San Francisco Bay Area to phase out natural gas heating appliances
reuters.com
reuters.com
Given that nobody cares about their furnace as long as it works, and that in the Bay Area these decisions are made by landlords about every 20 years, who are just trying to get the job done as fast as possible at the lowest price, just banning the gas burning version is a great way to create the necessary demand to accomplish this transition on schedule.*
*”on schedule” here means “in enough time to mitigate climate change enough to prevent the release of exotic diseases from permafrost”
Over the last couple of years, I've had 4-5 power outages that lasted over 4 hours and I live in the middle of San Francisco. I do have a wood burning fireplace as a backup, but those have all sorts of restrictions on use and new ones aren't permitted. Imagine what a chilly 20 unit Tenderloin apartment is going to be like!
Unless cheap battery tech, microgrids, and major subsidies are put into place, it's going to be a cold winter when PG&E is out for hours at night in 2032.
As an aside, it's an interesting failure scenario because there's a loud explosion outside my window, then I get 120v 50hz power from whatever is left of the transformer so half the house lights work at an odd warm glow. :D
He already has one and says they have restrictions.
- Banning the sale of all gas cars by 2035(lets see how the grid handles by adding millions of electric cars to it). My guess it will fail spectacularly as the state now can't even handle a small heat wave(in 2022) with the current power grid pull.
- Shutting down perfectly safe and clean nuclear energy power plants which will strain the grid even more.
- Banning gas powered lawn equipment - have you ever tried to use electric alternatives, they are completely not up to the task of a yard larger than a room or two(I do alot of yard work and tried every electric alternative, they need to be recharged constantly).
- Banning gas powered backup generators - good luck when the power goes out on the new frail grid California has when nuclear power is shut down.
It should have been, but currently we are facing the results of decades of the feds and everyone else refusing to build any nuclear anywhere.
I live on the peninsula. We've had many more than 4-5 power outages the last couple of years. Usually they last 4-8 hours, but we've had several that lasted for days, including the most recent one which was 48-hours (and we had one a few weeks ago for 24-hours). They've re-routed power, not fixed the actual cause, so some of our neighborhood is still without power. The cause is a huge mess of trees, wires, and broken poles. We spoke to a PG&E worker and he said it will probably take about 36-hours to fix, it's not high priority (we still have traffic lights out in town), and they probably won't work on it over the weekend. So some of our neighbors are looking at a week-long outage.
It's been cold here, with temperatures down in the 30s some nights. The temperature in our house was less than 50 degrees this morning. We do have a wood burning fireplace, but we've never used it, so I'm hesitant to do so unless we really need it. Even then, it's not enough to heat the whole house.
We've finally decided to get some alternative power here. Probably solar+battery with natural gas generation as backup (before that's illegal). We can only sort-of afford it. I don't know what other people are going to do.
So in the end all you get is heat immediately around the fireplace, and a cold house everywhere else.
(None of this applies to modern fireplaces that account for these issues - but I don't think that's what you are talking about here.)
I don't think politicians are thinking clearly about this. They seem to want net-zero energy at any cost, even if it means people will suffer. Meanwhile we can't control what other countries do so it might not even make a difference anyway.
This is about indoor air quality too, though.
I hope by then, we begin to have efficient home-energy storage solutions, for the purposes of outages.
"In a vote held late Wednesday, the board of directors of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) adopted rules that will require new water heaters and furnaces to have zero emissions of nitrogen oxides, or NOx."
I live in New England and utilize heating oil primarily. Even that won't work without electricity.
If we want to talk about power outages causing loss of life due to freezing then we can talk about that problem. But I'm pretty confident that "put today's gas furnaces in everybody's home" is the appropriate way of attacking that problem. Especially in a place like the bay area where you just aren't seeing 10 degree lows.
Recommended? Of course not. But a lot of (especially rural propane) users do it to avoid freezing pipes and people.
SF maybe not so much, but in climates where you can literally die without heat (often because you're simultaneously "snowed in"), you really really want dissimilar redundancy.
(obviously NEVER heat with a stove, because as we all know you'll burn down your house and/or asphyxiate from carbon monoxide)
Did you mean "is not". And I never suggested this. But certainly there are vulnerable populations that should be considered.
If the purpose of this legislation is to improve "indoor air quality", as another poster suggested, why not educate the populace and allow them to make the decision for themselves?
It seems like a big deal to me to go from two redundant energy sources to one without discussing the trade offs in resiliency. I agree with OP, that there will be a large of human cost to giving up gas heat without making a corresponding investment in the reliability of the electric grid (which I have never seen mentioned). My impression is that the total cost to the decision to phase out gas has not been crunched.
Pushing it to individuals to be prepared for electric grid failure is pretty bad for carbon and pollution. All those generators (and other emergency backup appliances) manufactured and maintained. I personally prefer having gas and electric, I feel that gives me adequate reliability, so I don't need to own a generator: I have my gas heat (millivolt pilot generator requires no AC power), gas hot water, candles, and flashlights. And I like not owning a generator (or emergency propane heater (aren't these commonly implicated in structure fires? [0]), etc). Plus many people can't afford generators.
[0] https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Data-research-and-too...
And with no power, you may not be venting. Sure you know to open a window, but every year people die from not opening the window.
The advantage is that there is no grid dependency. People in Texas also lost gas during the blackouts because it was quite limited also used for electrical generation. It wouldn't surprise me if an earthquake could upset gas infrastructure in the bay area. Or some other disaster.
I think you misspelled "net zero carbon."
And forget politicians, I want net zero carbon. Though I wouldn't exactly say "at any cost," I'm willing to pay more myself and see others suffer in order to get there.
Because people will suffer more if we don't.
I'm also getting increasingly skeptical of but-other-countries argument: America's chip war with China has demonstrated that nations are willing to cut off major trade partners if they decide it's a matter of national security. I'm giving less than ten years before carbon tariffs are everywhere.
> I'm also getting increasingly skeptical of but-other-countries argument: America's chip war with China has demonstrated that nations are willing to cut off major trade partners if they decide it's a matter of national security. I'm giving less than ten years before carbon tariffs are everywhere.
We're doing it at such a pace that 10 years is way too late. If we had the time we would do the tariffs at the same time in order to at least have everyone make the same sacrifices. Instead only a few hundred million people will make the sacrifices in vain while the rest of the world keeps burning coal. I hope the market pressures them sooner because green energy will be profitable. I'm not convinced banning energy sources like this is effective.
This makes no sense, if the grid can’t handle it, then it should not have been legislated this way. At the very least, an allowance for back-up systems during emergencies should be in place.
That is very fixable. With $500/month of potential savings the return on investment is very high.
> Leaving a typical server on is like $70
1. That'll cut down on your heating bill.
2. How many people need a server that expensive? To do what?
I admit, with a bill that large I assumed a McMansion that you own. In your situation, I'd move to be honest. Easier said than done, with a newborn. But $700/month is completely ridiculous, unless you have really low rent to offset it.
54% of emissions in the city are from burning gas for home heating so it's really the biggest way to lower emissions. Good for SF.
(the next biggest chunk of emissions is 39% from vehicles)
Of all the areas that could manage this, SFBA seems up there in terms of feasibility at least.
This makes no sense.
If you count heat pumps as electricity, this hasn't been true for a long, long time.
No longer true, especially in moderate climates such as the bay.
Even still though heat pumps are cheaper over lifespan than furnaces until you get to consistently sun zero temps.
You either care about air quality or you don’t. This makes no sense.
This is a pretty good video to convince people to switch from gas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X440BHdy35g