Natural gas bans gain momentum
Cities poised to follow Berkeley’s restriction
Last month, Berkeley became the first U.S. city to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new residential buildings.
It probably won’t be the last — especially in the ecoconscious Bay Area.
San Jose, Santa Rosa and Petaluma are among the cities looking into phasing out natural gas in some new buildings as a means of meeting climate goals. Heating and appliances like dryers and ranges would have to run on electricity instead.
San Francisco is also set to consider legislation that would ban natural gas in new municipal buildings, of which there are few. Supervisor Vallie Brown plans to introduce the measure in September.
“My legislation will be the latest step, not the last step, to address natural gas,” Brown said in a statement.
Juan Carlos Cancino, a legislative aide to Brown, said the city would probably consider requiring electricity in new construction “in a much wider space” within the next two or three years.
Critics say natural gas is a reliable source of electricity, and its use helps keep people’s energy costs down.
“Natural gas is an affordable and efficient energy source that provides reliability during the ongoing transition to more renewable energy sources,” Catherine ReheisBoyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association, an advocacy group in Sacramento, said in a statement. “Banning its use in municipal buildings, homes or business in San Francisco or other cities is not a mindful or inclusive way of planning for our state and nation’s energy future.”
A study released by the California Codes and Standards program found that, on average, it costs around $6,000 less to build an allelectric singlefamily home than it does to build a mixed fuel home with natural gas. The savings come from not having to hook up natural gas infrastructure or pipe it to the home, said Rachel Kuykendall, senior program manager at Sonoma Clean Power, which has worked with other local groups to offer $5,000 to homeowners affected by the 2017 wildfires to rebuild their homes so they run only on electricity.
Whether switching from natural gas to electricity is costeffective over time depends on electricity and gas rates in a region, and how energyefficient various appliances are. Modern heat pump technology, for example, is substantially more efficient than heating with natural gas, according to Pierre Delforge, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council focused on building decarbonization.
Incentive programs like the one run by Sonoma Clean Power can help bring down the costs of allelectric homes. Bob Cipolla’s new home in Santa Rosa, which drew from the Sonoma program’s fund, is all electric and solarpowered, with a backup battery.
“I’m producing more electricity than my house can possibly use, so I’m feeding the grid any excess,” he said. “Having the backup battery means I can use saved solar power and will still have power during any time the grid is down.”
Even allelectric homes and businesses rely indirectly on natural gas, because some electricity comes from natural gas plants. But California’s electricity supply is one of the greenest in the nation, thanks to policymakers’ emphasis on boosting renewable energy and slashing greenhouse gas emissions. Just last week, the governor’s office announced that the majority of California’s electricity comes from clean sources.
An ambitious energy bill signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown in September requires California to get 100% of its electricity from carbonfree sources by 2045, but natural gas “has to leave the energy system in order to meet that goal,” said Daniel Kammen, energy and public policy professor at UC Berkeley.
Natural gas systems can leak, he noted, so the climate gets harmed not just by gas that gets used but by gas that gets wasted. Moreover, gas is primarily composed of methane, a far more potent heattrapping gas than carbon dioxide.
Some cities are considering adopting “reach codes” — building codes that go beyond state requirements — that would reduce the use of natural gas. There are several approaches: One is an “electricready” ordinance that would require some new buildings to have the right infrastructure for homeowners to eventually go allelectric, even if they currently use natural gas. Another approach, the allelectric “favored” reach code, would allow both gas and electric but subject mixed fuel homes to higher efficiency standards (thereby making it more costly for developers). A third, the allelectric reach code, would require new construction to be allelectric, typically in lowrise buildings like homes.
Petaluma is in the early stages of exploring reach code options, and the City Council has been “very supportive” of moving toward an allelectric code for new lowrise residential development, City Manager Peggy Flynn said. In Santa Rosa, a city subcommittee that included the mayor recommended consideration of an allelectric reach code in the coming months, after outreach efforts and public meetings, the first of which will be held next month. City officials also seem supportive of evaluating an allelectric reach policy, according to Assistant City Manager David Guhin.
San Jose has developed a draft reach code that will incentivize allelectric new construction. Buildings would be able to include natural gas, but they would have to meet the added efficiency requirements above the state’s base code.
San Francisco’s challenge — and perhaps part of the reason the city is moving cautiously — is that most of its new buildings are highrises, while Berkeley, by contrast, has far more lowrise homes. Even Berkeley’s natural gas ban, which takes effect in 2020, allows exceptions for instances where it is infeasible to construct a building completely without natural gas, said Timothy Burroughs, the director of the city’s planning and development department. These exceptions could include highrise buildings, because allelectric highrises currently do not have guidelines for complying with California’s energy code. That issue is expected to be resolved within a year, Burroughs said.
Still, Delforge and other environmentalists say San Francisco can do more. Banning natural gas in new municipal buildings is only like a “very limited” version of Berkeley’s gas ban, said Matthew Gough, a senior campaign representative for the Sierra Club.
San Francisco’s municipal buildings are powered by Hetch Hetchy hydroelectricity, so the sole source of emissions from city buildings now is from natural gas, according to city Environment Department spokesman Charles Sheehan. Municipal operations, including buildings, produce only 3% of citywide emissions, he said.
But the city could rope in more buildings beyond simply new municipal construction.
Once the city has stepped up, “we’re not shy about asking others, including the private sector, to do the same,” Brown said.