
Berkeley first city in California to ban natural gas in new buildings - prostoalex
https://www.berkeleyside.com/2019/07/17/natural-gas-pipes-now-banned-in-new-berkeley-buildings-with-some-exceptions?campaign_id=49&instance_id=10991&segment_id=15328&user_id=ad1d38d7aeb88df9a49d1052fc4f5fba&regi_id=4617603
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booi
That seems incredibly short-sighted. Currently, using electricity for heating
generates significantly more CO2 than natural gas and you can always switch to
electric heating when the sources become more renewable.

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adrianN
You probably want to install heat pumps instead of resistive heaters. Then you
get 3-5J of heat for every Joule of electricity. Retrofitting those into a
house with gas heating is quite expensive, so not using fossil fuels for new
construction in the first place is probably the right decision.

In Berkeley you can probably slap a small number of solar panels on the roof
to produce more electricity than you need for heating (and cooling).

~~~
abdullahkhalids
Do you have actual numbers for the COP factor for modern heating and cooling
solutions? If its actually 5 (after accounting for transmission losses from
power plant to building and other inefficiencies), then that means electric
heat pump heating releases 3x less C02 than a in-building gas heater [1]. A
solar panel solution will release like 4.5x (assuming 90% efficiency) less
C02.

Finally, burning natural gas inputs additional heat energy into our
atmosphere, with the gas-burner inputting 3x more heat into our atmosphere
compared to the electric heat pump. A solar panel solution doesn't add more
heat to the atmosphere. It takes energy that was going to get absorbed by the
atmosphere anyway and concentrates it inside a building for localized heating.
Except for the second hand effect of some of sunlight that would have
reflected off from the roof back into space, now being dispersed as high
entropy heat into the atmosphere.

Not to mention that if you use solar

[1] This is assuming that the power plant is a hybrid natural gas one (60% max
efficiency) so 5*0.6 = 3. And the in-building natural gas heater is 100%
efficient.

~~~
larkery
A COP of 5 is quite optimistic for a domestic scale heat pump, at least in the
climate where I work (UK). Sensible values here would be more like 2 - 3.5
depending on the temperature gradient required.

This is a function of how big the radiators are and how cold the heat
reservoir is, so if you plug an air->water device into some normal radiators
its performance won't be good on a really cold day, whereas if you plug a
ground->water or water->water device into underfloor heating it'll probably be
pretty good.

The big question (in the UK) for per-dwelling heat pumps is whether the
distribution network has enough capacity to meet the winter peak load - if
everyone gets a heat pump the cost might have to include replacing a lot of
substations and distribution wires.

I am interested in the question of whether you could have PV cells on your
roof with a coolant loop that goes into a heat pump, and a thermal store in
the house for buffering. Then when it's sunny you can dump some electrical
heat into your thermal store whilst also use your heat pump to chill the PV
cells, keeping them at high efficiency. When it's not sunny you can draw off
your thermal store giving a high efficiency for the pump.

If the numbers came out right you might be able to be self-sufficient for heat
using something like this, just by making good use of the radiation already
falling on the house.

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mikorym
Electric heating can be a pain when compared to gas heating. Gas heating in
Europe is rather efficient and I expect it to continue for a long time even as
other energy uses are switched to renewables. In the comments someone
mentioned that electricity in "East Bay Community Energy [gives the option of
100% renewable energy]".

I would conclude that this is a move that is specifically useful and possible
for Berkeley, but not necessarily for e.g. European countries at the moment.

~~~
maaaats
> _Electric heating can be a pain when compared to gas heating_

How? I've never used gas, but electricity is plain simple. Just plug whatever
in any outlet and turn it on, how is that a pain?

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reallydontask
The pain is in the form of a far higher monthly bill.

In the UK, gas is ~ £0.03 per kWh whereas electricity is ~ £0.13 kWh.

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ZeroGravitas
And yet, the Energy Saving Trust suggests that it can save 100 pounds a year
even compared with a modern gas system, and much better against all other
alternatives.

I'm not sure if those numbers include government incentives but if they do
then they're still a good proxy for the actual costs with a reasonable carbon
tax included to internalize externalities.

~~~
reallydontask
> And yet, the Energy Saving Trust suggests that it can save 100 pounds a year
> even compared with a modern gas system, and much better against all other
> alternatives

By switching to a heat pump system?

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ZeroGravitas
Yep.

[https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-
energy/heat/a...](https://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-
energy/heat/air-source-heat-pumps)

See the section headed: "Potential annual savings of installing a standard air
source heat pump in an average sized, four-bedroom detached home:"

Also details the carbon saved, which some people might consider important as
well, depends on the relative weight you place on "saving money in the near
future" vs "causing the end of civilization as we know it".

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mikorym
What is the principle at work behind a heat pump?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It's a fridge running backwards. Gasses expand soaking up heat, then you
compress them and it ejects the heat. Then you repeat the cycle.

You dump the heat outside if you're cooling (fridge or AC) or inside if you're
heating.

The slightly unintuitive bit is that you can still extract heat even from
something that would feel "cold" to a human as long as there's enough of it.
Making a big volume slightly colder can make a small volume much warmer (or
vice versa).

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hprotagonist
I have a strong preference for cooking on a gas stove.

Otherwise, this seems fine.

~~~
retrac98
Can't upvote this enough. People seem to think having an electric or induction
hob is somehow superior to gas.

Nah. Gas is by far the best thing to cook on.

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adrianN
You cook the whole planet as a side effect though.

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jrschumacher
Found this article interesting (have not fact checked):

568 kWh/an * 0,98356 kg de Co2 = 559 kg of Co2 / Year and per UK Familly
cooking with electricity 534,3 kWh/an * 0,231023102 kg de Co2 = 123 kg Co2 /
Year and per UK Familly cooking with natural gas 534,3 kWh/an * 0,260 kg de
Co2 = 139 kg Co2 / Year and per UK Familly cooking with bottled gas

[https://www.solarcookingatlas.com/cooking-and-resources-
gas-...](https://www.solarcookingatlas.com/cooking-and-resources-gas-coal-
electricity-wood.php)

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__sy__
Frankly, I'm not even sure you need to regulate against natural gas. Product-
wise & economically, it's already lost. Electric heat pumps are fantastically
more efficient [1] and work both for heating & cooling. Electric water heaters
are cheaper/better to operate. Induction stoves are so fast and precise. I
don't know about a commercial building, but for a home, you'd probably save
$10K+ in piping, installation, and connection fees.

[1] [https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/06/heat-pumps-work-
miracles/](https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/06/heat-pumps-work-miracles/)

~~~
mobilefriendly
Heat pumps are a disaster when temperatures drop below 20 degrees F. We end up
using auxiliary heat which is extremely inefficient and expensive.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Fortunately for this particular case, Berkeley winter temperature hasn't seen
a record low below 25 degrees F in the last 30 years. Or more, Wikipedia
doesn't go back further than that.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California#Climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California#Climate)

So heat pumps should be OK for Berkeley.

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bubblewrap
I thought gas was comparatively efficient, compared to other fossil fuels?

~~~
adrianN
It is, but we need to stop using fossil fuels in the next twenty years. Homes
usually last longer than that and retrofitting heat pumps is quite expensive.

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PhantomGremlin
_It is, but we need to stop using fossil fuels in the next twenty years._

That's easy to say, difficult to implement.

E.g. China is cutting back on domestic use of coal, but has decided to build
hundreds of new coal plants worldwide:
[https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-
placin...](https://www.npr.org/2019/04/29/716347646/why-is-china-placing-a-
global-bet-on-coal)

Also, there are other vast large-scale man-made ongoing changes to the world's
ecosystem. E.g. the Amazon rainforest continues to be under attack. Same in
other countries like Indonesia.

One US city switching away from natural gas is totally insignificant compared
to all that.

If you really want to reduce climate change, figure out how to stop the big
big crazy things. Banning natural gas in new construction in Berkeley is
simply symbolism over substance.

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paranoidrobot
> One US city switching away from natural gas is totally insignificant
> compared to all that.

Everything starts with one.

If it turns out that Berkeley doesn't spontaneously erupt into rioting and
general disorder because gas is being phased out, well perhaps others that
were considering it will see that it's not such a crazy idea.

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fastbmk
A lot of countries with dictatorship regimes are natural gas exporters.
Avoiding natural gas usage makes the world a better place. So that's a right
decision.

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skybrian
Note that California's net-zero energy mandate for new construction also
starts in 2020 [1]. However, I'm not sure what that means (my web searches
didn't find much).

My guess any new construction will need to be very well insulated, and in most
of California's climate, won't require much heating?

I don't see how this would work in colder places like Lake Tahoe, though.

[1] [https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/ZNE/](https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/ZNE/)

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semi-extrinsic
People have built a net-positive energy house in the middle of Norway. It's
mainly a matter of very good insulation, heat exchangers between outgoing and
incoming air, heat pumps, and rooftop solar. In most of these buildings the
windows can't even be opened, all air flow is controlled by the central
system.

[https://snohetta.com/project/60-powerhouse-at-
brattorkaia](https://snohetta.com/project/60-powerhouse-at-brattorkaia)

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donatj
Honest question, how bad is natural gas actually carbon wise?

I remember it being touted maybe 15 years ago about how great it was compared
to gasoline and being a renewable resource. If I recall some national parks
vehicles and bus lines [1] were moving to it.

[1]
[https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy00osti/28377.pdf](https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy00osti/28377.pdf)

~~~
simonh
It releases about 15% less CO2 than gasoline, so it's a bit better. It does
produce fewer particulates and combusts more completely, so there are fewer
other byproducts such as CO and NOx.

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RickJWagner
In some ways, Berkeley seems like a great place to live. In others, a
nightmare.

I'm glad they do these things, though. It's interesting and informative to see
what happens over time.

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pankajdoharey
Well the interesting thing to note here is, it is California and not Texas.

