No more natural gas in new San Francisco buildings starting next year

Natural gas (methane) also leaks and contributes to warming as a greenhouse gas far more potent (though shorter-lived) than CO2.

CA electrical generation is largely zero- or low-emissions sources, with hydro (for SF, Hetch Hetchy), nuclear, wind, and solar making major contributions.

No it's not an odd choice. It doesn't have to be to be better or more efficient now. It's meant to be one step toward a future where we're not burning fossil fuels.

The funny thing is that it even applies to restaurants.

Agreed, that is why I plan on putting something like this biogas digester/stove system [0] in my next house. Bonus green waste disposal too!

[0] https://www.homebiogas.com/Products/HomeBiogas2

What's wrong with a beefy induction stove?

Losses from the plant to your home average 5% [0] If the electricity is generated in a combined cycle gas plant you get about 64% efficiency [1], so the actual efficiency is about 60,8% if you take the losses into account. A regular electrical stove is 82% efficient (this plummets to 40 if the pot doesn't cover the heating area) and an induction stove 76%. [3] A gas stove has about 40% efficiency (fig 8) [2]. In conclusion, assuming your cooking pot covers the heating area, electrical heating has 44% efficiency and is therefore 10% better than gas. This is not all that needs to be taken into account though, a sibling comment already mentioned this but we also need to take additional issues into account such as pollution due to incomplete combustion. This is a big issue inside densely populated cities, so a reduction is usually very welcome.

[0] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=107&t=3 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant [2] https://doi.org/10.1016/S0196-8904(03)00074-8 [3] https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2014/data/papers/9-7...

Cooking with natural gas is detrimental to indoor air quality (https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/5/7/21247602...), and improving indoor air quality is specifically called out as a motivation for the new restrictions in the article. And as far as natural gas usage patterns, I believe most natural gas is used for heat and hot water, with the amount used for cooking being relatively small.

About 51% of California electricity consumption is from hydro, nuclear, and renewable sources (https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...). On top of that, many new electric heating systems would probably use heat pumps, which bring in 2-4 times as much heat into the house relative the the amount of electric energy consumed. In combination, that means that even accounting for transmission and generation losses, using electric instead of gas heat in new construction should result in significant savings in carbon emissions.