Gas heating doesn’t work without electricity. Thermostat is electric, blower fan is electric. Modern furnaces even use electric ignition instead of running a pilot light.
That’s excessive compared to the extremely low risk of a blackout in developed countries (excluding the United States which has regular blackouts). To illustrate:
US households spent 5.5 hours without electricity on average in 2022. Excluding major events like hurricanes, the number drops to 2.1 hours.
German households spent a whopping 12.2 minutes without electricity on average in 2022.
A portable gas heater, blankets and a camping stove are completely sufficient for the average person considering most longer power outages last for a couple of hours at worst. Exceedingly rare longer blackouts will always have a government aid program, such as a heated gym with free food, near your location.
The only one’s who should really prepare for blackouts are:
the government
people who live hours away from civilization with very limited infrastructure connecting them
We were without power for almost a week during an ice storm a few years ago. There was no government shelter that I ever heard about. We had to stay at a friend’s house.
Gas is terrible until the power grid goes down in the middle of winter.
Electric should definitely be the main go to but we should all have gas hookup for a backup heat source in my opinion.
Gas heating doesn’t work without electricity. Thermostat is electric, blower fan is electric. Modern furnaces even use electric ignition instead of running a pilot light.
That’s excessive compared to the extremely low risk of a blackout in developed countries (excluding the United States which has regular blackouts). To illustrate:
US households spent 5.5 hours without electricity on average in 2022. Excluding major events like hurricanes, the number drops to 2.1 hours.
German households spent a whopping 12.2 minutes without electricity on average in 2022.
A portable gas heater, blankets and a camping stove are completely sufficient for the average person considering most longer power outages last for a couple of hours at worst. Exceedingly rare longer blackouts will always have a government aid program, such as a heated gym with free food, near your location.
The only one’s who should really prepare for blackouts are:
Breaking news: some countries have higher and lower population densities.
We were without power for almost a week during an ice storm a few years ago. There was no government shelter that I ever heard about. We had to stay at a friend’s house.
If only there was some sort of invisible power we could harness from a large ball of fire 🤔
On a winter’s night?
There are these things called batteries, and they don’t have to be made from Lithium.
Also, you could take it literally and burn wood to harness the warm energy surrounding it on a winter night.
Batteries are expensive, and having a solar array and battery bank large enough to power your home all winter would be prohibitively expensive.
This is why we ideally have a wide range of energy sources. It’s usually raining and windy in winter.