Natural gas not allowed

ScottSecor

Thought this was "interesting."
Berkeley becomes first U.S. city to ban natural gas in new homes
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Berkeley-becomes-first-U-S-city-to-ban-natural-14102242.php

ratio

I feel a tremor in the electric rates...

Zman

I wonder if anyone making the decision knows where the electricity comes from. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:California_Electricity_Generation_Sources_Pie_Chart.svg

ethicalpaul

I think it is interesting. For sure an interesting experiment.

I don't think they think they can eliminate all natural gas use today, but they probably see it as a positive step to reduce the number of natural gas burners in homes.

Surely the efficiency and combustion output can be better regulated at a power plant rather than in millions of homes, right?

The Steam Whisperer

Yes, it can be better regulated, however, the electrical grid is only about 30% efficient. In contrast the gas grid is about 75% efficient, assuming end user equipment efficiencies of 80 to 90%. That's why electric cars don't make sense in most areas.

Timco

Oakland was the first to allow magic mushrooms, Berkley is first to ban gas. It's all about paving the way in CA, not common sense.

Larry Weingarten

Hello, One of the things that comes into play here is the gas delivery system. It leaks on average 4% of the gas put into it, and utilities have been unable for whatever reason to fix it. Methane, being a potent greenhouse gas, makes using gas dirtier than using coal. Additionally pollution levels indoors, particularly with gas cooking, can far exceed levels that are illegal outdoors. I know Lawrence Berkeley Labs has been studying this.

Yours, Larry

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

It’s nice to live in the Republic of Berkeley. Luckily, I have a gas range in place.

Jamie Hall

My sister lives next door, in Oakland, @Alan (California Radiant) Forbes . Neve fails to amaze me... as Henry Higgins says in My Fair Lady, "why is logic never even tried?!"

hot_rod

I wonder that seismic activity also enters into those decision Old pipes shaking ground=🔥

Keith M

Most tents do not have gas service anyway

jumper

Larry Weingarten said:

Hello, .... Methane, being a potent greenhouse gas, makes using gas dirtier than using coal. .....
Yours, Larry

I read that there's hundreds of H20 molecules in atmosphere for each CO2 molecule there. And that there's hundreds of CO2 molecules for each CH4. So are greenhouse gas fans kidding me when they tell me to worry about methane?

bob eck

No one said you need to be smart or know what you are doing to become a politician!

nibs

California is in the enviable position of having huge areas with sufficient insolation to make PV economically viable, so working towards limiting fossil fuels makes more sense there than in the North.

Zman

The same group that passed that one made some equally productive decisions that night https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/no-more-manholes-berkeley-california-removes-all-gendered-language-city-n1031131

mikeg2015

Easy to ban natural gas in a climate with minimal heating degree days. What’s winter design temp there, 35F? That’s a warm January afternoon high in Iowa. Heat pump COP rarely drops under 3F there, so it actually makes some sense to go all electric.

Steamhead

ratio said:

I feel a tremor in the electric rates...

This. It'll be interesting to see how much pushback there is as electric rates rise. Competition is good, monopoly bad.

JUGHNE

Gender neutral......what do we do to change all those FIP, MIP, FPT, MPT terms. Then how do they describe cord ends....perhaps insertion end and reception end? That still sounds sexist doesn't it?

STEAM DOCTOR

Hum. Need to capitalize on this new movement. You heard it first here. I am the first and only company doing GOILER installations.

nibs

free the nipple.

ChrisJ

JUGHNE said:

Gender neutral......what do we do to change all those FIP, MIP, FPT, MPT terms. Then how do they describe cord ends....perhaps insertion end and reception end? That still sounds sexist doesn't it?

Plug and Receptacle like we always have?

Solid_Fuel_Man

I should move to Kalifornia! Electricians will be replacing pipes for wires!

Their extremely high emissions from buildings is just an inflated numbers because nothing else happens with the NG. They have little need for heat, so "all that NG is making the pollution".

Consider that 5% of the annual propane I use goes to the range if I use propane exclusively for heating.

If I burn wood for heating, then 100% of the propane i use goes to the range for cooking, accounting for the majority of indoor pollution....

In both scenarios the same 25 gallons is used annually to cook with.

We need real numbers, not relitive percentages. I really hate limiting laws, let economics make the decisions. Why isn't electric already in wide use to cook with in Berkeley?

Here in the Northeast electric cooking is in at least 80% of homes because propane is so expensive and no NG available.

I remember back in the mid '90s running 2" black pipe in many school kitchens and restaurants and removing the old electric appliances and installing gas in their place.

@The Steam Whisperer where are you getting your numbers? The grid is only 30% efficient? I'm sorry but that is simply not even close to true, at least where I'm from.

ChrisJ

> @Solid_Fuel_Man said:
> I should move to Kalifornia! Electricians will be replacing pipes for wires!
>
> Their extremely high emissions from buildings is just an inflated numbers because nothing else happens with the NG. They have little need for heat, so "all that NG is making the pollution".
>
> Consider that 5% of the annual propane I use goes to the range if I use propane exclusively for heating.
>
> If I burn wood for heating, then 100% of the propane i use goes to the range for cooking, accounting for the majority of indoor pollution....
>
> In both scenarios the same 25 gallons is used annually to cook with.
>
> We need real numbers, not relitive percentages. I really hate limiting laws, let economics make the decisions. Why isn't electric already in wide use to cook with in Berkeley?
>
> Here in the Northeast electric cooking is in at least 80% of homes because propane is so expensive and no NG available.
>
> I remember back in the mid '90s running 2" black pipe in many school kitchens and restaurants and removing the old electric appliances and installing gas in their place.
>
> @The Steam Whisperer where are you getting your numbers? The grid is only 30% efficient? I'm sorry but that is simply not even close to true, at least where I'm from.

From what I saw power plants are only 30% efficient and this doesn't include the transmission losses which appear to be 8-12%

Zman

@Solid_Fuel_Man The plant inefficiency and line loss of 70% is unfortunately true.

Here is one source http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/

I have found similar statistics everywhere including the utility companies websites.

Solid_Fuel_Man

I apologize, I was assuming grid efficiency. Which is 88-92%. Most of the grid power I work with is hydro-electricly generated. Which only has generator losses (approx 10% loss). So a combined total of 78-82% of that electricity actually makes it to you.

I am very familiar with transmission and distribution in our area, and total megawatt in and metered kw out are always within 10%, so a combined total of 90% efficiency.

I am for saving electricity in general and when we are making moves to put more load on an aging and inadequate grid it just drives loss up.

Here we buy power from Canadian hydro because most of our hydro dams were taken out in the 70s when nuclear was the future. Now the nuclear plant is torn down and we outsource our power, how smart is that?

Renewable energy only makes sense if we actually use so little electricity that renewables can support it, we seem to be going the other way....

Jamie Hall

You have to remember that in Berkeley -- and coastal California from Marin County all the way south to San Diego (which I call the "City of No" because so many perfectly normal things are prohibited) -- it is the appearance that counts. There's no point in backing one's actions with statistics or science or logic.

And I totally agree with @Solid_Fuel_Man on the nuclear vs. Canadian hydro thing -- incredibly stupid, even if you discount the social and environmental disaster which is Quebec Hydro. But again, it's all about appearance. Don't bother me with the facts.

nibs

Having just spent the kids inheritance on installing NG, because her majesty prefers to cook with gas, and we are too long in the tooth to pack firewood for much longer, I gotta add my 2 cents.
Burning fossil fuels cannot be great, both for the damage to the countryside and for the huge amount of heat and pollutants released.
The reason we are seeing hundreds/thousands of wind turbines appearing is that they are quite profitable. As Bucky Fuller pointed out there is nowhere in the US that is more than 50 miles from a good wind site.
As the cost of PV panels and the related infrastructure comes down, we can expect PV to become more profitable over time. Hopefully the PV cost/profit break even line will continue to move northward as it has been doing steadily.
PS My father in law was on the board of a North Western utility company, the reason they were forced to tear out dams was not related to Nuclear power, but was to ensure fish and wildlife survival.

Solid_Fuel_Man

Wind is only profitable because of Government incentives and green credits.

I used to install wind turbines, and the cost of manufacturing, setup, infrastructure on a mountaintop etc are staggering. Wind looks good as it's seen as free energy.

I've done several off-grid houses as well, and let me tell you that its FAR cheaper to buy electricity, even at our local rate of $0.157/kWh. Think about that math.

I'm all for reducing our energy consumption, buy the whole carbon footprint of cooking with gas is bogus. It's so completly minuscule it doesn't even make sense, especially when the alternative is electric resistance heat. Trust me it wont all be replaced with induction cooking unless they mandate that too!

nibs

@Solid_Fuel_Man I agree with you when you say the grid is much cheaper than going off grid, although in the southern desert PV is beginning to look good, even without subsidies. Spent about six years off grid in our sailboat, and about 8 years mostly off grid in our motor coach, great fun, but would not want to live anywhere that a wind turbine would pay......... too windy.
Have read recent studies that seem to indicate that wind turbines when well sited, often pay for all related costs with 2 years.

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes

Personally, I don't care how much it costs. Somebody has to do something and when people like it for whatever reason and a trend starts and it proves worthy, then there's a movement.

Many of us only bought computers after they had been out for awhile. The first ones were clunky and had a lot of problems, but as they got better and cheaper, people started signing on.

I think it's the same with energy. Renewable energy has gotten off to a slow start, but we're getting better at it. Ten years from now, who knows what solar panels and wind turbines will look like, but they will be better than what we have now.

Solid_Fuel_Man

That doesn't have BERKRAD plates on it!

hot_rod

Alan (California Radiant) Forbes said:

Personally, I don't care how much it costs. Somebody has to do something and when people like it for whatever reason and a trend starts and it proves worthy, then there's a movement.

Many of us only bought computers after they had been out for awhile. The first ones were clunky and had a lot of problems, but as they got better and cheaper, people started signing on.

I think it's the same with energy. Renewable energy has gotten off to a slow start, but we're getting better at it. Ten years from now, who knows what solar panels and wind turbines will look like, but they will be better than what we have now.

No doubt the taxpayers and consumers pay at the end of the day for energy related costs, hard cost and environmental costs. Valdez & BP spill, TVA coal ash clean ups, nuke waste storage, gas and oil line failures, RE subsities etc.

20 new nukes came online, 3 shut down, 61 have been permitted, in recent years so that energy source is far from dead.

A top businessman/ president, for example, would see the folly in RE subsidizing and put an immediate end to it, when he had complete control of congress.
Unless of course red states were the major benefactors (Texas leads the nation in wind power thanks to Bush and Perry) and lobbied hard for the 2021 extension deadline

Politics and energy are tightly woven together.

nibs

On a more serious note, we will no longer have;
Mandolin,
Management,
Maneuver,
Manganese,
And oh my gosh
MANicure.

Jamie Hall

But it seems we still have plenty of MANure...

gerry gill

i just shake my head. They got people pooping in the streets and this is what they worry about?

Robert O'Brien

https://www.manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible

hot_rod

Non biased news, opinion, & research no longer exists in this country Best to listen to all sides, base an opinion on input from left, right and "leaning" sources.

https://energytransition.org/2018/06/americas-coal-plants-closing-despite-trump/

I don't think any one, or group can accurately predict exactly what is in store for the next 10 years on the energy front.
NG, nuke and RE seem to be the mix that most will currently agree on.

I highly doubt there is a single source energy that can sustain us for the next century.

Energy and water cost will continue to rise reflecting the cost to obtain and provide them, either as a tax/ subsidy or rate increase.

Robert O'Brien

Physics is physics, it leans neither right or left. Closing coal plants doesn't prove anything. The output was probably not needed or was replaced by NG generated power Do the math, if electrification is the goal, which it obviously is for right or wrong, nuclear is the only solution. RE can fill gaps but can never be more than a piece if the puzzle at best.

Steamhead

Not gonna happen with the current nuclear technology. I grew up about 90 miles south of Harrisburg, PA and was there when Three Mile Island Unit 2 almost melted down. There is a great book on that event called "The Warning" which explores not only the technical problems in Babcock & Wilcox' reactors (which used the pressurized-water design) but also how people responded when things started going wrong- which was a huge part of the problem.

One of the last lines in that book went something like this: "You don't have the ultimate catastrophe out of the blue. There's always some kind of warning. This was a warning."

And it was- then came Chernobyl (a strange Russian modular design) and Fukushima (a General Electric-designed boiling-water unit). Three different types of reactors, all experiencing catastrophic failures. But even these disasters could have been much worse.

TMI wasn't the first near-meltdown in this country. The fast-breeder reactor at Fermi 1, in Monroe, Michigan near Detroit, almost self-destructed during the commissioning process. One book about that is called "We Almost Lost Detroit", and it goes into much of the history of nuclear development in America, including several accidents that didn't get any coverage.

Given these, one would think the nuclear industry would work on new designs that are inherently safer, rather than relying on external safety systems. But we haven't heard anything along this line. And even if safer reactors came out, we'd still have the problem of what to do with the spent fuel.

Robert O'Brien

Choose your poison

"According to the World Health Organization in 2012, urban outdoor air pollution, from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass is estimated to cause 3 million deaths worldwide per year and indoor air pollution from biomass and fossil fuel burning is estimated to cause approximately 4.3 million premature deaths.[12] In 2013 a team of researchers estimated the number of premature deaths caused by particulate matter in outdoor air pollution as 2.1 million, occurring annually.[4][5]"

hot_rod

Coal plants and mines are closing because it is not a $$ viable energy source, now or probably in the future. I think you are seeing the same with fuel oil, the cost of crude is so violative, transportation cost, etc. We import about 19% of our crude.
I doubt fossil fuel is an endless source, other options need to be explored.

We cannot live on this planet without the sun. The land mass of Texas could provide around 300 times the power output of all the power plants in the world! Fossil fuels should be the "gap" fuel. I think it is worth chasing a cost effective way to harness, store, and transmit energy from the sun. WiFi it

The next moon shot is headed to the south pole as scientist need the solar energy that is available there to extend missions and allow for less fuel on-board. Ice may also be available due to the suns low angle. Water also limits the mission time on the moon. Heavy to haul up there.

We have gone from horse and buggy to self driving car in the short history of this country, thanks to the endless search for better ways.

We agree on needing multiple sources, RE will be a part of that as it always has, like renewable hydro-electricity has been a %. Possibly wave power and other yet to be discovered exchanges of solar.