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The problem is that Cantonese restaurant wok ranges, which can output 200,000 B.T.U.s per hour or more, are an order of magnitude more powerful than even the most powerful home burner.

While some cooks are on an eternal quest for more B.T.U.s, hotter surfaces and bigger flames, I wish for the stovetop equivalent of a Sterno can.

For instance, market rate apartment buildings would be permitted to use 50,000 B.T.U.s of fossil fuel per square foot per year.

For any restaurant, cooking without gas is tricky; for a Chinese restaurant whose best-selling dishes require a jet engine of a wok burner producing six-figure B.T.U.s, it is a disaster.

“There’s 100 million B.T.U.s burning in there around the flame,” Mr. Haney said.