Berkeley Becomes First US City To Ban Natural Gas In New Homes (sfchronicle.com) 548
Berkeley has become the first city in the nation to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new homes. The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously voted to ban gas from new low-rise residential buildings starting Jan. 1. The San Francisco Chronicle reports: The natural gas ordinance, introduced by Councilwoman Kate Harrison, requires all new single-family homes, town homes and small apartment buildings to have electric infrastructure. After its passage, Harrison thanked the community and her colleagues "for making Berkeley the first city in California and the United States to prohibit natural gas infrastructure in new buildings." The city will include commercial buildings and larger residential structures as the state moves to develop regulations for those, officials said. The ordinance allocates $273,341 per year for a two-year staff position in the Building and Safety Division within the city's Department of Planning and Development. The employee will be responsible for implementing the ban.
would be great (Score:5, Interesting)
If they were not using natural gas to make electricity.
I understand this area probably needs very little heating but natural gas could still be a good way to provide it
Re: would be great (Score:2)
Could still be great if it forces most new homes to use geothermal, or even air heat pumps.
Re: would be great (Score:5, Insightful)
Could still be great if it forces most new homes to use geothermal, or even air heat pumps.
Berkeley has a mild climate that is perfect for geothermal or air heat pumps, but people still need gas for cooking and clothes dryers.
Cooking and drying can be done with electricity, but that is stupidly inefficient and wasteful.
Government coercion doesn't seem like the right approach, but it is the "Berkeley Way".
Disclaimer: I used to live in Berkeley, but in the northeast quarter, which is not a weird as the rest of the city.
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There are heat pump based electric dryers now, and induction cooking is efficient as well as fashionable.
Induction is not appreciably any more or less efficient than resistive.
Given that we're talking about new construction in an expensive area (i.e. homes for multi-millionaires), they probably could mandate all this tech without hurting anyone.
Is there any new construction anywhere in California not for multi-millionaires?
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I am no expert especially when it comes to cooking, but in many industrial processes induction heating is significantly more efficient than resistive heating. You lose significantly less heat to the ambient air with induction heating. It would depend significantly on how the cookware is designed.
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I am no expert especially when it comes to cooking, but in many industrial processes induction heating is significantly more efficient than resistive heating. You lose significantly less heat to the ambient air with induction heating. It would depend significantly on how the cookware is designed.
I looked into this just a few weeks ago and the best information I could find had induction at 1% more for cooktops.
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Best I can find online is data that if you are using a heavier pot than what you are cooking Induction will be more efficient, but presumably making my chili in a 20qt stock pot is more efficient with resistance.
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I don't know about induction, but a good electric cooktop and good cookwa
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That's because to meet modern energy efficiency regulations, electric 'glass' cooktops pulse the heat on and off instead of the old rheostat style control. Hence your food burns then does nothing, burns then does nothing, etc.
I have no idea why many modern electric ranges use 70's technology. We have transistors capable of driving the on and off process dozens to thousands of times per second which accurately regulates heat transfer without any loss of efficiency, are extremely robust, and cost pennies. There is no need for a giant variable resistor that just wastes power and hasn't been since cost effective solutions became available around 1990. It's probably the reason most clothes washers and dishwashers used gear drive t
Re: would be great (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that part of it is that appliances now are all engineered to last about 7 years max with normal use. Besides the 1970's technology, you'll be sure to find some microcontrollers in there anyway (usually to drive the user interface, which needs to at least appear to be high-tech). This controller board will be unobtanium a few years down the road when some $0.05 component goes bad, or will available but be priced at about 70% the cost of a replacement appliance.
Doing something about the absolute shit quality and planned obsolescence of modern appliances would do better for the environment than banning the use of natural gas.
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Triode? You mean thyristor, or two SCRs connected back to back, i.e. a Triac, dumbass.
Re: would be great (Score:2, Insightful)
Wouldn't you use a rectifier bridge person of mediocre intelligence
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At least on stove top, it is MUCH easier to quickly heat and regulare heat with an open flame than with any form of electric.
Look at pro kitchens....do you see any restaurants using electric stoves?
No.
There's a reason.
I won't live in a place that forces me to use an electric stove. I prefer gas for my heating too, MUCH cheaper than electric in the places I've lived in the past.
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Wrong....if there even exists a restaurant/pro kitchen that uses anything but gas, it is a rare anomaly....
I've never seen or heard of a pro kitchen that uses electric for stovetop in any form.
Certainly not induction in an industrial kitchen.
There is nothing better for temp control of any stovetop cooking than open flame gas.
Re: would be great (Score:5, Insightful)
Heat pumps are more efficient. The energy required to compress the refrigerant is less than the heat energy transferred.
Re: would be great (Score:4, Insightful)
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Conversion of electricity to heat is 100% efficient.
No it is not.
But burning gas is.
Keep in mind that electricity usually is coming from heat. Which means a 60% loss. Converting it back to heat, regardless how efficient, still means a 60% loss. It is better to burn gas as long as your power comes from coal or gas.
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Actually it is. Electricity is always converted to heat 100%. If your computer uses 500 watts of electricity it outputs 500 watts of heat. ... how stupid are you guys? ...
No it does not
If it would convert 500W electricity into 500W heat it would not compute anything
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And you'd have to shake all the critters off your clothes before you fold them.
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Sure you can [homedepot.com]. Of course you had better check w/PG&E and make sure you can upgrade your service to accommodate the additional 36KW power draw.
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Isn't a gas clothes dryer just a suffocation hazard?
You're supposed to take the clothes off before putting them in the dryer.
And the exhaust is vented outside. And you likely have a carbon monoxide detector to make sure that's still happening.
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How does the total efficiency of electricity generation -> heat pump compare to directly heating with natural gas? Clearly it depends on the fuel mix that is generating the power. I expect heat pump is probably lower CO2 overall - but not counting capital costs which might change the picture.
Re: would be great (Score:4, Informative)
Lololololol, you must be from cali where "anything's possible."
Lololololol and you must be an idiot.
Heat pumps are quite common in the US, and have been for a long time.
By "geothermal" the GPP probably really means a ground loop heat exchanger (on a heat pump) not real geothermal like they have in Iceland, e.g..
A ground loop heat exchanger is very doable. If a vertical deep well heat exchanger isn't possible you can simply bury a horizontal heat exchange loop in your back yard (a.k.a. garden). You only have to go down about two meters (six feet) to get a constant 10C (50F) year round. Google it, I'm sure you can find lots of stories by people who have done it.
Re:would be great (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:would be great (Score:5, Funny)
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With a portable propane camp stove.
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Then what happens if your power goes out for 2-3 days?
In Berkeley? You put on a pair of socks to wear with your sandals.
There are no thunderstorms in Berkeley, so a 2-3 day outage is likely from an earthquake. After an earthquake, electricity will likely be back on before gas. The gas lines have automatic seismic shut-off valves. The gas is not turned back on until broken gas lines are fixed.
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Mandatory rooftop solar and battery storage.
Next?
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Then what happens if your power goes out for 2-3 days? Without natural gas option then how will you say cook food?
Can of hairspray and a lighter. Next question.
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Option 1. Eat food which does not require cooking - like Salad and Protein Shakes, for example.
Option 2. Charcoal
Option 3: Wood Stove
Option 4: Get take out food, and there are a lot to choose from
Option 5: Move out.
Option 6: Vote the bums out
Re:would be great (Score:5, Insightful)
I live up in the North East. I primarily use wood pellets with oil as a backup. What a lot of people seem to forget is the general diversity of climates in the United States. For places with a more moderate climate, fossil fuels are more of a "luxury" items, while in colder climates fossil fuel is more of a necessity. I have to burn 4 tons of wood pellets each winter to keep my home comfortable. Being that I am in a rural area, Natural Gas Lines are not part of the infrastructure, however in cities, natural gas is the most affordable and safe way to keep warm.
This lack of understanding has made environment laws difficult to manage on a national level. Unfortunately, there has been a lack of leadership with the major most vocal sides either denying there is a problem with carbon pollution or the other side proposing we overnight removal of an infrastructure that we have been building over hundreds of years.
Re:would be great (Score:5, Insightful)
Residential carbon pollution is not the problem. It's such a small slice of the pie compared to the contribution from nature, industrial sources or transportation.
If anyone on the left was serious about fixing the problem, they'd have to go tell China and India to take down the majority of their factories because they don't come anywhere close to US standards, they are having the grey/yellow smog problems the west had in the 70s and fixed in the 80s/90s. The thing is that neither India nor China is interested in solving the problem for now, so the only solution would be the west bombing factories so they can rebuild them (or something).
The problem with environmentalism is that everyone wants all these problems solved but nobody has proposed a plan for it that doesn't require unobtainium, makes economic sense or doesn't rely on mass killings of humans, animals or both either through force or by starvation.
Re:would be great (Score:4, Insightful)
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Greens have promoted carbon taxes again and again and again, and are always shot down by Republicans. Blaming greens for a lack of carbon taxes is a total little bitch move.
Re:would be great (Score:5, Insightful)
It would make little to no difference whatsoever to the temperature of the planet. None of this "climate change" bollocks does. Either you go leeroy into the future, using the proceeds of your economic strength to develop new technologies or you destroy your economic strength and have no money to invest in alternatives.
Yeah! All those pollution regulations and controls and stuff in the 70s and 80s that tried to address ozone depletion and acid rain were not only total failures, but also doomed us to economic death spirals, just like all the critics predicted!
Oh wait, they didn't.
They worked pretty well, and for the most parts the forced cleaner tech upgrade ended up costing much less than predicted and in many cases resulted in lower operational costs.
Any economist will tell you that externalized business costs like pollution are a very bad thing for the economy as it shifts costs from the producers of the problem to society at large. The best way to address these sorts of things it to get a price put on them, which increases the incentives to find alternatives and drives innovation in addition to reducing the demand for the products causing the problem. There are numerous examples of this working.
economic sense (Score:2)
That's impossible. Right now, we dump our waste right into the air in the form of CO2 and other emissions. We're not paying for it to be disposed of properly. The fact is that people in the first world are going to have to decrease their standard of living in order to tackle this problem. You cannot solve the problem with pollution with every American driving around an Escalade with the AC blasting, to go a mile down the street to get their fast food. It's literally an impossibil
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Residential CO2 emissions are a very significant slice of the pie. For example, in Ireland: https://www.seai.ie/resources/... [www.seai.ie]
China is doing more than many western countries. They hit peak coal over 5 years ago. Their per-capita emissions are way lower than in developed nations, and we can't really expect them to stick to an agrarian low-tech lifestyle. What is important is that they will peak early, and at a lower point than we did, and they are on track for that.
Of course, the usual caveats apply, everyone
Carbon doesn't care about your politics (Score:3, Informative)
Residential carbon pollution is not the problem.
Yes it is. It's not the entire problem but it's certainly a big part of it.
If anyone on the left was serious about fixing the problem, they'd have to go tell China and India to take down the majority of their factories because they don't come anywhere close to US standards,
What does pollution in China have to do with US left-right politics? You could say the same thing about our political right and it would be equally (not) correct. And in fact many people HAVE been working hard on the China pollution problem both in China and in the US. The fact that it's a big and hard problem to solve doesn't mean nobody is working on it. While US standards might be higher in practice, it's only because we got
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If you are burning 4 tons of wood pellets, you might want to look at a heat pump for your heating needs when it is above 20F, and supplement with the wood stove when it is really cold. (You might also want to look at your windows and insulation.)
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For heating, gas is extremely inefficient in the Bay Area; a heat pump is 3.5x more efficient. If 100% of electricity was from natural gas this would still be a net benefit. But, once you add in mandatory rooftop solar for California starting in January, this is smart policy.
Water heating can be more efficient efficient either with heat pump water heaters, or point of use heaters.
Another benefit of avoiding gas in homes is to reduce fire risk in earthquakes, along with reducing CO poisoning risk.
Re:would be great (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe the ordinance is more based on safety as earthquakes have a habit of breaking gas lines and leading to explosions, which is bad across an entire city vs a single direct line to a power plant.
Electricity is a much safer method of distributing energy comparatively.
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I believe the ordinance is more based on safety as earthquakes have a habit of breaking gas lines and leading to explosions, which is bad across an entire city vs a single direct line to a power plant.
Believe what you want, but nope. It's a climate change ordinance. The City of Berkeley already requires gas shutoff valves be installed [cityofberkeley.info] on all new construction.
Re: would be great (Score:2)
But it is cheaper
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But it is cheaper
Only upfront.
In the long run, heat pumps are cheaper in a climate like Berkeley's.
So a builder is going to put in a cheap gas furnace to save money, yet the buyer loses money for years and decades afterwards.
It is a market failure. The builder makes the choice, and the buyer pays the price.
Most houses are under-insulated for the same reason.
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Berkeley bottoms out around 5 or 6 Celsius in the depths of winter.
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Is this missing a /sarcasm tag?
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It might technically be more efficient but electricity is more than twice the price of gas in many places, probably including California.
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It might technically be more efficient but electricity is more than twice the price of gas in many places, probably including California.
Not sure about that. Mind you, I live in an apartment, so my numbers might not jibe with people who live in houses, especially in rural areas. But browsing through some past energy bills, it looks like I pay twice as much for gas as I do for electricity, in total. I have a gas range and oven, a gas water heater, and a gas wall-mounted heating unit (which is never on -- this is San Francisco, not far from Berkeley, and it's seldom cold enough to bother heating the place). By comparison, I have every type of
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Heat pumps are up to 400% efficient *compared to electric heat*, i.e. a direct resistive heating element.
There's no direct "efficiency" comparison to natural gas. You can talk about emissions for electrical generation versus emissions for direct heating. You can talk about the dollar cost of one versus the other. But "efficiency" is apples and oranges here.
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As long as they don't use resistive heating and only use heat pumps.
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The heat pump is fine, it's nearly 100% efficient in turning electricity into heat.
The turbine however maxes out at about 60-65%
An unflued gas heater hits about 90% efficiency, flued/ducted is going to be a lot lower than that though, maybe as low as 60%.
Not sure how the transmission losses compare between electric and gas.. and you have a lot of sunk cost in the electricity transmission that you may as well not duplicate with gas lines.
On balance this /seems/ fine, if you're allowed to have a bottled gas s
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A heat pump is much more than 100% efficient, because it generates about 3-4 times more heat inside your house as the electricity it consumes. The heat pump is moving the heat from outside to inside.
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So bicycles are impossible too? It's the same principle as gear ratios, just with electricity and using a compressed gas to transfer heat either in or out. You run a resistance heater and you get 2000 watts worth of heat for 2000 watts of electricity. On the other hand you put that 2000 watts into running a heat pump and you get the equivalent of 6 times that in heat.
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Current air to air heat pumps are effective to single digit air temp.
Geothermal of course cares not what the air temp is
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Not the high efficiency ones. The high efficiency ones work by doing less compression and using a much larger condenser coil to bring the compressed refrigerant back to ambient.
Be accurate would you? (Score:4, Interesting)
That would be the People's Republic of Berkeley to you.
I used to live there. In the 70s. An experience like no other.
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Why do I feel you were born after 1995? Now go in the corner for feel bad about what you wrote.
I have the feeling logic isn't going to work on this one. Thanks for responding I was having trouble figuring out what I was supposed to have "lied" about.
Wont Stop Me From Making Natural Gas (Score:4, Funny)
Its part of who I am... my wife loves it =)
So release more CO2 for electric heating then? (Score:3)
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This will just shift the C02 burden to whatever is needed for running electric heating elements.
Until the electricity generation stops emitting CO2. At which point the electric houses will be not be emitting any more, while the natural gas houses will either need to install a new heating system, or continue emitting. This is only the first step, but that doesn't mean it's not an important one.
Where I live it's going to be trickier. Ground loops may make carbon-free heating feasible. Heat pumps won't work, and resistive heating gets hideously expensive.
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What PG&E produces is 80% renewable. What PG&E buys and delivers is something else.
No it isn't. [pge.com] From PG&E's own page: "Power mix includes all PG&E-owned generation plus PG&E's power purchases. Data is sourced from PG&E's Power Source Disclosure report, filed in June 2018."
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Renewable resources manufactured by Oompa-Loompas and transported by a Unicorn, maintained by the Seven Dwarves?
Guess I'll start using unnatural gas (Score:3)
Kind of not surprised. (Score:2)
Especially now there are good alternatives to natural gas ranges with induction electric ranges, which are quite common in new homes nowadays.
Berkley Bans Coke, Only Pepsi Legal Now (Score:2)
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Aren't there bigger fish to fry?
Please, this is Berkeley. Sushi.
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"The report also noted that the burning of natural gas within city buildings accounted for 27% of Berkeleyâ(TM)s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2016." Didn't I read something about CA sourcing most of it electricity from out of state in a recent /. post? Natural gas produces 50-60% less harmful emissions than coal or oil. Nuclear is a big problem in CA because of quakes and everywhere because they still don't have a viable solution for getting rid of the waste. And if they do have a viable solution no one is using it. Right now they just keep most of it on site in huge pools, and they are getting full. Like spent rods from the past several decades full. I guess I just feel like they are putting the horse before the cart on this one. Aren't there bigger fish to fry?
Here's an excellent article on answering all the "But what about..." questions on nuclear power.
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
If there's another "But what about..." on nuclear power after reading that then I'll just tell you to go fuck yourself. I'm getting real tired of people giving excuses on why we can't have nuclear power while offering no real solutions themselves.
Those claiming that we can supply all of our energy needs with wind, water, and sun, need to do some reading on this. I've posted thes
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The end-end-all-be-all to the discussion of nuclear safety article you link to fails to mention the problem with earth quakes. It also glosses over the real world implications of nuclear fuel waste.
Do you have any links to experts explaining this problem and how it remains unsolved? I didn't think so, otherwise you would have given at least one.
Yes there are a lot a solutions proposed, very few if any being implemented currently in the U.S. (read: not a realized solution).
There are solutions being implemented in the USA. We just saw the USA beat the proposed Paris Accord levels of CO2 reductions. We did this with natural gas replacing coal. We'd do even better if ignoramuses like yourself got out of the way of nuclear power.
In reality all of the spent fuel we have ever used is still sitting in pools on site at the reactors that used them. And it's a very real danger.
It's not a real danger. This problem of not permanently disposing of the spent fuel would no longer b
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Save the nuclear for space travel and colonizing of other planets, thatâ(TM)s what the good lord intended.
Do you like climate change? Because that's how you get climate change...
California a role model for the world (Score:5, Insightful)
I have deep admiration and respect for the way California has chosen to lower its carbon footprint using out of control corruption, taxation and regulation to force people to leave.
"Electricity on an ongoing basis will be less expensive" ... Delicious doublespeak from the state with one of the highest energy rates in the country.
A state which comically enough relies on natural gas for half of its energy needs.
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"Electricity on an ongoing basis will be less expensive" ... Delicious doublespeak from the state with one of the highest energy rates in the country.
Indeed. If this was true then it would not require the force of government for people to make this shift. People would simply choose the lower cost option.
Electric heat! Such a great idea that it requires a government mandate for people to buy it!
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The people who use the heating system are not the ones paying for it. For the builder, it makes sense to install nat gas because a nat gas heating system is cheaper than a heat pump. For the *occupant*, a heat pump system is much better, since the year over year savings more than make up for the higher up front costs.
The free market doesn't work very well when the user is not making the purchase decisions.
Greenwashing the tax increase (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing about electric is that it's more expensive and thus has more taxes levied on it. Electricity is 15.59c/kWh in Berkeley, CA with ~8% utility taxes, shifting people from the much cheaper gas ($0.37/therm or $1.25/kWh) to electric is thus guaranteed ~10x more income for the city/state per unit.
I don't heat with gas on my property either, however I'm only paying 4c/kWh and I still have a $75-100 energy bill for a double family home. I do pay the $15 connection fee for a generator and emergency heating system which I guess Berkeley residents will all have to live without during their massive shift from stable power suppliers like nuclear generators to much more volatile supplies like solar and wind.
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I do pay the $15 connection fee
Please explain this fee. I've never heard of it before.
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Electricity is 15.59c/kWh in Berkeley, CA with ~8% utility taxes, shifting people from the much cheaper gas ($0.37/therm or $1.25/kWh) to electric is thus guaranteed ~10x more income for the city/state per unit.
Your math is confusing me.
Electricity is 15.59 cents per kWh + 8% utility tax (1.24 cents) = 16.84 cents per kWh
Gas is $1.25 per kWh (and no taxes?)
Gas doesn't sound "much cheaper" to me, it sounds 7.4 times more expensive.
So They Will Just Get it Delivered. (Score:3)
I guess when you live where heating isn't a requirement for survival you can be brave, they will just get their electricity from Utah's new electric natural-gas plant!
Where is all this elecrtricity going to come from? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still baffled on California's reliance on electricity when they have so many problems with their electricity supply. Now they want to replace natural gas heating and cooking with electricity?
This is madness.
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Yeah, there's that. Electric stoves suck, really, gas is so much better.
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Just use propane.
Hank Hill? Is that you?
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Heat pumps are more cost efficient than natural gas and induction stoves are just as good to cook with as natural gas
Then why create a government office to ban new natural gas infrastructure? People should just naturally do away with natural gas because of market forces.
but without any of the indoor pollution
Because improper use of gas stoves cause indoor pollution we should ban natural gas use for proper use of natural gas stoves? And deny use of natural gas water heaters? And fireplaces? Outdoor grills? Backup generators?
Here's what I expect to happen with this natural gas ban, more people buying appliances and devices that burn propane, kerosene, and g
so.... (Score:2)
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They have a plant that converts virtue signalling into pure, clean, morally acceptable electricity. Output from the plant is 765,000 volts, but only 1 milliamp. Sad.
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Cool (Score:2)
Let's make sure people who can't afford houses have to pay higher electric bills for hot water, cooking, and heat.
Being environmentally proactive is great. Putting the burden of implementing environmentalism onto the bottom 50% is downright immoral and anti-progressive.
Best part (Score:4, Interesting)
The job. Oh how I covet that job. "The employee will be responsible for implementing the ban."
First of all, not a lot of new builds in Berkeley. Sure lots of remodeling, but it's not like there are available tracts of land waiting to be developed. Maybe some apartment buildings. So your job would be like the upmteenth person in the building department to review someone's building plans. Make sure there are no dotted lines from the gas mains to the new building. Then boom, rest of the day free.Or bett er yet just mandate to PG&E to not install new feeder gas lines.
Do you have any idea how much Slashdot you can read at this job over two years. Fantastic.
Unfortunately I am not related to the city council person nor am I a local politician termed out of office needing to ride the bench for awhile so I doubt I could apply.
Minimum wage gig (Score:5, Funny)
"The ordinance allocates $273,341 per year for a two-year staff position in the Building and Safety Division within the city's Department of Planning and Development. The employee will be responsible for implementing the ban."
(The Rest of the Planet): "Pay a state staffer $273K a year to implement a natural gas ban? Why in the FUCK are we paying them so much?!?"
(San Francisco): "Uh, that's our minimum wage."
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Electric Company: Hey, let's remove pollution by changing all heating to electric!
Government Official: Sounds great, wait isn't gas more efficient?
Electric Company: No, no, electric is the way to go.
Government Official: I'm pretty sure the energy costs are way lower.
Electric Company: Hey look, I believe some undisclosed wads of cashs just fell on the ground.
Government Official: You know you have a good point, electric is the way to go.
Electr
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Heat pumps are extremely efficient from a cost perspective when your outside temperature never dips below freezing. Initial cost is higher though.
Hydronic heating is nice when it gets colder, but that can be done with heat recovery heat pumps quite efficiently. Resistive radiant floor heating works very well in some types of rooms.
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wood
Meh. I have a friend who keeps a coal stove handy.
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You're not. You're supposed to die of starvation and compost your body for the community garden to offset all the carbon footprint from you having lived.
No. You're supposed to dump all of your waste into the air and water and earth with no regard for any other living thing.
Ironically this is the problem with Berkeley in a nutshell. Extremism. Same problem as some of the red states. Extremism starts with an ideology and moves towards reality (well law) and moderates move from reality to ideology (hopefully not far though). This current law isn't the only virtue signalling measure that's mostly ineffective while also maximizing negative impact to the locals. Its just the latest. I wish our city counsel would start from engineering and scientific knowledge first but instea
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Pure Marxism - welcome to California.
I don't like it! Marxism! Socialism! Communism! (Score:2)
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Berkeley doesn't get all that cold, it'll get down into the low 40F's at night and mid-50F's. But we can basically assume a few people a year will kill themselves with carbon monoxide if they end up trying to heat their homes with a camp stove.
Not being able to cook for three days is not so great. I know some people can't function without a microwave oven, but I've used my gas range during power outages. The cold showers sucked though. Gas water heater, but the apartment complex needed electric pumps to get