Duggan Flanakin
When Berkeley, California last year became the first U.S.
city to ban the installation of natural gas lines to new homes, Mayor Jesse
Arreguín proudly stated, “We are
committed to the Paris Agreement and
must take immediate action in order to reach our climate action goals. It’s not
radical. It’s necessary.”
Phasing out natural gas-fired electric power generation by
2030 is bedrock dogma in the Green New Deal. In fact, it’s become an unholy
crusade. So it should be no surprise that climate alarmists would jump at the
chance to ban new natural gas lines. Many other cities in California have
already followed Berkeley’s lead, as has Bellingham, Washington. More gas bans
are in the offing nationwide. Connecticut lawmakers actually want a law
that would pressure insurers to stop insuring homes that
have gas appliances or heating systems!!
But Takoma Park, Maryland, which proudly bills itself as
“the Berkeley of the East,” wants to go even further.
City officials have proposed to ban “all gas appliances, close
fossil fuel pipelines, and move gasoline stations that do not convert to
electric charging stations outside city limits by 2045.” The Takoma Park
proposal also mandates all-LED lighting by 2022 for all buildings, including
single-family homes. Composting would also become mandatory.
For hardliners whose only focus is ridding the world of
carbon (dioxide), the moves are obvious and necessary. With wind and solar
prices dropping, they argue, natural gas is no longer
needed as a “bridge fuel.” They envision an all-electric future, magically,
right away, co-friendly, sustainable. Or not.
The price claim is nonsense. It’s based on comparing operating
costs for wind and solar installations. It deliberately ignores the far larger
capital investment and environmental costs: building thousands of wind turbines
and millions of solar panels, hauling and installing them across millions of
acres, connecting them to the grid, backing them up with batteries or pumped storage
(or coal or gas power plants), replacing them far sooner and more often that
we’d have to replace coal, gas or nuclear plants, and disposing of broken and
worn out panels, blades and other parts that cannot be burned or recycled.
The phony price parity claim also ignores the massive
amounts of overseas mining for metals and other materials, which are needed in
far greater amounts per megawatt for wind, solar and battery power than for
stand-alone gas, coal or nuclear plants. And that mining is done under horrific
conditions, with little attention to air and water pollution, workplace health and safety,
fair wages, or rampant child labor.
That’s reason enough to rise up in anger. But natural gas
companies, gas appliance manufacturers, restaurants and ordinary citizens have
additional reasons for not taking these radical demands lying down.
If implemented , the Takoma Park proposal would force those
with gas stoves, hot water heaters, clothes dryers, furnaces, outdoor grills
and propane heaters (for outdoor winter dining venues) to replace them with
electric units. That could double electricity demand – and turbine and panel
numbers and impacts.
Homeowners, landlords and businesses that currently rely on
natural gas would have to upgrade their electrical systems to handle the
additional load from going all-electric. Estimates run s high as $25,000 per resident (not
household) to make the switch.
Last November The California Restaurant Association filed a lawsuit in U.S.
District Court, claiming that Berkeley’s action violates “long-established
state and federal law.” The CRA further claims the action is invalid and
unenforceable under the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act and under
California’s Energy Code and Building Standards Code, and that it is an
unlawful to use police powers to amend state building codes.
A CRA press release further
explained that the natural gas ban would force higher energy costs on
businesses and consumers alike and, wurst of all, “effectively prohibit
the preparation” of flame-seared meats, sausages and charred vegetables, and
the use of intense heat from a flame under a wok (the essence of Chinese
cooking). Top chef Robert W. Phillips explains: “An overwhelming majority of
chefs and cooks are trained using natural gas stoves, with pots and pans over a
flame produced by natural gas.”
SoCalGas, whose service area covers half the state, is also
a strong opponent of building electrification.
Alarm over this fast-spreading virtue signaling has spread
to Washington and Oregon, where the Seattle Times says gas companies are
forming a coalition of
unions, businesses and consumer groups to tout the benefits of natural gas and
help “prevent or defeat” initiatives that would inhibit or prohibit its use.
Comparisons between electric and gas appliances show that
gas appliances often cost more up front (especially if you have to run a gas
line) but save money while in use. More important in many parts of the country
is the fact that gas stoves can operate even when the electricity goes out –
and a small generator will allow gas furnaces to continue operating during
power outages. (Prolonged outages have become frequent in California of late,
due to efforts to reduce catastrophic wildfires associated with power lines but
caused by the state’s failure or refusal to thin and manage brush, grass and
trees.)
Until now, people have been able to choose between electric
and gas. One energy choice service
notes that gas water heaters typically cost about $30 a month, while electric
heaters cost $42 on average. Gas units also heat water more rapidly and provide
hot water during power outages.
Gas dryers average about 8
cents less per load to run than electric units, partly because they heat up
instantly, whereas electric units use a coil that can make loads take twice as
long to dry. Electric dryers can also be harder on clothes because of their
longer drying times. Electric dryers do not require a gas line, can be
installed wherever there is a 220-volt power outlet, and do not require vents
for carbon monoxide. On the other hand, an improperly grounded electric
dryer can be dangerous.
Gas stoves provide instant heat for top burners, but gas
ovens heat up more slowly, according to TopTenReviews. Gas stoves
may be harder to clean, and there is a risk of fire from the open flame.
Both gas and electric stovetop burners remain hot long after the knob is turned
off. Most importantly, gas stoves are cheaper to operate, because gas
prices have fallen some 85% since their historic high in 2006.
In sum, both gas and electric appliances have their pluses
and minuses. However, “choice” (for women or men) is not high on the list for
many virtue-signaling politicians today, except in one other acrimonious arena,
which Senator Chuck Schumer
(D-NY) recently addressed in the context of a pending Supreme Court case. They
therefore push the envelope every time – and sometimes get their way. Yet in
the process, they make new enemies of people who previously were not
politically motivated at all.
In Takoma Park, which four decades ago became the nation’s
first “nuclear-free city,” sustainability manager Gina Mathis says, “Yes there
are ways that we could soften” these policies, “but we know that voluntary programs
are not going to get us to net zero.” As in net-zero plant-fertilizing CO2
emissions.
The mandates tend to generate anger. According to the Washington
Post, one Takoma Park resident complained that “the number of times the
word ‘require’ is used in this [proposal] is stunning.”
It could get far worse. Socialist Senator and presidential
candidate Bernie Sanders is committed to 100% “renewable” energy for
electricity and transportation “by no later than 2030.” His plan would also
take our entire energy system out of the private sector, and put it in
government hands, with more mandates.
Meanwhile, China already has 900,000 MW
of coal-fired power plants and has another 350,000 MW under construction or in
planning. It’s also building or financing hundreds of coal and gas power plants
in Africa and Asia. India likewise has hundreds of coal-fired units and is
planning nearly 400 more. They will not stop using fossil fuels to build their
economies, create jobs and improve living standards.
So even if manmade CO2 is a major factor in climate change,
these scattered, silly natural gas bans might reduce future warming by 0.0001
to 0.001 degrees 80 years from now. But the con goes on.
Duggan Flanakin is director of policy research for the
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author
of many articles on energy, climate change and environmentalism.
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