6 ms·

Berkeley becomes first US city to ban natural gas in new homes

22 points by turtlegrids 7y ago

siruncledrew 7y ago
Are there occasions where having natural gas available in a house would be essential? Aside from an apartment that had a gas stove and gas-powered water heater, the houses I've lived in always had all-electric, and the overall experiential difference between the two circumstances was unremarkable (in my opinion). Hot water worked fine with either a gas or electric water heater, and the stove was really the only "daily-use" item that had an obvious difference, but the functionality was fine either way (stuff still got hot on top the burners or in the oven). If I specifically wanted an actual gas flame for cooking, I just used a $20 tabletop camping grill with a small propane tank. This "adjustment" was a very minimal effort way to deal with not having gas pipes. Overall, if not having natural gas saves infrastructure costs (and tax dollars) from being spent maintaining natural gas pipes, and also removes any need to worry about carbon monoxide and having detectors installed, then this seems like not a big deal to adjust to.
- turtlegrids 7y ago
  Carbon monoxide detectors aren't just there because of natural gas appliances. They're also essential to protect people in cases exactly like you mentioned -- a temporary tabletop camping grill. It's frightening to read about people who don't have CO detectors and put a combustion-powered generator in their house when the power (and thus heat) goes out in the winter. As of a decade ago the rate of CO deaths was around 400 per year in the US. Whatever it is now it's still terribly high. For a sad time here's a random article from news.google.com when searching for "carbon monoxide generator" https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/2-Boys-2-Men-Dead-After-Carbon-Monoxide-Poisoning-in-Dallas_Dallas-505276272.html https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/2-Boys-2-Men-Dead-After-Ca...
- hourislate 7y ago
  >Are there occasions where having natural gas available in a house would be essential? Maybe not in California (Southern), but in colder climates there is definitely an advantage. I was once in a North East Ice storm where there was a deep freeze after a warm spell that brought down the electrical lines. We were without power for 2 days in sub freezing temps and the gas fireplace kept the house warm. I'm sure in California where they don't require any heat, you could get away with just electric service as long as it remains affordable.
- kgermino 7y ago
  In freezing climates household heating with natural gas is substantially cheaper than electric. However, that’s probably not a problem for Berkeley, and the infrastructure costs alone probably justify avoiding natural gas hookups.
- ebg13 7y ago
  You can heat and cook food during a prolonged power outage, but that's kind of it as far as "essential" goes.
  - AnimalMuppet 7y ago
    You can't heat your house during a power out, even with gas, because the furnace won't light without power to run the blower (to prevent overheating and therefore fires). But you can heat at least one room in a power outage with a gas fireplace (been there, done that - for hours, though not for days).
    - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
      The vast majority of heaters in Berkeley are wall-mounted top vent gravity heaters. They do not need power to operate. Central HVAC is uncommon due to the mild climate.
    - ebg13 7y ago
      There are lots of heating systems (steam boilers, for instance) that don't require blowers. And your gas-heated hot water will also let you continue to take hot showers.
FourierTformed 7y ago
I hate cooking with electricity, can't make a decent stir fry with it, changing the temperature takes a long time. How much of an impact does this make to a person's carbon footprint?
- tupshin 7y ago
  Use an induction cooktop. Much faster heat times than traditional electric
  - dylan604 7y ago
    Sadly, renters don't get much input on any of the appliances. While suggesting a different type of electric stove is great for people with that control, most just suffer with the cheapest appliance the landlord could get away with providing.
    - ebg13 7y ago
      You can always put a portable induction top on top of your unused electric top.
      - selimthegrim 7y ago
        Heat diffuser too?
        ebg13 7y ago
        A what? Do you mean one of these things? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_diffuser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_diffuser If so, then I don't think you'd ever need one? None of the use-cases for them seem like they would apply to a good induction stove.
        selimthegrim 7y ago
        No I meant for an electric stove
Gibbon1 7y ago
Non adware/spyware article https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/07/17/natural-gas-pipes-now-banned-in-new-berkeley-buildings-with-some-exceptions https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/07/17/natural-gas-pipes-no...
mochomocha 7y ago
I present you the latest NIMBY measure under an environmental pretense! Brought to you by Berkeley of course. If they care so much about the environmental impact of natural gas, how about grandfathering the measure to their own houses VS the tiny fraction of new housing that gets built every year in Berkeley? How about not making the new generation living in the Bay Area pay the burden of a housing-related policy for once?
- pkaye 7y ago
  Check out Berkeley and Oakland property transfer tax rate. $16.10 per $1000 of property value! Most other cities are $1.10. That adds up to an extra $10k on every property sale. $http://www.californiacityfinance.com/PropTransfTaxRates.pdf http://www.californiacityfinance.com/PropTransfTaxRates.pdf
babesh 7y ago
These new houses will probably be at least as expensive as the average house there just due to the nature of single family houses in the Bay Area. Cooking during the whole year and heating during the winter will cost more. Those winter months will be hundreds of dollars more (possibly hundreds of dollars more per month). The people living in these places can probably afford it just due to them being able to buy the house itself. Makes better insulation, solar panels, and houses designed to soak in heat if desired more attractive.
drewcon 7y ago
This makes no sense to me. Explain where I have this wrong... 47% of electricity in California is generated from natural gas. https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_system_power.html https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_sys... So about 50% of the electricity in these houses is coming from a gas that gets burned to turn a turbine to make electricity (and waste heat) that gets sent down a power line (where some is invariably lost) to go into a house where the electricity is then turned back into heat (presumably for hot water and heating the home)? How is this more efficient than just burning NG for heat directly? I could understand banning coal burners from homes (if we had any left), as I believe China is trying to do, but this seems like it will require more energy not less (yes I realize its a tiny scale).
- ZeroGravitas 7y ago
  It can be more efficient to burn gas at the generation plant because electrical heating can be 3-500% efficent by using the energy to move, rather than create heat. A similar argument applies to electric cars. Electric motors are so much more efficient that they still beat the alternative after being transmitted and stored in a battery even if the original source is burning gasoline to generate electricity. That's before getting into carbon and pollution.
  - kbutler 7y ago
    Heat pumps are only efficient down to a bit below freezing temperature, so it may make sense for Berkeley, but it gets really expensive if winter temperatures get much colder.
    - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
      "efficient" is a little vague. Ground and water source source heat pumps can keep their efficiency down to extreme temperatures as their source maintains its temperature. Air sourced heat pumps can go down to -20C and still be above 100%,(though this is notably below their peak in warmer ambient temperatures) and they often have fallback resistive heaters that are independant of outside temp and are 100% efficient (though probably not sized to work alone generally). So whether they are efficient and expensive really needs a complex comparison including up front investment in digging trenches for geo or pipes, ongoing costs of fuel, predictions of heating and cooling days for the region, whether insulation makes more sense than more heating and so on. I don't think there's anything that strictly rules out heat pumps in most places people live or restricts them to California. Stockholm getting heat from the North sea is a good example of their counterintuitive potential in colder climates.
jpeg_hero 7y ago
What about the wok?
wtdata 7y ago
I don't get it, how do you warm the water? I know you can have an electric heater that keeps a certain amount of water hot all the time. But isn't that vastly more wasteful than just quickly warming the water you are using by burning it using gas?

22 points by turtlegrids 7y ago

Are there occasions where having natural gas available in a house would be essential? Aside from an apartment that had a gas stove and gas-powered water heater, the houses I've lived in always had all-electric, and the overall experiential difference between the two circumstances was unremarkable (in my opinion). Hot water worked fine with either a gas or electric water heater, and the stove was really the only "daily-use" item that had an obvious difference, but the functionality was fine either way (stuff still got hot on top the burners or in the oven). If I specifically wanted an actual gas flame for cooking, I just used a $20 tabletop camping grill with a small propane tank. This "adjustment" was a very minimal effort way to deal with not having gas pipes. Overall, if not having natural gas saves infrastructure costs (and tax dollars) from being spent maintaining natural gas pipes, and also removes any need to worry about carbon monoxide and having detectors installed, then this seems like not a big deal to adjust to.

turtlegrids 7y ago
Carbon monoxide detectors aren't just there because of natural gas appliances. They're also essential to protect people in cases exactly like you mentioned -- a temporary tabletop camping grill. It's frightening to read about people who don't have CO detectors and put a combustion-powered generator in their house when the power (and thus heat) goes out in the winter. As of a decade ago the rate of CO deaths was around 400 per year in the US. Whatever it is now it's still terribly high. For a sad time here's a random article from news.google.com when searching for "carbon monoxide generator" https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/2-Boys-2-Men-Dead-After-Carbon-Monoxide-Poisoning-in-Dallas_Dallas-505276272.html https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/2-Boys-2-Men-Dead-After-Ca...
hourislate 7y ago
>Are there occasions where having natural gas available in a house would be essential? Maybe not in California (Southern), but in colder climates there is definitely an advantage. I was once in a North East Ice storm where there was a deep freeze after a warm spell that brought down the electrical lines. We were without power for 2 days in sub freezing temps and the gas fireplace kept the house warm. I'm sure in California where they don't require any heat, you could get away with just electric service as long as it remains affordable.
kgermino 7y ago
In freezing climates household heating with natural gas is substantially cheaper than electric. However, that’s probably not a problem for Berkeley, and the infrastructure costs alone probably justify avoiding natural gas hookups.
ebg13 7y ago
You can heat and cook food during a prolonged power outage, but that's kind of it as far as "essential" goes.
- AnimalMuppet 7y ago
  You can't heat your house during a power out, even with gas, because the furnace won't light without power to run the blower (to prevent overheating and therefore fires). But you can heat at least one room in a power outage with a gas fireplace (been there, done that - for hours, though not for days).
  - Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
    The vast majority of heaters in Berkeley are wall-mounted top vent gravity heaters. They do not need power to operate. Central HVAC is uncommon due to the mild climate.
  - ebg13 7y ago
    There are lots of heating systems (steam boilers, for instance) that don't require blowers. And your gas-heated hot water will also let you continue to take hot showers.

FourierTformed 7y ago

I hate cooking with electricity, can't make a decent stir fry with it, changing the temperature takes a long time. How much of an impact does this make to a person's carbon footprint?

tupshin 7y ago
Use an induction cooktop. Much faster heat times than traditional electric
- dylan604 7y ago
  Sadly, renters don't get much input on any of the appliances. While suggesting a different type of electric stove is great for people with that control, most just suffer with the cheapest appliance the landlord could get away with providing.
  - ebg13 7y ago
    You can always put a portable induction top on top of your unused electric top.
    - selimthegrim 7y ago
      Heat diffuser too?
      - ebg13 7y ago
        A what? Do you mean one of these things? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_diffuser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_diffuser If so, then I don't think you'd ever need one? None of the use-cases for them seem like they would apply to a good induction stove.
        selimthegrim 7y ago
        No I meant for an electric stove

Gibbon1 7y ago

Non adware/spyware article https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/07/17/natural-gas-pipes-now-banned-in-new-berkeley-buildings-with-some-exceptions https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/07/17/natural-gas-pipes-no...

mochomocha 7y ago

I present you the latest NIMBY measure under an environmental pretense! Brought to you by Berkeley of course. If they care so much about the environmental impact of natural gas, how about grandfathering the measure to their own houses VS the tiny fraction of new housing that gets built every year in Berkeley? How about not making the new generation living in the Bay Area pay the burden of a housing-related policy for once?

pkaye 7y ago
Check out Berkeley and Oakland property transfer tax rate. $16.10 per $1000 of property value! Most other cities are $1.10. That adds up to an extra $10k on every property sale. $http://www.californiacityfinance.com/PropTransfTaxRates.pdf http://www.californiacityfinance.com/PropTransfTaxRates.pdf

babesh 7y ago

These new houses will probably be at least as expensive as the average house there just due to the nature of single family houses in the Bay Area. Cooking during the whole year and heating during the winter will cost more. Those winter months will be hundreds of dollars more (possibly hundreds of dollars more per month). The people living in these places can probably afford it just due to them being able to buy the house itself. Makes better insulation, solar panels, and houses designed to soak in heat if desired more attractive.

drewcon 7y ago

This makes no sense to me. Explain where I have this wrong... 47% of electricity in California is generated from natural gas. https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_system_power.html https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_sys... So about 50% of the electricity in these houses is coming from a gas that gets burned to turn a turbine to make electricity (and waste heat) that gets sent down a power line (where some is invariably lost) to go into a house where the electricity is then turned back into heat (presumably for hot water and heating the home)? How is this more efficient than just burning NG for heat directly? I could understand banning coal burners from homes (if we had any left), as I believe China is trying to do, but this seems like it will require more energy not less (yes I realize its a tiny scale).

ZeroGravitas 7y ago
It can be more efficient to burn gas at the generation plant because electrical heating can be 3-500% efficent by using the energy to move, rather than create heat. A similar argument applies to electric cars. Electric motors are so much more efficient that they still beat the alternative after being transmitted and stored in a battery even if the original source is burning gasoline to generate electricity. That's before getting into carbon and pollution.
- kbutler 7y ago
  Heat pumps are only efficient down to a bit below freezing temperature, so it may make sense for Berkeley, but it gets really expensive if winter temperatures get much colder.
  - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    "efficient" is a little vague. Ground and water source source heat pumps can keep their efficiency down to extreme temperatures as their source maintains its temperature. Air sourced heat pumps can go down to -20C and still be above 100%,(though this is notably below their peak in warmer ambient temperatures) and they often have fallback resistive heaters that are independant of outside temp and are 100% efficient (though probably not sized to work alone generally). So whether they are efficient and expensive really needs a complex comparison including up front investment in digging trenches for geo or pipes, ongoing costs of fuel, predictions of heating and cooling days for the region, whether insulation makes more sense than more heating and so on. I don't think there's anything that strictly rules out heat pumps in most places people live or restricts them to California. Stockholm getting heat from the North sea is a good example of their counterintuitive potential in colder climates.

jpeg_hero 7y ago

What about the wok?

wtdata 7y ago

I don't get it, how do you warm the water? I know you can have an electric heater that keeps a certain amount of water hot all the time. But isn't that vastly more wasteful than just quickly warming the water you are using by burning it using gas?