Berkeley First US City to Ban Natural Gas in New Buildings

[ea56]

Yes indeed Ralph, when I saw this report my first thought was that this was taking Political Correctness just too far, and I’m all for Political Correctness, but this is a bridge too far for even me.

For crying out loud, now “Manhole” is off limits for the name of a Manhole Cover for underground utilities? Seems like some people need to get a grip and get their minds out of the gutter.

Just my two cents worth.

Eddie

 

[lotsosudz]

POLITICALLY CORRECT MY ASS

We have long since pass the stage of political correctness, we have become anally correct society. We have taken things to the ridiculous extreme of things. In order to change all these redundancies, it's now costing us millions to rename all this shit. Plus being chastised for using the wrong name in the inner circles. I Say "Bullshit".
Just Say'in.
Hugs,
David
P.S.
Why don't they fix our crumbling infrastructures, with the money spent on crap like this.

 

[iej]

We've an impending ban on fossil fuel heating systems here in Ireland, but there's a longer phase in period.

Oil fired systems become illegal in new build from 2022 and natural gas & lpg from 2025

New build regs are nearly 'passive home' levels of insulation and heat recovery, so relatively small heat pumps should more than suffice.

 

[blackstone]

Berkeley Commemorates the Moon Landing

"That's one small step for a person
One giant leap for personkind"

 

[dustin92]

It may be possible to ban natural gas in states with milder climates, but unless we're going to burn wood we NEED natural gas here in Michigan. I know someone who had electric heat (heat pump with backup electric) and had $800-$1000 monthly electric bills in the winter, and couldn't keep the house warm. They ended up moving because they couldn't afford it. I could live with electric hot water and dryer, and I prefer electric cooking, but gas is a necessity here.

 

[iowabear]

Back in the 60s and 70s there were smaller electric companies in Iowa that incentivized all-electric houses by offering a separate meter and a super-low kWh rate for heating.

 

As the companies merged the "super-low" heating rates were not maintained and they were stuck paying hundreds more than NG or propane.  Most converted but once in while you still hear of someone stuck paying $600 or more for a month of electric heat.

 

[kate1]

One of the apartments I rented in my younger days was all electric. We had a mild winter that year and I kept the thermostat low but my bill was hundreds of dollars each month all winter long. It’s still the only time in my life I’ve ever cried over an electric bill. If I had had any children in the home in those days, I don’t know how I would have managed. A policy like this in colder climates would lead to many people making some very hard choices.

 

[ea56]

Our townhouse is 1260 sq. ft., all electric with hydronic electric baseboard heaters and a 40 gal electric water heater. Because we are all electric we receive a slightly higher baseline KWH allowance, due to needing electricity for heating. Our highest bill this past winter was for Jan. and was $282.00,but the heat was also going almost round the clock too. Natural gas has also become very expensive here too, and from what I’ve heard from people that have similar sized homes as ours, but with gas heat their bills were at least as high, or higher than ours.

Eddie[this post was last edited: 7/21/2019-16:14]

 

[twintubdexter]

I have very little to brag about...

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">...but I just got my monthly bill for gas...water heating, clothes drying, surface cooking and outdoor BBQ...$14.59. I love gas 

</span>

 

[vacerator]

Our summer gas bills are

low. No heating use, and water heater takes less time to heat as the water temp from the ground is warmer.

 

[vacerator]

I was told once that

forced air heat heats the air in the home, and electric baseboard, steam, or radiant heat heats the objects in the room.

 

[ea56]

Electric baseboard heat is convection heat. The heat rises to the ceiling and rolls over the ceiling then down the other side of the room in a circular movement. It is clean, dust free and quiet, very good for allergy sufferers. I really like the way our electric heaters work.

And since they are hydronic, they continue to radiate heat even after the the thermostat cycles off, from the heat that is retained in the copper tube that contains the heating element and ethylene glycol, which retains the heat.

Newer energy efficient baseboard heaters use a ceramic tube that holds the heating element, for radiant heat retention. The old fashioned electric baseboard heater just had heating elements. These are what we had in the home my family lived in during my teen years, and these heaters really suck up the electricity.

Even in the early 60’s we used to have $300 to $400 a mo.PG&E bills. But there were also 10 people living in the home for part of that time and we also had two electric pumps for the well, one to pump the water from the well into a holding tank and another to pump the water from the pressure tank, up the hill to the house.

Eddie

 

[combo52]

Restance Electric Heating

Hi Eddie.  No heating system makes dust, By far the best heating systems for people with allergies are forced systems with very good filters.

 

ALL resistance electric costs the same amount to operate, in fact the older baseboard heaters with just heating elements with Finns are actually the most responsive and least expensive to operate because they DON'T keep heating the room after the thermostat says STOP, you have gotten the heat you paid for and little more.

 

An all electric home is not horrible in mild climates, but since the majority of electricity in this country is going to be generated buy burning NG at large power plants for at least the next 50 years it is far more efficient to just burn the gas in the dryer, furnace, or water heater than at the power plant.

 

I believe that nearly everybody in California with NG service already has a seismic gas shut-off valve outside near the gas meter that stops all gas flow at the first real tremor.

 

John L.

 

[ea56]

Hi John,
“ALL resistance electric costs the same amount to operate, in fact the older baseboard heaters with just heating elements with Finns are actually the most responsive and least expensive to operate because they DON'T keep heating the room after the thermostat says STOP, you have gotten the heat you paid for and little more.”

The heat that is coming off the hydronic heaters after the thermostat cycles off is from electricity that has already been paid for, so in a sense I’m getting more bang for the KWH buck. The old electric heaters go off and on much more frequently to maintain the set temp, and in my experience they do use more power than the hydronic heaters that keep radiating heat even after the juice shuts off.

And yes, in milder climates electric heat isn’t as expensive. But I’ve also seen HGTV shows from Canada, and they have lots of hydro electric power there and do use electric heat in some areas, and Canada is pretty cold.

And I have very bad allergies, while a good forced air furnace may have a filter to prevent dust coming out of the vents, there is still forced air that comes out of the vents that will stir up any dust that may be in the room, and we noticed right away when we moved here that there was less dust, so thats my experience.

As far as earthquakes, yes there may by seismic shut off valves for some homes, but not all, and we in California are still advised to shut off the gas main outside of our homes in the event of an earthquake. Anyway, its the underground gas mains that concern me, and thats where the real danger of a gas explosion is.

When we bought our home 25 years ago, we were hesitant because it is all electric, but we loved the home and the surroundings, so we bought it anyway. My posts on this thread are only to give my perspective of living in an all electric home, and its not as bad as some would think.

I’ve posted two links, one for Cadet Soft Heat Baseboard heaters and the other for the pros and cons of hydronic vs convection baseboard electric heaters

https://cadetheat.com/baseboard-heaters/softheat
https://www.thespruce.com/convection-vs-hydronic-electric-baseboard-heaters-1821911

Eddie[this post was last edited: 7/21/2019-22:37]

 

[foraloysius]

Natural gas is on it's return here in the Netherlands. Burning gas may be one of the cleanest way to heat a house, but the mining of natural gas has lead to many earth quakes here in the Netherlands, where we never had them before. And then there is fracking, putting a lot of chemicals into mother earth is a very bad idea to begin with.

Overhere forced air is indeed not advised for people with asthma. Underfloor heating is the best, it makes house cleaning easier, not corners where dust can hide. And I agree with Eddie, dust that is not moving, is less of a problem than dust that moves around. Which is also the reason you should never vacuum just before someone with asthma comes to your home.

 

[Marky_Mark]

It sounds like Berkeley City Council is getting a little ahead of itself.  It would (will) be great for all homes to run entirely on electricity generated entirely by renewable sources with zero emissions.  But right now, most of the electricity in the US is generated by burning fossil fuels.  It's much more efficient and far cheaper to burn gas within the home for heating, drying and hot water than burning fossil fuels at the power plants and then using electric resistance heating.  The gap does partially (but not completely) close when we're taking about heat pump space and water heating, heat pump dryers and induction and microwave cooking.  Modern heat pump heating should work well in Berkeley's mild climate, whereas its efficiency drops as outside temperatures drop in very cold climates.

 

[sudsmaster]

I live about 80 miles south of Eddie, and my winter combined electric gas bills are in the $250 range. It's the gas part that zooms up in the winter. The electric bill is fairly constant through the year.

And it's not like I haven't taken steps to minimize heating energy use: with in a year or so of buying this place, and enduring the first winter with the gas forced air central heating running continuously at night, I insulated the fuck out of the attic (previously not insulated at all) and also under most of the ground floor (crawl space) and also sealed off numerous air leaks between the living area and the attic. This cut my gas consumption in winter to about 1/3 of what it had been.

On the electric side, I replaced two old juice guzzling fridges with modern Energy Star (for 2000) fridges, which use 1/3 of the energy of the older units. I still haven't put in double pane windows (I think it's a scam), but a few years ago replaced the felt insulation strips in all the sliding glass/aluminum windows. Before that I could hear them rattling in winter winds. Afterwards, no more rattling. There's probably more I could do but I'm relatively satisfied this place is as energy efficient as original 1941 construction will allow (aside from the windows and maybe shooting insulation inside the outer walls).

One area of extra juice consumption is the pump for the koi pond, which has to keep going 7x24 and uses about 100-150 watts. And a chest freezer I got about 15 years ago and I'm no giving that up! And there's a well pump here also, which is used for irrigation only. It doesn't get used as much in the winter when it rains, though.

Oh, and the gas explosion on the Peninsula was in San Bruno, not Burlingame. And Berkeley gets a lot of sunny days and could do solar electric no problem. In fact newer photovoltaic panels produce electricity even on overcast days, or so I've read.

 

[ea56]

‘Oh, and the gas explosion on the Peninsula was in San Bruno, not Burlingame.”

I just realized my mistake on this today Rich. I’m a little dyslexic and to me Burlingame and San Bruno are in the same general neck of the woods. Thanks for clarifying this. At any rate, that was a terrible disaster, due to an ancient gas main that wasn’t properly maintained. An entire neighbor hood blown to smithereens. And there are 80+ year old gas mains like that all over the Bay Area. As far as I know there is no seismic shutoff valves for these large gas mains.

BTW, sounds like your combined gas and electric winter PG&E bills are around the same as our all electric bills. Natural gas isn’t the bargain in California that it used to be. Be that as it may we all have to make the best of the utility services that are available to us. And if the day comes when we no longer have natural gas available as an option, we’ll all survive.
Eddie

 

[thomasortega]

"Require a leak detection system or a seismic cutoff valve. You can't tell me someone can't invent one when mandated by code."

Seismic valves work and they are excellent to REDUCE the fire risk, however, they're not 100% effective.

When we talk about gas explosions after an earthquake, it's easy to imagine the building shaking, the pipes breaking and for several minutes gas leaks, accumulates AND THEN a big explosion happens.

It happens exactly as described above, but not EXCLUSIVELY that way.
A different scenario, which can (and do) happen is the building shakes violently, the seismic valve goes off and shuts off the gas, the pipes that still have gas break and the parts rub against each other producing a spark that is enough to ignite that gas for a very brief moment. a tiny fire starts and in minutes turns into a huge fire.

Situation 3: It's easy to think about a single building shaking... now think bigger.... the whole block, 500 ft... 1 mile.... 10 miles of pipes full of gas. Even with shutoff valves working perfectly and going off during an earthquake, the pipe still has massive amounts of gas in it.

Here in Los Angeles I know the city pipes have seismic valves every few blocks that go off at magnitude 6 but what happens to the gas that is between two valves? we still have "a few blocks" of pipes full of gas. that's equivalent to a few cylinders of propane. What if the rupture is 1 inch before your meter/seismic valve? What if it ignites? You'll have a giant flame burning out of control against your house almost like a blow torch for a few seconds.

Think big again... 10, 20, 50 miles of pipes breaking. the same scenario on situation 3 happening exactly at the same time all over the neighborhood or all over the city.

My whole life I had gas. I love gas, I love cooking with gas, I love the way gas dryers incinerate the clothes fast but recently we were shaken by a 7.1 earthquake. What reached my apartment was much less than that because it was 100 miles from the epicenter. the scratches on my living room floor are the evidence of the sofa sliding 15 inches back and forth continuously while i was "hugging" one of it's arms otherwise I would fall. That day I discovered the real meaning of "drop, cover and hold on". 30 seconds made me change completely the "love" i have for gas. It was terrifying for be because i was right in front of a huge window I have in the living room and I simply couldn't walk away, not even one step.

I still use gas, I won't get rid of my gas dryers, but since that earthquake I can't sleep and every time I look at my dryers or my stove or that horrible wall furnace i wonder what will happen when "The Big One" happens.

Will I survive? Will the 100-year "earthquake proof" apartment I live really be flexible enough to resist a major earthquake without collapsing? Am I really ready?

If someday I build my own house here in California, for the first time in my life I'll seriously consider 100% electric.

 

[ea56]

Thank you Thomas for so clearly stating just what the danger gas underground mains can pose in the event of an earthquake, in a way that I wasn’t able to do. Your description of how even seismic shutoff valves aren’t fool proof is excellent.

I’ve lived in California all of my 68+ years and have been through countless earthquakes, the first in 1957 when I was 6. I was never afraid of earthquakes until the Loma Preita quake in Oct.89’, and that put the fear of god into me. Apparently, many members living on the East Coast and in the Heartland can’t understand how devastating an earthquake can be, and its most often the explosions of gas and fire that can do the most damage in the aftermath. It was the fire that destroyed San Francisco so completely in 1906.

So, if localities, like Berkeley chose to take a proactive approach to prevent future devastation by limiting or prohibiting the use of natural gas, phasing it out over time, to me thats a good thing.

Eddie