California First State To Ban Natural Gas Heaters and Furnaces (thehill.com) 305
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: A new proposal passed by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) cements the state as the first to ban natural gas heaters and furnaces. The decision, which was passed unanimously, aims to phase out sales of the space heater and water heater appliances by 2030. The commitment is part of a broader range of environmental efforts passed by the board this week to meet the federal 70 parts per billion, 8-hour ozone standard over the next 15 years.
Residential and commercial buildings in California account for approximately five percent of the state's total nitrogen oxide emissions due to natural gas combustion, according to the originally proposed plan (PDF), released in August 2022. In addition, space and water heating make up nearly 90 percent of all building-related natural gas demand. When burned, natural gas does emit less carbon dioxide than oil or coal. However, natural gas leaks pose health risks to homeowners, as they contain varying levels of volatile chemicals linked with cancer.
The new regulations will rely on adoption of heat pump technologies, which are being sold to electrify new and existing homes. Although the proposal does not include gas stoves, several cities and towns in the state currently ban or discourage use of gas stoves in new buildings. California's Public Utilities Commission also eliminated subsidies for new natural gas hookups last week, marking the first state to do so. The move will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower utility bills for consumers. "While this strategy will clean the air for all Californians, it will also lead to reduced emissions in the many low-income and disadvantaged communities that experience greater levels of persistent air pollution," said CARB Chair Liane Randolph in a statement.
"California needs more federal action to clean up harmful diesel pollution from primarily federally controlled sources, from locomotives and ocean-going vessels to aircraft, which are all concentrated in communities that continue to bear the brunt of poor air quality. We simply cannot provide clean air to Californians without the federal government doing its part."
Residential and commercial buildings in California account for approximately five percent of the state's total nitrogen oxide emissions due to natural gas combustion, according to the originally proposed plan (PDF), released in August 2022. In addition, space and water heating make up nearly 90 percent of all building-related natural gas demand. When burned, natural gas does emit less carbon dioxide than oil or coal. However, natural gas leaks pose health risks to homeowners, as they contain varying levels of volatile chemicals linked with cancer.
The new regulations will rely on adoption of heat pump technologies, which are being sold to electrify new and existing homes. Although the proposal does not include gas stoves, several cities and towns in the state currently ban or discourage use of gas stoves in new buildings. California's Public Utilities Commission also eliminated subsidies for new natural gas hookups last week, marking the first state to do so. The move will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lower utility bills for consumers. "While this strategy will clean the air for all Californians, it will also lead to reduced emissions in the many low-income and disadvantaged communities that experience greater levels of persistent air pollution," said CARB Chair Liane Randolph in a statement.
"California needs more federal action to clean up harmful diesel pollution from primarily federally controlled sources, from locomotives and ocean-going vessels to aircraft, which are all concentrated in communities that continue to bear the brunt of poor air quality. We simply cannot provide clean air to Californians without the federal government doing its part."
Given California's electricity rates (Score:2)
Re: Given California's electricity rates (Score:5, Informative)
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My heat pump works at least to -5 F. It does have occasional trouble completing a defrost cycle when it's below 10 F and then it trips and I have to reset it. But generally it works fine.
Re: Given California's electricity rates (Score:2)
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Most of California never gets too cold that an air source heat pump wont work, nor does most of California ever see much in the way of snow or ice.
And for places that do get lots of snow and ice or that get really cold temperatures, ground source heat pumps exist and are really good.
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In other news, Alaska bans beach umbrellas (Score:2, Funny)
Re:In other news, Alaska bans beach umbrellas (Score:4, Interesting)
California is a big state, and it's easy to forget that not everyone lives in sunny Los Angeles. The northern part of the state is at a higher latitude than Colorado. Near the coast the climate is still significantly moderated by the Pacific, but inland and in the mountains it still gets cold*.
* That's my Tennessee definition of cold, not my Wisconsin definition of cold. :) You need a coat, not a parka and mukluks.
All that said, I sincerely hope that California manages to find a way to replace their need for Natural Gas. Transitioning to new energy sources is a lot harder than just saying "Don't use that anymore". If all they manage to do is move burning natural gas from peoples' homes to an electric plant that would be a damn shame.
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Until a few years ago, my sister and I lived in what had been our parent's retirement condo in Camarillo, just north of LA. The whole community was All Electric (ugh!) meaning that our HVAC was a heat pump and our stove had an induction top. Worked pretty well, but I don't know what the bills were as that was her responsibility not mine. Now, we've moved to Southern Colorado and our cooking and
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Here in Tennessee my California immigrant friends are shocked at how low our energy bills are too. It's a feature.
Do you get a lot of pushback when you tell people you are from CA? I've seen some of that (and spoken up against it!) in e.g. NextDoor, and it is very much not ok.
(I'm a Tennessee native, a low-tax state that is growing at about 10% a year (including many Cali refugees) and we are struggling a little to integrate (indoctrinate?) our new friends.:) )
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All that said, I sincerely hope that California manages to find a way to replace their need for Natural Gas
CA loves renewables and renewables need natural gas to be useful. So I doubt CA will reduce the actual amount of CO2 emissions anytime soon. I expect instead a bunch of regulations like this that look good to someone who knows nothing about energy but in practice will do more harm than good. Now cue the histrionics from folks who think this is about politics instead of physics.
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No histrionics are necessary, everything is politics. :)
Re:In other news, Alaska bans beach umbrellas (Score:5, Interesting)
California CAN'T do this.
They were just recently telling people not to charge their electric cars to prevent rolling blackouts during the last heatwave. The electric infrastructure is so bad, they shut off the electricity when the wind gets bad. Now they (in 8 years) want to force everyone onto all-electric?
Lots of homes here are not wired for all electric. Some people are gonna be pissed when their water heater craps out and they have to not only get the plumber in, but an electrician to put in another dedicated circuit for the water heater (and might as well do a couple for the clothes dryer and oven too).
Maybe its a good time to get into the electrician trade and beat the rush.
Re:In other news, Alaska bans beach umbrellas (Score:5, Informative)
Some people are gonna be pissed when their water heater craps out and they have to not only get the plumber in, but an electrician to put in another dedicated circuit for the water heater (and might as well do a couple for the clothes dryer and oven too).
Maybe its a good time to get into the electrician trade and beat the rush.
I wish an extra circuit would be enough. I live in a neighborhood with about 1,000 homes. Out of those homes, only the newest section, with I think a little bit over 100 homes, is wired for 100A service. None of the homes with 60A service (IIRC) can get central air conditioning unless they give up their washer and clothes dryer. That means if this becomes law, most of those homes will be unable to get heat.
The wiring inside the roads cannot accommodate the load from the small percentage of those homes that do have air conditioning in the summer, and it routinely blows out the fuses, resulting in multi-hour electrical shutdowns. You'd be talking about increasing their worst-case load by 66% above that level, which means digging up the road and running new electrical lines to all of those 800-ish homes. This is easily double-digit millions of dollars in costs by itself.
Across the state, it would take billions and possibly trillions of dollars in electrical service improvements to make this happen, and most of the people affected will not be able to afford the cost of doing so, and most mobile home parks will not be able to afford the cost of the required upgrades, which likely means many of them will sell out to folks trying to build condos, and people will become homeless. Or they won't do anything, and people will freeze.
Before CARB can even THINK about doing this, they need to put forward the funding necessary to make it possible, and it won't be cheap. Start with building ten Diablo-Canyon-sized nuclear plants to cover the increase in base load. Once you've convinced the NIMBYs to allow that, the rest of the problems are just money. :-)
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California can do this because of the climate, but watch northern Democratic states try to repeat this.
You have this backwards. CA can't do this because of the climate. Northern (or southern) states could. Heat pumps don't like mild climates. They like extreme ones. It is the temperature differential that counts. Also, drilling millions of holes in an earthquake zone isn't a great idea either. However, this rule is really just symbolic. There is almost no new building development in CA. Its more of a backdoor way to discourage new housing.
Re:In other news, Alaska bans beach umbrellas (Score:5, Insightful)
However, this rule is really just symbolic. There is almost no new building development in CA. Its more of a backdoor way to discourage new housing.
You're missing the camel's nose in the tent. This isn't banning gas heating and water heaters in new construction; there are already laws popping up all over the place to do that. This is banning the sale of gas-fired heaters and water heaters by 2030, forcing everyone to convert to electrically-driven heating systems as their existing hardware ages out and has to be replaced.
Electric water heaters (Score:2)
Anyone have any kind of breakdown of those devices you can put over a water pipe and pass an electric current through the water to heat it up on the fly compared to the traditional water heater? Seems like they would use more energy in the immediate term, heating the water on its way out of the shower head, for example, but then you don't have this big tank full of water that you're constantly trying to keep warm even though you aren't using it probably 99% of the day, so would end up being a lot cheaper. W
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yea the suicide showers, sounds great to me. They do make electric tankless heaters but in either case it turns out it takes a fuckton of current to heat water quickly rather than turning on a heating element once in a while to maintain thermal mass
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Google for "on demand water heater" or "tankless water heater". There are a lot of people who have enumerated the advantages and disadvantages.
It can vary from install to install. It might save you water by heating up more quickly if you have a long run of pipe to the faucet. Conversely, if might waste water if you replaced a short run from a tank with an on-demand unit.
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I cut my gas usage in half during warm months by switching to a natural gas tankless (condensing) water heater.
It's not about "instant hot water" or "unlimited hot water"-- It's about not heating up a tank of water repeatedly, and not using it. Putting a timer on a gas hot water heater is problematic at best, and even then, if you unexpectedly need hot water, you've got wait for the tank to heat up.
Re:Electric water heaters (Score:4, Interesting)
For electric water heating, a tankless heater will represent a huge amount of power. One example of a residential is 36 kw. Of course, they are designed to be in segments, and for low flow should only activate as many segments as should be appropriate, so it's not a completely insane approach. However, using it full tilt may mean 150A of power, which blows the power budget of most residential electrical service unless the only thing your entire house is doing is heating water.
The prospect of not only using resistive heating, but having to heat it up on the fly may make it less efficient than resistive heating tank water heaters, especially if the tank heaters are 'smart' to not bother to keep it hot during certain times.
The most efficient option seems to be heat-pump tank water heaters.
Way to tackle that 5%.... (Score:5, Funny)
"According to the California Air Resources Board, residential and commercial buildings are responsible for about 5% of statewide emissions because of the use of natural gas, and 90% of all building-related natural gas demand comes from space and water heating."
Yes, we need even more demand on our electrical grid. Let's also force homeowners to have to invest in more expensive heat pump systems and get those electric bills even higher. The sky's the limit!
Meanwhile China and India will pump out even more carbon to completely cancel out all of the efforts here in California. It's a win-win for everyone!
Newsom is an A+ governor. I hope he runs for President so he can implement these winning policies on the entire country.
Re:Way to tackle that 5%.... (Score:4, Interesting)
InCalifornia they will eventually have all-electric cars, all-electric homes, all-electric businesses (if any are left), all-electric offices...
And a horribly lackluster power distribution grid to run it all.
So that's what they consider to be progress?
I'm waiting for the out-of-state power generators to stop selling power to California so they can power their own states.
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This is for NEW houses. The grid might not be great, though better than Texas for sure, there's time to improve it. The biggest electricity usage is during summer anyway, and I doubt heat pumps will overtake A/C as top electricity users.
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With what? How soon? California had to send out emergency texts asking people to reduce their electrical consumption to prevent the grid from collapsing-- THIS MONTH.
Electricity is a shockingly inefficient way to heat things, and the last place I lived with a heat pump had to fall back to strip heat in the winter on a regular basis, resulting in massive increase in my power bill. In *FLORIDA*.
Re:Way to tackle that 5%.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The near-shortage occurred between around 6pm when PV stopped generating electricity and 8pm when the wind picked up. During that time, people were still cooling their homes, and not enough people have thermostats that can talk to the power company directly, so SMS was the only way to get the word out effectively. This will change.
Also, California has partnered with Tesla to form a virtual power plant [slashdot.org] using Powerwalls to stabilize the grid during those hours. I expect this will be extended to electric vehicles including the Nissan Leaf [electrek.co].
It must have been an old one. Newer ones work efficiently at 40F (4C) and higher. [estesair.com]
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Very old, I know a number of people in FL who are fine on heat pumps for their entire winter season, modern units go well below 40F, this new unit specifices heating up to -13F.
https://chillminisplits.com/pr... [chillminisplits.com]
Re:Way to tackle that 5%.... (Score:5, Insightful)
not enough people have thermostats that can talk to the power company directly, so SMS was the only way to get the word out effectively. This will change.
Why would anyone want the power company controlling their thermostats? Their job is to supply power so I can have a comfortable environment.
It amazes me that people think this is a great sign of a modern civilized society, that the utilities can turn off your AC instead of , you know, providing the service they actually exist solely for. Does not sound very first world to me.
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Not while PG&E is running things. Doesn't California have a PUD law?
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Yes, and no-- China wasn't really an industrialized nation on the scale of the US until relatively recently-- At which point they shot past us like we were standing still. Cherry picking statistics will allow you prove anything you want.
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The link given seemed pretty informative. I'm not sure why you call it "cherry picking statistics".
There is, in any case, no doubt that China and the USA are number one and number two in producing greenhouse gas emissions. I'm not sure why we should cheer if we are merely second worst.
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"In 2019, the last year before the pandemic hit, China’s greenhouse gas emissions were nearly 2.5 times that of the US’, and more than all the world’s developed countries combined..."
Here's a nice dose of reality to account for that effort. Now prove that China is kicking more ass than all the world's developed countries combined to turn your claim into a bit more than pointless bullshit.
And CNN? Their credibility died faster than your CNN+ subscription.
Reuters? [Re:Way to tackle that 5%....] (Score:2)
A useful chart here: https://www.allsides.com/media... [allsides.com]
or here: https://adfontesmedia.com/inte... [adfontesmedia.com]
...in any case, China is currently investing both in fossil fuel and renewable energy sources.
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If they really wanted to spur adoption ... (Score:3)
They'd consider lowering the marginal cost of power, especially off-peak. I sized up replacing a gas water heater with electric and even if I avoided peak usage it would still be considerably more expensive than gas. For folks on tiered billing, it's even worse as it may push them into the next tier.
It's also hindering the switch to electric vehicles -- adoption is being hampered by high electric prices even for folks that charge entirely overnight when the grid utilization is minimal. Same for electric heaters that are expected to run mostly at night as well since that's when it's coldest.
It's a counter-intuitive case but conserving the environment by limiting NOx/GHG means means migrating to electric and that in turn would be promoted by selling much cheaper off-peak power.
Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is power cheaper at night? On sunny days at midday the power grid operators have to ask solar providers to "throw away" electricity and arc it off instead of feeding it into the grid. Why is it cheapest at night when those sources are completely offline?
I am not an expert on this topic and am asking the question non-rhetorically.
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In the time when power generation is pretty constant nighttime power is cheaper since businesses are closed so things like restaurants and industrial systems are not drawing power. Also why the peak is around 7PM since people are home and running AC but a lot of businesses are also open and operating on top of that.
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Because solar isn't yet a huge part of the energy equation, at least not enough to matter yet. That's the only energy source that predictably produces during daylight in particular.
So instead of having to sweat overproducing solar during the day, they are more concerned with the general power level more than energy consumption. During the day you have A/C and supporting all the stuff of people being active (cooking, using electric appliances and tools, etc). To the extent you can encourage some load to a
Re:Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for the replies.
I understand now that power is cheaper at night not because daytime power is supply limited, but instead that baseload generation can't be ramped up or down quickly enough and so it has to be demand limited.
That's another quarter in the "we need grid scale energy storage" swear jar.
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Yes, grid scale energy storage will be a factor when solar gets up there.
However, even with that it will likely make sense to start encouraging power consumption during daylight for things that can shift. After all, if the energy storage round trip has to lose a significant percentage of the energy on the way, it's best for it to go straight into an EV battery instead of to grid battery, then to EV battery.
Re: Question (Score:3)
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The big power plants are producing power at nearly a constant rate whether or not anybody is using it. But hardly anybody has a high power usage at night, so power is cheap.
Re: Question (Score:2)
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Insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
This will have exactly zero effect on global warming, because that 5% is 5% of California's 0.5% contribution to global emissions, i.e. .0.025%, assuming there are no exemptions, and you can be sure there will be exemptions for buddies of the party in power. China gobbles up that 0.025% in like 1 day.
It will however probably increase toxic emissions because people will turn to burning wood rather than pay exorbitant electric rates to run their heat pumps, especially when the expensive misrated heat pumps can't keep the house comfortable when the outside temp drops below 30, or goes above 100.
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heat pumps can't keep the house comfortable when the outside temp drops below 30, or goes above 100.
I admittedly have a gas furnace currently, but I have stayed at places in winter with a heatpump in below-freezing temperatures and it can work fine.
I'm more curious what you imagine the answer for being over 100 would be. It's not like there's a gas-fired furnace that can cool off a house..
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I think that worry is a bit overblown. Something like 90% of Californians live in major urban centers, how many are realistically set up to do whole home heating with wood or even would know how to do it, or have access to wood at a cheap enough rate and in enough quantity. Some people in a small town in the Sierra Nevada's sure, but how many people living in Los Angeles county?
Also most cities in CA don't even drop into sub-freezing. LA, SD, SF, SJ, Oakland, Sacramento, millions of people in a climate t
In Europe burning wood is "renewable energy" (Score:4, Informative)
It's terrible policy, to the point of black humor (ohhhh, a burning coal or wood pun!), but burning trees for home heating is considered "renewable" in Europe.
The article points out the issue, which is always "follow the money", subsidies for "renewable energy", with wood defined as renewable (coal is renewable as well over large enough timespans...).
From the article:
"Few realize that the majority of renewable energy the EU counts toward its legislated targets is from burning wood, which, per unit energy, emits more carbon pollution at the smokestack than burning coal."
https://www.politico.eu/articl... [politico.eu]
Actual savings (Score:5, Insightful)
Natural gas can be turned into heat at the point needed (at home) efficiently. A realistic number is 85%. How does that compare to running a power station (often natural gas), making electricity, sending it over power lines and converting it back into heat? Keep in mind: electric heating coils eat up huge numbers of amps. It's a significant load on the power grid.
I'd like to see them ban boilers. I can't imagine the wires (and the circuit to the building) needed to swap out a 25 million btu gas boiler with an electric one.
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...Electric heating is also nearly100% efficient...
depends on where you measure the efficiency.
If you measure heat energy produced divided by energy produced by the fuel that made the electricity, you'd be lucky to get 50%
But the efficiency losses are before the electricity gets to your home, so if you're measuring efficiency only after the electricity gets to you, you leave out all the losses, and the efficiency looks good.
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When you are talking about resistive heating it becomes a bit more of a wash or even infavor burning NG on site depending on how the power is generated (if you are in an area with lot's of renewables resistive heating may be better for emissions and sometimes even cost).
When talking heat pumps though it is always more efficent to just burn NG at a power station to provide power to electric pumps at homes even with line losses. The efficency of burning NG for heat always has a coefficent of less than 1.00
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In most of California, one would imagine the heat pumps would probably use no more power than air conditioning, and it's not like the two energy loads would coincide.
Further, we are talking heat pump, so 300% efficient heat pump could in fact be more efficient than just burning the natural gas for immediate heat.
Beyond all that, the grid doesn't *have* to run natural gas. So other energy sources could drive those heat pumps.
Additionally, even if the big power plants do burn natural gas, it is an easier ask
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I have lived in California. No AC in the house. Only electric heaters. If I dared to turn them on: OH MY GOSH! was it expensive! Thank god for programming jobs.
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Electric space heater or baseboard heaters? If so, that's not really the target technology, the target would be heat pump heating, which for most all likely cold weather in California would suffice without resorting to resistive heating.
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How does that compare to running a power station
The combined cycle plants can run at around 60% efficiency. Transmission losses are difficult to quantify, since it's possible to site smaller gas turbines closer to end users. That could be an advantage for small communities when it is necessary to de-energize transmission lines due to fire hazards. Your neighborhood plant can keep running.
I'd like to see them ban boilers.
They won't, based on this proposal. This is aimed at 'appliances'. Like hot water tanks and home space heaters.
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If you use a heat pump you can win by a large margin. This might seem counter-intuitive since a power generation plant is somewhat similiar to running a heat pump in reverse. Why you win is that the efficiency of these thermodynamic cycles has to do with the hot and cold reservoir temperatures. The generation side is designed to work with T_hot >> T_cold so you get the maxiumum work (ie
Re:Actual savings (Score:5, Informative)
It's a gift to Pacific Gas & Electric (Score:5, Informative)
Pacific Gas & Electric serves most Californians, and they charge electric rates between 3 and 5 times the national average. Their gas rates are only a bit higher than the national average. The spread between gas and electric energy costs is so high in California that it doesn't make economic sense to electrify anything these days. That's in stark contrast with the average American who *should* electrify everything.
Here are PG&E electric rates over time. Most consumers' marginal use would be in the "mid-tier" (solid orange line):
https://zlnp.net/serve/pge_rat... [zlnp.net]
And here's how a PG&E customer should decide whether to use gas or electric energy for your heating needs vs an average American:
https://zlnp.net/serve/pge_rat... [zlnp.net]
This is a good time to ask: (Score:2)
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That's not true in other parts of the world, so they innovate with things like solar hot water.
So sick of this (Score:2)
"California needs more federal action to clean up harmful diesel pollution from primarily federally controlled sources, from locomotives and ocean-going vessels to aircraft, which are all concentrated in communities that continue to bear the brunt of poor air quality. We simply cannot provide clean air to Californians without the federal government doing its part."
1). If liberals didn't hive together then they would not have a concentrated problem.
2) Per bullet #1, just because you are an idiot does not me
Ridiculous (Score:4, Insightful)
I lived with an air-source heat pump for 3 years in Northern Virginia, which is not exactly a frigid climate. The thing could barely heat the house to lukewarm in Winter.
If CA (or anyone) were serious about encouraging electrification and not just virtue signaling, they would encourage build out of electric generation and distribution and do everything to make electricity cheaper. Instead, you have environmentalists trying to choke off the supply of natural gas for generation, cut off infrastructure builds because "conservation is better," and telling people to shut off their a/c while wearing a fleece to keep warm on a scorching day.
If this policy actually gets implemented, get ready for increased use of dirty unregulated wood stoves (yes, I know CA has banned those too, but can they enforce it?). Maybe residential coal delivery will take off again like 100 years ago.
Re:Great tech news.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not sure how this has anything to do with tech news.
It does in the sense that it's a migration from natural gas to heat pump technology (at least, hopefully people won't just use resistive heaters. I don't know what CARB says about that.)
From watching This Old House, it seems there's a trend to migrate all heating/cooling to heat pumps: heat, A/C, water, dryers. The only thing I haven't heard using heat pumps is stoves or ovens.
What I'd really like is a single integrated system: one variable speed compressor/condenser to generate hot/cold working fluid which gets piped to the water heater and a pair of air handlers. I haven't found someone who sells this.
I think a dryer is a special case. You don't want that wired in. If you think about it, it's not trying to move heat outside the unit: ideally wet clothes come in and it just separates the water from the clothes. The output should be dry clothes and cold water. You're creating hot zones inside the unit but there's no reason heat should enter or leave the unit.
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I think the integrated systems you are looking for are commerical style package systems which are more modular. Inside can be multiple compressors hooked to a big condenser array and piped to multiple systems in the building.
I would imagine this type of thing starting to move to residential markets but I feel like residential systems are like commodity items and it's cheaper to just have multiple units. Like my in-laws have an 8 bedroom mcmansion style house and they have 4 separate AC units.
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I've heard architects in the UK spec'ing a "drying cupboard" instead of a tumble dryer. It's basically a regular cupboard/wardrobe type thing, with a plumbed-in dehumidifier in it. Wet clothes go in (on hangers or on a clothes horse), the dehumidifier runs and sucks the water out of the air, which it recirculates around the cupboard (no heater per-se, although of course you can expect the dehumidifier to warm the air it treats as a by-product). Out come dry clothes at lower cost than a tumble dryer, all the
Re:Great tech news.. (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that California has to have a ZERO fossil-fuel energy generation otherwise you're just burning coal/oil/natural gas to generate electricity that you're again turning into heat. That's extremely wasteful. This is the same for British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon State.
I'm all for removing sources of fossil fuel use, but that comes with the requirement to force all the utilities off it before the houses complete that conversion otherwise you're just shifting the burden. California, at the very least, doesn't need as much heat as say, BC does.
But that said, the people who will be balking at this, absolutely screaming, are restaurant owners because no electric grill will give you a "flame broiled", 'barbequed', "grilled" etc taste. So I think the proper compromise is to depreciate coal, oil and gas as "primary heating" (eg central HVAC, regular fireplaces) and only permit it as secondary heat (eg range tops, gas fireplaces)
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Re:Great tech news.. (Score:5, Informative)
You can't put pipes in the ground for geothermal heat exchange, but it's fine to put natural gas pipes in the ground?
Natural gas lines are often rubber and 1-3 ft deep. Heat pump wells are 100s of ft deep to make them useful in CA.
Counterproductive [Re:Great tech news..] (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that California has to have a ZERO fossil-fuel energy generation otherwise you're just burning coal/oil/natural gas to generate electricity that you're again turning into heat. That's extremely wasteful.
Agree. That really makes little sense. When you heat your home directly by burning natural gas, you capture pretty much 100% of the heat energy. When you burn fossil fuel in an electrical power plant, you convert that heat to electrical energy with about 50% efficiency, transmit it over wires with less than 100% efficiency, convert voltage up and down with less than 100% efficiency, and then convert it back into heat. It's hard to think that even (very efficient) heat pumps can beat all those efficiency losses in the chain.
Until California approaches 100% renewable electrical power, this initiative seems counterprodutive.
... But that said, the people who will be balking at this, absolutely screaming, are restaurant owners because no electric grill will give you a "flame broiled", 'barbequed', "grilled" etc taste.
Since the decision "aims to phase out sales of the space heater and water heater appliances by 2030," barbeques are still safe.
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Until California approaches 100% renewable electrical power, this initiative seems counterprodutive.
Until California approaches 100% renewable electrical power with the additional capacity to support the load that millions of heat pumps and EV charging stations will put on it, particularly during weather extremes, this initiative seems counterproductive.
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When you heat your home directly by burning natural gas, a lot of the heat goes straight out of the flue.
TIFTFY.
Flu losses [Re:Counterproductive] (Score:4, Informative)
When you heat your home directly by burning natural gas, a lot of the heat goes straight out of the flue.
Maybe if you have an old gas heater. A modern one should be at least 90% efficient, and 95% is not uncommon.
https://www.pvhvac.com/blog/th... [pvhvac.com]
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Maybe if you have an old gas heater. A modern one should be at least 90% efficient, and 95% is not uncommon.
Those are quite expensive compared to 80% furnaces. The extra efficiency costs you quite a bit up front.
To be honest, I have no idea what the distribution of furnaces being sold today is. When we looked at it a few years ago, 95% furnaces had a payback time of 15+ years so they didn't really make economic sense. Other people's numbers (especially in cold climates and with different gas prices) will differ.
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To be honest, I have no idea what the distribution of furnaces being sold today is. When we looked at it a few years ago, 95% furnaces had a payback time of 15+ years so they didn't really make economic sense. Other people's numbers (especially in cold climates and with different gas prices) will differ.
There are additional maintenance and safety risks with high efficiency gas furnaces. For example thermal cycling caused by sourcing cold outdoor combustion air.
The big issue with high efficiency are the secondary heat exchangers. They are subject to corrosion and CO leakage into the environment which is a failure mode not present in 80% models and which has a proven track record of fatal outcomes. Most high efficiency furnaces specify minimum thermostat temperature of 60F or more (Even though most HOs ar
Re:Counterproductive [Re:Great tech news..] (Score:5, Informative)
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It's hard to think that even (very efficient) heat pumps can beat all those efficiency losses in the chain.
True, but if they can even come close, and if a portion of the grid moves to renewables, it could be a net win.
Let's suppose that natural gas turbines deliver 40% of the fuel's energy to the home (accounting for transmission losses). Heat pumps in ideal conditions move 300% of the energy put into them, but let's go with a more conservative 200% figure. This means that for every BTU of gas burned by the plant, 1 * 0.4 * 2 = 0.8 BTUs of heat are moved into a home. Turning it around, putting 1 BTU of heat
Re: Great tech news.. (Score:3, Informative)
What may work in California, might not work for Oregon or Washington, as Oregon and Washington get far colder in the winter, especially east of the Cascades.
Heat pumps work really well unless the ambient temperature drops too low, then there is far less energy to extract from the ambient air. They are far better than they used to be, but having a gas second stage furnace makes a huge difference when it's well below freezing temps.
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I live in Eastern Washington. The Mitsubishi ductless heat pump works down to -5 F. I have also retained the baseboard heaters in case the heat pump trips out, which it does on occasion because it failed to complete a defrost cycle properly.
Natural gas is not available here so the non-electric choices were oil and propane.
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This is the same for British Columbia
Can't speak for the western states, but in the case of the Province of British Columbia that's already the case. Power isn't generated via burning fossil fuels.
Re: Great tech news.. (Score:3)
BC does have secondary or backup generators that run off fossil fuels.
If they mandate no fossil fuel heating most will return to wood heat. As climates north of Vancouver can drop to -30 to -40 C (or -22 to -40 F) where heat pumps just won't work and electric heat would require taking out a second mortgage every year.
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Officially, I believe it is 97%+ renewable. There are isolated villages that are powered by diesel. Hopefully they're adding solar and wind to cut down on the diesel.
Read about a native village in the Yukon who have managed to turn of the diesel generators for 8 months of the year by using solar and wind. Lots of sunshine in the summer there, none in the winter, with wind mostly in the spring and fall.
Re:Overturned (Score:4, Insightful)
If by "adults" you mean "Republicans" it's a long shot in CA and that would require Republicans to unfuck themselves from the very large and growing crazy segment inside their own party. The GOP doesn't even have adults running their own party much less providing a viable alternative to swing voters in blue states.
It would be actually good to have a tempered, reasonable Republican party to temper the worse progressive elements on the Dem side but they are moving in the opposite direction.
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Agreed, if we were making the country today with technology we have algorthmic districting done every 10 years with the census would be the standard. Unfortuntely gerrymandering is just part of the system and another political battlefield. I don't even know if federally something could be done about it without a new amendment, I think its always up to the individual states.
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I think we could trade those requirements if we could algorithmically define the district lines into essentially perfectly even populations so everyones vote power is proportional. Would be great to expand the districts as well, at a minimum by the Wyoming Rule or just a hard line of population, you know fuck it let's have 1200 congresspeople.
I like that idea of Senate expansion, while still by design undemocratic maybe a Senate with 600 members has more shakeup in who states vote for, does a blue state wi
Re:Overturned (Score:5, Insightful)
If by "adults" you mean "Republicans" it's a long shot in CA and that would require Republicans to unfuck themselves from the very large and growing crazy segment inside their own party. The GOP doesn't even have adults running their own party much less providing a viable alternative to swing voters in blue states.
I hope by "adults" they mean "Democrats". The progressives that we have now aren't. Actual Democrats would do the math and see just how much electric heating (even with a heat pump) will cost the average Californian and realize that most low-income Californians will not be able to afford an extra thousand dollars per year or more (and that was what I calculated based on a new, highly sealed, highly insulated mobile home; older homes would be even worse).
Even ignoring the extra cost of power, this plan would still be unrealistic. When your furnace goes out, count on probably about $7k to replace it in California. An air conditioner will cost you $10k. When your furnace goes out and you have to replace it with a heat pump, figure probably $5k to rip out the furnace and replace it with a fan plus $12k for a heat pump, not counting whatever labor is required to add refrigerant lines through your house, which is probably several more thousand dollars. I could easily see a furnace replacement costing upwards of $20k, which is far more than most low-income people can possibly afford. This will bankrupt a lot of people.
Add to that the fact that at least in my neighborhood, a majority of houses (probably 800 homes or so) have under-100-amp electrical service, and thus are ineligible for heat pumps or air conditioners. This policy, without laws to force PG&E and/or the mobile home park to rebuild the infrastructure to accommodate the extra power draw, will leave people without heat and without a way to get heat, and people will die.
This is the most poorly thought out idea I've ever heard from California's government, and I've heard a lot. It tells me that nobody on CARB has ever lived in a real mixed-income neighborhood, and that none of them have any idea how many billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements will have to happen before 2030 if they don't want people to die during the winter of 2030. They should have started with:
It will take about twenty years after that third one passes before most of the air conditioners in California will have been replaced by heat pumps, so the earliest that they could even think about targeting a transition away from natural gas would be 2042. And even if they had put those policies in place back in the year 2010, I would still seriously question the wisdom of this as long as each therm from a heat pump costs more than an order of magnitude more than from natural gas (if I'm remembering the numbers correctly). The poor can't just afford it even if they massively increased the baseline allocation, unless they also cut the price of electricity to far below the actual cost of production.
Also, they had better start building some nuclear power plants ASAP. If we take southern California numbers for heating and (very conservatively) assume that they work for the entire state, and assume that those numbers (
Re:Overturned (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if I grant that 100% of that is correct (ad I don't but that's out of the context of my point), it still does not make the modern GOP a viable alternative to the Democrats, especially in a blue state like California.
I am pretty left leaning but if a reasonable R was running against a crazy, impractical and stupid D candidate I would probably vote for them and have in the past.
Issue is the Republicans are less and less sending reasonable candidates, they are voting in their primaries for candidates that have bad or nonexistant policies beyond culture war saber rattling and other wild core beliefs that I couldn't vote for them even if they had a view closer to mine for say, nuclear power. This is especially true as so many more Republicans are taking a lean towards anti-democratic rhetoric and policies, something I simply cannot abide and many independent's also feel the same.
The total control the Democrat party has over CA politics is in large part due to the nationwide rightward shift of the Republican party giving people in CA no real other option outside of the Democratic primaries to make viable choices.
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Be careful the gazpacho aren't called to arrest you. They could swab your DNA and deposit it into a peach tree dish. Oh and look for for Marshall Law, he's been making the rounds lately.
Re:Depends on local factors (Score:4, Interesting)
Realistically we need better subsidy and better rules that are actually for environment protection, it’s frustrating that you need to back up a truck full of money to replace a current technology with the better choice for the environment all while fighting with the environmental protection people to even do it.
Re: Depends on local factors (Score:2)
That's because the greens aren't serious people. For every serious person concerned about energy efficiency/pollution/climate change, there's probably half a dozen socialists who give two fucks about any of this only so far as they can use it as an excuse to push their politics.
One could say the same about fossil fuel fanboys who'd probably mandate gaslamps in every home if they figured there was troll points to be scored in doing so.
Difference is that objectively, burning gas, or even oil, to heat your hom
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Ground source heatpumps are great and I would agree we should be helping them get installed, especially for the coldest of climates but for a majority of Americans a modern air source heatpump can cover their heating for 90% of the days or more.
Most people in most states, even up north, don't have a majority of their winter days in the sub-10F region. A lot of days are in that 20-50F range and an air source heatpump can provide the heating adequately. In a time when a large majority of new homes are built
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EU wants to ban wood burning due to environmental reasons
Yeah, turns out burning wood is terrible for air quality. Not a problem, if you have ten or twenty houses per square mile. Not okay with any densely packed subdivision.
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This. Almond crops alone use the same amount of water as all residential and commercial use combined (roughly 13%), yet we are expected to cut back drastically while the almond farmers face no restrictions whatsoever. This is especially irritating when you consider that something like 80% of the almond crops are exported and it's mainly an investment crop and is not a critical food resource.
Gavin Gruesome can blow me.
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If California wanted to solve its water problem, it would stop growing water intensive crops (like nuts or cotton) in areas where water is hard to come by instead of targeting residential or even commercial or industrial use of water.