelled gas. Single events are not statistically significant, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them. I hope they used explosion-proof motors on pumps or fans when ventilating bilges or their procedure could have initiated the explosion.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

do you have a bubble tester? huh?

Everyone has a bubble tester. They may not know it, but they have one.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

had a slight high spot in the line which trapped a little bit of water

Check your Espar exhaust line. Sulfuric acid condensate can be trapped and eat through the line. And people worry about head drains. *grin*

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I've now enlisted my little brother and niece into this question. My brother is a former math and physics prof who taught graduate-level courses in probability. His daughter is an engineering grad student at Cal Tech and just happens to be in the middle of an advanced course on civil engineering risk management, with a guy who apparently wrote one of the primary texts on the subject, one Prof. Moss. She's going to take our question to Moss this week and I'll let you know what conclusions are reached.

Great. Here is where I think I remember something from P&RP in college and statistics in grad school: Event A leads to outcome X, event B leads to outcome X, A and B are completely independent but can conceivable overlap. A and B may both occur due to a single cause (I can’t think of one for us) or simply be part of a failure cascade. How to combine the probability of A and B for a total probability of X occurring?
A = AC power circuit causes fire that burns boat to waterline, B = propane leak ignited by spark that blows up boat, X = boat is destroyed with injury and/or loss of life. It’s the overlap case that is torturing me.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

One thing for sure about this which my brother already told me, is that risks associated with independent systems are additive, no magic there, and it looks like Auspicious is now treating them like that, so that would eliminate what looked to me like a fundamental disagreement. If that's really so, then we're really just down to feeding representative data into the correct math.

I’ll defer to your brother. I’d like to see the footnotes so I remember better. I’m with you on additive probability in a chain of events but something is nagging me about single outcomes from independent events. Poke at that, will you? I’d be quite content to hear “Ah – I know what he’s thinking about – it’s this, and not applicable here. Here’s where it does.” That would be lovely. Maybe MTBF calculations? I just don’t remember.

Originally Posted by kmgiunta

If one looks at the issue from a purely practical perspective, Induction could be a viable alternative. For Chefs, as I am, gas wins. Always has, always will. The level of control that exists for gas is incomparable. For us, it's about the food and the art of preparing it, not what is convenient. But, each to his own.

Just for the record I don’t consider myself a chef. I’m an accomplished amateur cook. Par-cook and hold for twelve minute ticket times makes me shake my head in wonder. Adjusting heat on gas is something I can see and smell and hear. Induction, at least on the hobs I have used, means shifting mental gears and fiddling with buttons that someone thought were a good idea. “Look, if we replace the knobs it won’t leak anymore (N.B. it leaks around the edge of the glass instead) it’s cheaper to assemble and we can charge more.” Bah!

Originally Posted by ScotYount

I still have CNG and my 40 year old stove is like brand new. My local chandlery has CNG tanks so all good there for now. When there is no more CNG I will go to alcohol. I love cooking and make a living making television about food and cooking. No hot plates for me.

Be careful about alcohol. It’s expensive. The heat content is relatively low. It’s very difficult to see the flames which leads to accident, injury, and some fire.

[ben2go]

Originally Posted by makobuilders

Really nice unit and great price. I’d probably go with the 24” unit though

My boat will have a large U shaped galley. It's already planed out.

[Auspicious]

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce my friend Christine Kling. She’s written at least eight “boaty” novels and some novellas. We met online many years ago – I can’t even remember how – and in person when she came to speak at an event I organized. I can highly recommend her books. I’ve been following her work since her first book and have them all. We could all use a little Seychelle Sullivan in our lives.

Originally Posted by christinekling

Funny thing though, after trying to go to a single fuel boat, no propane or petrol, our new Vitrifrigo freezer drawers were delivered recently, and the refrigerant in them is R290, aka propane. It is only 150 grams in each compressor, but still!

If you got the icemaker in one of the Vitrofrigo freezer drawers be careful with strain relief on the water inlet and be sure you have reasonable access to the back of the drawer where the water comes in. Two things to be aware of. When the solenoid that controls water flow turns on or off there is a shock that goes through the connection, thus strain relief so the hose clamps that keep it from leaking aren’t also taking the mechanical load. The second thing is that sometimes the first few inches of hose freeze up. There is enough cold from the freezer that it will never melt. You need to either shut down the freezer or be able to reach the hose to warm it with a heat gun or hair dryer. It’s a great piece of equipment – just those two weak spots I know of, and that only with the icemaker installed.

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

I tried, I really tried, but in the end I just couldn't let this one pass

There is more to ‘green’ than greenhouse gases (GHG). Mining the rare earth minerals necessary to fabricate solar panels is really horrible for the planet and for the people mining them. The solar industry touts their recycle rate but won’t talk about the toxicity of what’s left. Not green. Also, since hugely dependent on mining of materials not recyclable not renewable. There are lots of good reasons for PV solar but green and renewable are not among them.

Solar and other “renewables” often lump their numbers in with things like nuclear and hydroelectric that make alternative energy sources look better. Your citation includes mining and disposal for coal, oil, and gas but not for alternative sources.

Originally Posted by noelex 77

When electronics are linked, such as ganged inverters, a fault in one will sometimes take down both units. The other consideration is that a system fault condition such as a dead short will effect and can therefore damage both units.

More than improved circuit protection can deal with?

Originally Posted by bclaude

Installing an automatic gas shut of valve that can be controlled from the galley and get in the habit of shutting off the gas supply after each cooking session is a must.

I go one step further. With the gas turned on I turn burners on and off as needed. At the end of a cooking session I leave one burner lit when switching off the solenoid. This burns off the gas in the line between solenoid and cooker. Belt and suspenders.

Originally Posted by gulfislandfred

Discussing this with some other senior sailors, somebody said "and if the fuel spills and catches fire, you can piss on it to put it out." another fellow said, "well, maybe, when I was 35, but now I think I'd better have a bucket handy. I can just see myself standing there - waiting, while the curtains over the stove go up in flames"

I’m not a fan of alcohol. Low heat content. Availability problems in much of the world. Flame difficult to see. Flare-ups.

All that said you might consider a fire blanket vice a bucket of water.

[mako]

Originally Posted by christinekling

But the boat is big and as a powerboat, she has the room for eleven 320W and three 295W solar panels, along with 14 MPPT controllers, one per panel to help alleviate shading issues. We will have 3 Multiplus inverter/chargers for the 240V AC and two Multipluses for the 110 AC side.

Christine, I recall that your house bank was comprised of 2V cells. Why did you choose to go this route instead of LiFePO, especially considering that you have no generator and are living off solar?

[gulfislandfred]

One note to the "I can run my generator any time I want to cook" folks:


Unless your electricity use is all supported by solar:



I deliberately go to quiet places, so I can hear the ... quiet.
When I'm off grid, my electrical use is deliberately very low. So is my fossil fuel consumption. (but that's another issue)



If you have to use a lot of electricity, and run a generator, you make machine noise in otherwise quiet places. You may think your machinery is quiet, in your insulated, sound proof box, but for those of us with no machinery going, outside, where your exhaust pipes blow out hydrocarbons and noise pollution, it is audible, and detracts from the quite enjoyment that many of us appreciate.