Tag: natural gas

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , ,

California ends gas line subsidies as it eyes an electric future

Zoe Woodcroft, EARTHJUSTICE

The California Public Utilities Commission voted today to end gas line allowances for new homes in a shift to climate-friendly construction

California made waves today as the first state in the country to end gas line extension allowances, a program that spends millions every year subsidizing fossil gas lines for new homes and buildings, as the state shifts to all-electric new construction. California is likely at the forefront of a trend, with states like Washington, Oregon, and New York all revisiting their gas line subsidies. The unanimous vote today by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is estimated to save California ratepayers over $160 million every year that was being funneled into incentivizing expansion of the fossil gas distribution system in California.

“The vote today in California is yet another palpable sign that the future is electric for homes and buildings,” said Matt Vespa, senior attorney on Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign. “All-electric homes are not only cheaper to build, but they also save California ratepayers money by avoiding the harmful expansion of the gas distribution system — and their clean air and climate benefits are simply priceless. California’s vote today to end gas line subsidies should spur a trend in other states looking into the obvious benefits of all-electric housing.”

Read more at https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2022/california-ends-gas-line-subsidies-as-it-eyes-an-electric-future

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , , ,

California injects $40M into heat pump water heater effort amid broader push to decarbonize buildings

Kavya Balaraman, UTILITY DIVE

California energy regulators Thursday approved an additional $40 million in funding from the 2023 gas cap-and-trade allowance auction to promote heat pump water heaters, on top of a previously authorized $44.7 million.

The initiative, part of the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) self-generation incentive program, which promotes existing and emerging distributed energy resources, is one of many efforts to cut carbon emissions from buildings by expanding incentives for electric appliances, CPUC Commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen said at the agency’s meeting.

Dive Insight:

California’s building sector contributes around a quarter of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, and regulators see heat pump water heating systems as a promising tool to reduce that. Heat pump systems tap into the electric grid to heat water, and as the state’s electricity mix grows cleaner, they can offer a cleaner and more efficient alternative to natural gas water heating, according to the CPUC.

Approximately 800,000 water heaters are replaced every year in California, and under the agency’s program, customers can receive incentives for installing heat pump water heaters — up to $4,885 for low-income, single-family residential customers and $3,800 for other single-family residential customers.

The heat pump water heater systems are required to operate in a way that shifts electricity demand to off-peak hours on the grid, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions, in order to be eligible for the incentives. Using a technology called a “thermostatic mixing valve,” these systems can pre-heat water when electricity demand is low, essentially allowing them to provide energy storage services.

Read more at https://www.utilitydive.com/news/california-injects-40m-into-heat-pump-water-heater-effort-amid-broader-pus/621869/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , , ,

Healdsburg city council majority not interested in pursuing an all-electric reach code

Katherine Minkiewicz-Martine, SOCONEWS

A request from Healdsburg’s vice mayor to pursue a building reach code update that would include a ban on all-natural gas — creating all-electric reach code — couldn’t get enough traction Feb. 7 from fellow city council members in order to move forward despite resident support of such a ban.

Instead of pushing onward with this option, Vice Mayor Ariel Kelley’s colleagues cited a desire to work toward making existing buildings more energy efficient, looking at other ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — such as electrifying the city’s utility truck fleet — and the need for natural gas during public safety power shut offs (PSPS) when electricity is not available.

A reach code is an ordinance that goes above state requirements on energy use to try and break dependency on fossil fuels by mandating that new construction for residential or commercial use either mixed gas and electric, partial electric or all-electric cooking and heating options.

Read more at https://soconews.org/scn_healdsburg/news/city-council-majority-not-interested-in-pursuing-an-all-electric-reach-code/article_b0dc7662-89c7-11ec-860c-5b0eacc1c844.html

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , , , ,

The fuss about methane

Ted Parsons, LEGAL PLANET

Part 1: Science and weird facts

Methane is getting a lot of attention in climate debates. There was even a “Methane Day” last Tuesday at the climate conference in Glasgow. Several new regulations controlling methane emissions have been adopted recently, including two new rules for the US oil and gas sector announced last week. There’s a new informal international agreement to limit methane emissions, and a still-unresolved effort to put a charge on methane emissions into the forthcoming reconciliation bill. And more methane initiatives are surely on the way.

There are several good reasons for this. Methane is essential to control, since stabilizing climate requires reducing all anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions to net-zero. Methane is a pretty big contributor to heating, second only to CO2. Moreover, for reasons I’ll explain below, cutting methane brings especially strong benefits over the next few decades. There are even indications that near-term cuts might be easier to achieve for methane than for CO2, for a mix of technical, economic, and political reasons. None of this means methane controls can replace CO2 controls; but it does make methane an especially attractive candidate for immediate and steep cuts.

This post is an introduction to methane in climate change: where it comes from, how it’s different from CO2, how those differences matter, and what that all means for controls. I won’t go into details on the current state of methane controls and proposals for new ones. That’s for a subsequent post.

Read more at https://legal-planet.org/2021/11/08/the-fuss-about-methane-part-1/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , , ,

Judge favors Santa Rosa’s defense to developer’s lawsuit over city’s natural gas ban

Will Schmitt, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A Sonoma County judge has signaled he favors arguments made by Santa Rosa in a prominent local developer’s lawsuit that argues the city did not follow the proper process more than a year ago when it banned natural gas in most new residential developments.

Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Patrick Broderick on Wednesday held a virtual hearing about his recent tentative ruling in response to the allegations brought forward by Bill Gallaher, who owns the Gallaher Homes and Oakmont Senior Living companies, after the Santa Rosa City Council passed an all-electric rule in late 2019. The city passed the rule — known as a “reach code” because it’s an optional expansion on baseline energy efficiency standards — as a way to reduce energy use by buildings, shrinking the city’s carbon footprint.

That ruling would deny Gallaher’s request for Broderick or another judge to order Santa Rosa to “set aside” its approval of the all-electric rule, which generally requires new homes under four stories to be built without natural gas lines and requires electric appliances to heat food, air and water.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/judge-favors-santa-rosas-defense-to-developers-lawsuit-over-citys-natura/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , , , , ,

The fossil fuel industry wants you to believe it’s good for people of color

Sammy Roth, LOS ANGELES TIMES

The letter to Mexico’s energy minister offered a glowing review of a fossil fuel project in Baja California.

Writing in July, three U.S. governors and the chair of the Ute Indian Tribe praised the Energía Costa Azul project — which was seeking approval from the Mexican government — as “one of the most promising [liquefied natural gas] export facilities on the Pacific Coast.”

The letter was arranged by Western States and Tribal Nations, an advocacy group that says it was created in part to “promote tribal self-determination” by creating easier access to overseas markets for gas extracted from Native American lands.

But internal documents shared with The Times reveal that the group’s main financial backers are county governments and fossil fuel companies — including Sempra Energy of San Diego, which received approval this month to build the $1.9-billion facility in Baja. In fact, the group has just one tribal member, the Ute Indian Tribe.

Western States and Tribal Nations isn’t the only effort by fossil fuel proponents to cast themselves as allies of communities of color and defenders of their financial well-being.

The goal is to bulwark oil and gas against ambitious climate change policies by claiming the moral high ground — even as those fuels kindle a global crisis that disproportionately harms people who aren’t white.

Recent examples abound.

As protests rocked the United States after the police killing of George Floyd, a government relations firm whose clients include oil and gas companies told news media that the mayor of San Luis Obispo, Calif., was “getting a lot of heat” from the NAACP over a proposal to limit gas hookups in new buildings. That was proved false when the local NAACP chapter said it supported the policy.

Around the same time, Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation wrote a letter to federal officials complaining about the refusal of several banks to finance oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, writing that the banks were harming Alaska Natives by “openly discriminating against investment in some of the most economically disadvantaged regions of America.”

Some of the most contentious debates involve natural gas. The fuel is less polluting than coal, but an international team of scientists reported last year that planet-warming emissions from gas are rising faster than coal emissions are falling. A recent study in the peer-reviewed journal AGU Advances found that replacing coal with gas might do little good for the climate.

Continue reading “The fossil fuel industry wants you to believe it’s good for people of color”

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & Energy, ForestsTags , , , ,

Op-Ed: PG&E – Monopoly power and disasters

Peter Phillips and Tim Ogburn, PROJECT CENSORED

The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has diverted over $100 million from safety and maintenance programs to executive compensation at the same time it has caused an average of more than one fire a day for the past six years killing over 100 people.

PG&E is the largest privately held public utility in the United States. A new research report shows that 91% of PG&E stocks are held by huge international investment management firms, including BlackRock and Vanguard Group. PG&E is an ideal investment for global capital management firms with monopoly control over five million households paying $16 billion for gas and electric in California. The California Public Utility Commission (PUC) has allowed an annual return up to 11%.

Between 2006 and the end of 2017, PG&E made $13.5 billion in net profits. Over those years, they paid nearly $10 billion in dividends to shareholders, but found little money to maintain safety on their electricity lines. Drought turned PG&E’s service area into a tinderbox at the same time money was diverted from maintenance to investor profits.

A 2013 Liberty Consulting report showed that 60% of PG&E’s power lines were at risk of failure due to obsolete equipment and 75% of the lines lacked in-line grounding. Between 2008 and 2015, the CPUC found PG&E late on thousands of repair violations. A 2012 report further revealed that PG&E illegally diverted $100 million from safety to executive compensation and bonuses over a 15-year period.

PG&E has caused over 1,500 fires in the past six years. PG&E electrical equipment has sparked more than a fire a day on average since 2014—more than 400 in 2018—including wildfires that killed more than 100 people.

In October 2017, multiple PG&E linked fires (Tubbs, Nuns, Adobe fires and more) in Northern California scorched more than 245,000 acres, destroyed or damaged more than 8,900 homes, displaced 100,000 people and killed at least 44.

In November, 2018, the PG&E caused Camp fire burned 153,336 acres, killing 86 people, and destroying 18,804 homes, business, and structures. The towns of Paradise and Concow were mostly obliterated. Overall damage was estimated at $16.5 billion.

PG&E has caused some $50 billion in damages from massive fires started by their failed power lines. They filed bankruptcy in January 2019 to try to shelter their assets. PG&E’s 529 million shares went from a high of $70 per share in in 2017 to a low of $3.55 in 2019. Shares are currently trading at $10.55 with zero returns. At this point PG&E actually owes more in damages then the net worth of the company.

All but two members of the board of director resigned in early 2019, and the CEO was replaced. A new board of directors was elected by an annual stockholders meeting in June of 2019. PG&E now has a board of directors whose primary interest in 2020 is returning PG&E stock values to $50-70 range and returning to annual dividend payments in the 8-11% rate.

The new PG&E management took widespread aggressive action during the fire-season of 2019 shutting down electric power to over 2.5 million people statewide. Nonetheless, a high voltage power line malfunctioned in Sonoma county lead to the Kincade fire that burned 77,758 acres destroying 374 structures, and forced the evacuation 190,000 Sonoma county residents. Estimated damages from this fire are $10.6 billion.

The fourteen new PG&E directors were essentially hand-picked by PG&E’s major stockholder firms like Vanguard Holdings 2019 (47.5 million shares 9.1%) and BlackRock (44.2 million shares 8.5%). A new PG&E Director, Meridee Moore, SF area founder & CEO of $2 billion Watershed Asset Management, is also a board member of BlackRock.

Only three of the new fourteen directors live in PG&E’s service area (four if we count the newly appointed CEO from Tennessee). One board member lives the LA area. The remainder of the board live outside California, including three from Texas, two from the mid-west and the remaining four from New York or east coast states. Pending PG&E Bankruptcy court approval, new directors are slated to receive $400,000 each in annual compensation.

Ten of the new 2020 directors have direct current links with capital investment management firms. The remainder have shown proven loyalty experience on behalf of capital utility investors making the entire PG&E board a solid united group of capital investment protectors, whose primary objective is to return PG&E stock values to pre-2017 highs with a 11% return on investment. They claim that wide-spread blackouts will be needed for up to ten years.

All fourteen PG&E board members are in the upper levels of the 1% richest in the world. As millionaires with elite university educations, the PG&E board holds little empathy for the millions of Californians living paycheck to paycheck burdened with some of the highest utility bills in the country. PG&E shuts off gas and electric to over 250,000 families annually for late payments.

The PG&E 2020 board is in service to transnational investment capital. This creates a perfect storm for the continuing transfer of capital from the 99% to the richest 1% in the world, all with uncertain blackouts, serious environmental damage, widespread fires, with multiple deaths and injuries.

We need to liquidate PG&E for the criminal damages it has afflicted on California. The “PG&E solution” is to manage PG&E democratically on the basis of human need, rather than private profit. It is time to take a stand for a publicly owned California Gas and Electric Company as the way to reverse the transfer of wealth to the global 1% and provide Californians with safe, low-cost and more renewable energy. All power to the people!

For the full report with all PG&E board names see: www.projectcensored.org/pge

Source: https://www.projectcensored.org/pge-monopoly-power-and-disasters-by-the-rich-1/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & Energy, Sustainable LivingTags , , ,

Induction cooktops becoming popular as eco-friendly option

Meg McConahey, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

For technology that has been available since the 1950s, induction cooking sure looks futuristic.

Place a pot on a smooth, glass surface, touch a pad to turn on and watch liquid boil in under a minute. Like an electric glass-top stove, there is no obvious burner. With induction, if you touch the surface, it will feel warm but it won’t burn your fingers. Place paper on it and it won’t catch on fire, or even get hot. Walk away and it will turn itself off.

It all looks like a magic trick. But this form of electrical heat conduction is for real, and finally, after more than 60 years, it’s gaining traction among consumers and builders interested in clean energy and energy-efficient appliances.

“It’s fantastic,” said convert Clio Tarazi of Santa Rosa, who was an early adopter nine years ago. Her husband is from Germany and was familiar with induction. Europe has used it for years.

“I was really tired of those gas cooktops. They’re so hard to clean. And they clog and flare up. When my husband suggested looking at induction, at first I was resistant. But then when I saw how responsive it is, oh, my god. Problem solved. It’s so easy to clean and maintain.”

Like a high-performance engine, induction has a rapid response. It will boil water in a fraction of the time regular electricity or gas requires. Similarly, when you turn it down from boil to simmer, you don’t suffer the messy boilovers while you wait for the liquid to cool down.

While still not the cheapest option, the price of induction ranges and cooktops, once beyond the imagination of most homeowners, has dropped dramatically in the last few years. And with the availability of portable induction burners for under $100 at common retailers, more and more, people are able to test and ultimately turn on to the ease and safety of cooking with a method that doesn’t heat the burner but the pot itself.

Instead of an open flame, an induction cooktop uses an electric current passed though a coil of copper under a glass surface. This creates a magnetic field that wirelessly induces an electrical current in the pot only.

Richard Landen, a salesman for Asien’s Appliance in Santa Rosa, said he used to sell perhaps two induction cooktops a year. Now more customers are asking for them, he said, particularly with all the rebuilds in Sonoma County providing an opportunity for creating greener homes.

Old tech made new

The first patent for an induction cooker was introduced in 1909. It wasn’t until 1933, however, that Frigidaire introduced it to the public at the Chicago World’s Fair. But the timing was off. It was the depths of The Depression, a time when not everyone had even shifted from coal and wood to electric stoves.

Westinghouse tried to market induction in the 1970s with the Cool Top 2 (CT2) Induction range, priced at $1,500 (more than $8,000 in today’s dollars). It included a set of high-quality cookware made of Quadraply, a new laminate of stainless steel, carbon steel, aluminum and another layer of stainless steel. But production was halted after two years when the company merged with White.

The technology continued to simmer on the back burner of the market for several decades. But in recent years, rising interest in clean energy over natural gas has brought new attention to an old technology. And with solar power becoming more commonplace, consumers are finding the price savings of gas over electricity is not so significant anymore.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/lifestyle/10539572-181/induction-cooktops-becoming-popular-as

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , , ,

Developers sue over Windsor’s ban on natural gas in new homes

Will Schmitt, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Windsor’s fledgling natural gas ban is under legal fire from developers who argue its new mandate will increase costs for future homeowners and fails to account for the continued potential of widespread electricity shut-offs imposed by PG&E.

Two lawsuits filed by Sonoma County developers last week ask a judge to block Windsor’s requirement that most new homes use electric appliances for cooking and heating instead of natural gas technology. The court fights could shape future development in Windsor and ripple out to Santa Rosa, where the City Council enacted a similar ban earlier this month.

The suits claim Windsor’s rule violates state environmental law, glosses over the dangers of increased generator use by residents of gas-free homes and ignores some research showing higher utility bills for those who live in all-electric homes.

The suits cite PG&E’s recent electricity shut-offs and the 2018 Camp fire in Butte County — apparently sparked by the utility’s power equipment — to bolster claims that banning natural gas is unwise.

Read more at: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10363925-181/lawsuits-by-developers-challenge-windsors

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Climate Change & EnergyTags , , , ,

Santa Rosa moves forward on plan to ban natural gas in new homes

Will Schmitt, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Starting in early 2020, plans for most new Santa Rosa homes likely won’t include natural gas stoves, fireplaces, furnaces and water heaters.

The Santa Rosa City Council on Tuesday voted 6-0 to require the exclusive use of electric appliances in most new residential construction below four stories. The measure, which will need a second vote of approval and the California Energy Commission’s backing in the coming weeks, will put the city in the company of Windsor, Berkeley and other local governments across California that have passed a type of natural gas ban in the name of curbing climate change.

The council’s vote came after PG&E shut off electricity to prevent wildfires four times in October, plunging thousands of Sonoma County homes into darkness and raising questions about the wisdom of eliminating natural gas from the range of possible home power sources.

But council members, who made confronting global heating a top priority earlier this year, didn’t waver from their pursuit of an all-electric requirement, which is more stringent than state law requires. Their decision was backed by supporters of climate action such as Chris Thompson, vice president of the Oakmont Democratic Club.

“We are in a state of emergency. We are running out of time,” Thompson said. “Electric homes are the future we need for ourselves, and especially for our children and our grandchildren.”

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10301069-181/santa-rosa-moves-forward-on