I live in Berkeley, it’s a nice place, great food, a lot of people who care about their neighborhoods.
But I hate that the elected officials here feel the need to get involved in issues beyond their scope.
Last week I was emailed by the city schools that they want to take the lead on… slavery reparations. What? Leave aside if reparations is right or not right, why the heck does the schoolboard think solving this problem is part of their job? It’s like deciding the school district will do ABI. It looks like resume building to me.
I live in a similarly “highly active” citizen government area, and the parking committee will issue proclamations on support for international wars. It’s just government nerds with too much money and time trying to play Model UN. I would say it’s harmless except there is always some hundred million dollar bond they are proposing.
In my opinion that attitude permeates the whole of society, nowhere is the inherent irony of the moniker "liberal" being applied to aspiring dictators as apparent as it is in Berkeley.
A tool the aforementioned aspiring dictators often wield, often in the context of a town hall, far exaggerating the effects of something they don't like. At the very least let's do a CEQA study first, ok?
I feel like that is only natural after a prolonged inaction by the elected official upper in the hierarchy. Climate change is only a world ending type of emergency, we are already at 1.2 degrees and are heading towards 3-4, a lot of people are already dying and the death count will grow exponentially every decade as inaction continues.
Perhaps your elected officials are simply desperate. And given the severity of the situation, I wish more elected officials were many times more desperate than Berkeley’s.
Maybe they're arrogant, they're so convinced that they're at the center of the universe that they forget that they preside over a town of 100k in a world where billions of people are coming out of poverty and wanting increased standards of life. Above everything they're so arrogant that they failed as politicians: they misjudged how much clout they have in their own town of 100k.
I always feel sad for the stars that gave their lives as supernovae in order to power our clean energy future, only to be ignored for the "hot new thing" (Sun) in the galactic neighborhood.
You found one of the two good nukes! Smoke detectors and radioluminescent watches.
Exclusions. Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the following:
4. Uses of radioactive material for smoke detectors, light emitting watches and clocks, and other applications not related to the development of nuclear weapons. (Ord. 5784-NS § 4, 1986)
Perhaps so, but again, both elected officials that preside over the state of California, and elected official that preside over the country of USA have repeatedly failed to act. And the climate emergency keeps getting more and more desperate.
This is the only power they have, and apparently the court has ruled they don’t even hold that power. You call it arrogance. I call a weak attempt while the system at large fails everybody, in other words, desperate is still my leading theory.
In theory, centralizing the combustion of natural gas in power plants makes sense. In a power plant, the infrastructure to reduce pollution out of the stacks is actually feasible, as opposed to home systems, where it would be anywhere from impractical to impractically expensive. In other words, I'd rather have one big source that can be more easily mitigated, than millions of smaller ones that effectively cannot be mitigated.
Berkeley's energy mix is solar dominant during the day and natural gas dependent at night. If you're cooking with light out (especially as our days are getting longer as we approach spring and summer) you're coming out ahead. Generally, consolidated natural gas burning at a plant is more efficient than the cheap natgas stoves that most people have in their apartments and homes. This is aside from leaks in the infrastructure of course.
IMO the much bigger issue with gas stoves is the hit in air quality. I have a CO2 and AQI meter I keep for measuring things and when we need to use the gas stove (we generally cook on induction) the difference in air quality is obvious both to our noses and to the meter and the air becomes appalling if we don't run the range hood. My partner and I have spent a lot of time in developing countries and just took the smell for granted until we started measuring the air quality.
California also tends to be very anti-nuclear which is also quite silly. Berkeley even moreso.
I don’t think the Berkeley city government has the funding to build a nuclear power plant. But you are absolutely right to focus on the production side of things.
Berkeley is not a small power producer. There are two power plants in the city, which ranks it kind of high on the list of California cities, particularly given the small size and population of Berkeley. Both power plants are natural gas. I was a fool defending these people, they obviously want to push the responsibility of ruining our climate onto consumers and away from governments.
I live in another Bay Area city that recently imposed a ban on natural gas for all new construction, whether residential or commercial. In addition, the ban forces existing homeowners to install all electric appliances if the cumulative cost of remodels in a 3-year window is over $250,000.
I find this idea absolutely bonkers when our electric infrastructure is terrible. The aerial power lines are subject to trees or large branches falling over and causing large power outages. Just this winter we had 4 major power outages, lasting from few hours to multiple days. Not only my city, the whole Silicon Valley had no power! The place supposedly having the brightest minds, trillion dollar companies, and the most advanced technology in the world! Not only we didn't have electricity, we had no Internet and cellular phones either. Absolutely insane!
Yeah, I do have solar power and battery backup, but during the winter relying on them does not always work. Luckily I had enough solar and battery generated electricity to power my natural gas furnace so I can have my house heated. The fan on the furnace uses 700W when pushing air, far less than electric heaters that would kill my Tesla batteries in a few short hours.
Why would anyone rely on a single source of energy, especially one that's so unreliable? Until we fix the electric grid, we shouldn't force everybody to switch to it.
Partner and I are getting rid of our gas stove this year for induction. We're already running on induction on a small burner for most daily cooking, but when we do a large meal or cook for guests we need several burners. But my partner is from a culture that does Wok cooking and I'm from a culture that loves cooking different breads on grills. Our solution has been to use an Iwatani butane burner. It's already more efficient than the terrible stove that came with our house and it's small enough that I prefer grilling breads on it.
Bonus: we got hit by a 24 hour power outage in one of the storms and cooked solely using the Iwatani burner.
> It's already more efficient than the terrible stove.
How are you calculating that? I highly doubt the total net environmental impact of butane canisters (including shipping and packaging) is lower than piped gas.
Unfortunately idiots run the state but IMO California has the greatest geography in the world. It has the most amount of experiences one can get than any other state, some countries even. There a great variety of people and cultures here, only rivaled by NYC. Despite the fires the weather is fantastic most of the time.
It's definitely gotten worse to live in these days (homeless, dumb politicians, rent, traffic, etc) but it's something I would put up with because it's truly a great location. I really wish someday someone competent would come to office there, but alas.
Not saying California is perfect, absolutely not. A shithole some might say, but there's so much Cali offers that you can't get anywhere else.
source: I'm from California, grew up SoCal, went to uni in NorCal. Went and seen it all. Unfortunately now I live in Seattle due to job reasons.
Oh, there's a lot about California that makes it completely intolerable. Unfortunately there's a lot about other states that make them completely intolerable as well. Pick your poison.
I absolutely agree that in the long term they’re a much better option. But my drag-around gas generator cost 500 bucks, while my solar system was $22k and I got quoted $18k for a single battery.
If we're talking long-term, the generator will easily outlast the solar panel and/or battery if you maintain it properly (which is honestly very trivial as upkeep goes).
He already has a battery, a Honda EU2200i to supplement it during blackouts would only be $1,200. Outrageously cheap compared to installing a 2nd home battery.
Yeah, I have a $20 camp stove and $2 butane cans. And a bbq. And a stick stove if it comes to that. If one is worried about reliability, self-sufficiency is the way.
My biggest worry isn’t cooking, it’s refrigeration.
Let’s say you have a 5BR house … it has been 2-3 years since I surveyed the options but at the time, tankless water heaters that were electric maxed out at something like 6gpm ?
As opposed to a fairly standard 12gpm for a gas unit.
So … you’d have to either take a major step backwards and use a tank heater… or … maybe duplex two units in parallel…
FWIW, I looked into this because I wanted to use an electric option but it’s just not practical.
Heat pump water heaters are what you're looking for. They're still tanked so don't need as much instantaneous power to heat a large body of water which also makes them amenable to batteries as a backup. As a bonus, in California water heaters are often installed in garages for townhomes and detached houses and the heat pump will end up cooling the surrounding space which tends to be a benefit during the summers and isn't a big problem through our generally mild winters.
If we can't reliably deliver electricity why should I trust the ability to reliably deliver electricity _and_ natural gas? Many gas appliances still require electricity to operate anyway.
> If we can't reliably deliver electricity why should I trust the ability to reliably deliver electricity _and_ natural gas?
To state the obvious, because if one or the other is out at least I have the other one.
That said, while electricity outages are pretty common here (California, thanks PG&E), natural gas has never had any kind of outage or problem.
So with gas I can still cook (gas range) when the electricity is out and I have hot water (gas water heater). I could even heat the house because the furnace fan doesn't require that much power so it can easily be powered by my small generator while all the heating BTUs come from the reliable natural gas line.
Natural gas is underground and virtually never has an outage.
A stove needs no power to run - you can light it with a match. And those appliances that need some electricity to help the natural gas can run off of a battery, or a tiny generator.
Natural gas is underground and virtually never has an outage.
What? I mean the obvious response is to point out that time that PG&E used natural gas to blow up a San Bruno neighborhood. After the explosion we found out that PG&E actually had no idea how much they could pressurize their pipeline (and in fact they falsified records to cover this up).
Beyond that leaks happen all the time, and explosions happen from time to time. I'm just gonna throw it out there, PG&E turns off gas service when there's a leak… causing… you know… an outage.
> On September 13, 2018, excessive pressure in natural gas lines owned by Columbia Gas of Massachusetts caused a series of explosions and fires to occur in as many as 40 homes, with over 80 individual fires, in the towns of Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover, all within the Merrimack Valley, in Massachusetts, United States. One person, Leonel Rondon, was killed and 30,000 were forced to evacuate their homes immediately.
One thing I learned around this time is in Massachusetts a number of wooden lines are in service and nobody knows exactly where they all are.
Neither are the overwhelming majority of electrical outages. Then again firemen don't usually respond to electrical outages, and most electrical outages don't trigger evacuations, so there's that.
Besides the claim was "virtually never has an outage" not "virtually never has a widespread outage".
And im not talking the boonies. Im talking just outside San Francisco.
Aside from the market manipulation outages of 2001 and the initial round of public safety shutoffs, there weren't widespread interruptions of service. In fact last year the only rolling blackouts in the Bay Area were more or less accidental as whatever city (Alameda? Palo Alto?) jumped the gun.
Gas is way more reliable than electricity in CA.
Meanwhile Texas had widespread natural gas outages in 2021 and 2022. It's been a few years since I've had a power outage out here, and given the current state of PG&E's gas infra I wouldn't exactly call it reliable.
The thing with a power outage is that you'll sit around and enjoy having gas appliances. Whereas with a gas outage, you'll sit around and hope your house doesn't blow up.
Oh if we're talking the rest of California… it's less of a service outage and more like a mass evacuation (8,000+ families). Then again I'd say regular leaks, fires, and explosions do not a reliable delivery system make.
But anyways, how many people died from the wildfires started by power lines?
Certainly fewer than succumb to natural gas related causes. Nationwide somewhere around 15 people die annually from pipeline related incidents, over 400 from carbon monoxide poisoning. Safety with electrical stuff marches forward. Fault (ground, arc) interrupters, fused plugs, polarized and grounded receptacles. Safety with gas handling has basically stagnated and we can't even get gas powered appliances to not leak gas.
California's got a long history of safety problems with natural gas:
Not to the same degree they don't. Evacuations due to safety issues and service disruptions with gas are common. Evacuations due to safety issues with electrical service are not.
Another tragedy of the commons: Leaking gas infrastructure pollutes, causes explosion risks, and puts a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, and gas companies just have subscribers pay for the losses. Not that PG&E didn't socialize risk while privatizing profit regarding fires.
Gas is much simpler than electricity. Electricity relies on the entire grid and control infrastructure. It's not something that is simply "delivered" despite our everyday terminology. Every single device on the grid, input and output, must be synchronized/balanced, thus outages cannot be resolved by simply flipping an on switch.
“it’s disappointing the Ninth Circuit held that Berkeley, like many other cities around the country, cannot take common-sense measures to protect its constituents from climate change.”
I'm all for getting rid of nat gas heating, and I wouldn't install it in a new home, but that doesn't mean that I believe that I would be protected from climate change because of it.
> No it's not, especially if you replace natural gas with burning coal for electricity.
Berkeley has been transitioning businesses and residents to majority and most recently 100% renewable energy for years.
> Until the last coal plant shuts down, it makes zero sense to ban natural gas.
This is nonsense. Every year the % of renewable energy increases it makes more sense to electrify than it did previously. It's a lot easier to change the energy source for a power grid than it is to rip out all existing gas infrastructure.
>Until the last coal plant shuts down, it makes zero sense to ban natural gas.
I don't quite follow the logic here, why? California only had 1 coal plant left, and most of it has been decommissioned. It's not like natural gas usage would be replaced with coal. It would be replaced with either renewable, nuclear, or centralized natty
How fungible is it? When the US banned leaded gasoline, did other countries increase their usage?
I suspect when California finishes shutting down the last coal plant, it'll probably be with local unused natural gas capacity or renewable. I don't think it's practical for the state to import coal power from separate grids or across the country. I know reducing coal usage in the US might make it cheaper to burn in coal in other parts of the world, but there's still local benefits wrt lifespan and air quality
Answered in a sibling comment. Berkeley is dominantly solar during the day and dominantly natgas at night. There's very little coal in California whatsoever.
That isn't quite fair. Most of these selections about what goes into a new house are not being made a la carte. The construction is performed according to the specifications of development companies. Individuals then go on to buy the homes which are available, at which point they are making choices based on the entire package.
The city's ban is largely aimed at changing the design specifications made by the developers. It has the benefit of preventing additional decades of lock-in and new development to infrastructure they'd like to remove anyway.
Treating their constituents like idiots is something all politicians do—it's just harder to see it in the ones who've convinced you that they're on your team.
Good news. Electricity is several times more expensive than gas per unit of energy in CA, and I generally find electrical appliances to be inferior at the present. The ban was just too soon.
Heat pumps are a lot better than they used to be, and in mild climates they can attain insane effective efficiency ratings... several times more efficient than gas furnaces per unit of energy.
I do like cooking with a flame though, even though it's terrible for indoor air quality.
If you have an adequately sized ranged for your stove then it'll suck up whatever noxious gases are emitted and not burned. It's also not that difficult to test on your own.
Additionally, the main impacts on climate change from natural gas don't come from peoples homes or lateral lines, which is what a lot of these bans are based on. [1] [2]
A range hood can suck out a lot of a room’s warm air. That could change the efficiency of gas cooking, depending on circumstances and climate. Do heat exchangers exist on range hoods?
I don't think so, you just have a flap that absent a pressure gradient stays closed. When extraction is on, you usually are producing heat so it's not as big of a deal.
I don't think that's the case. The flame applied to the bottom of the vessel is where heat goes. Anything you feel outside of that is technically wasted.
Electric kettles in the US are so much more frustrating to use than UK given the electric standard differences. I never knew I’d miss fast booking so much but have yet to pull the trigger on something like a zojirushi boiler to use throughout the day.
US kettles aren't lower wattage just to spite the users, they're lower wattage because of the wiring in our houses.
Whether you can run two kettles depends on the age of the house (i.e. which version of the electric code it was built to) and which outlets you choose. If you want to draw a full 3000W the way a quick European kettle does, you can't do that on a single 15 or 20 amp American branch circuit. Now it is possible to mildly overload breakers for a period of time without tripping them, but this hardly a good recommendation.
If you want 3000w of electricity in an American house, just buy an 240v appliance.
Grossly oversimplified but most American kitchens built in the past 40 years will only be wired with 20 amp circuits (= rated for 80% continuous load or about 1900 W). However, I've never seen a 20 amp receptacle in a kitchen (until my idiot GC insisted on it because he doesn't understand the NEC), and pretty much any US spec kettle will only have a 15 amp (NEMA 5-15) plug. But… there will almost certainly be a few different circuits in your kitchen so pulling 3000 W (a.k.a. 15 amp * 0.80 * 2) isn't so crazy.
Whatever. My kettle is rated at 1500 watts and it's still quite a bit faster than the shitty gas range. And it'll keep water at temp for half an hour. And it's adjustable so I can boil water or heat it up for whatever tea or coffee. There's a pretty strong convenience factor here.
A 240 V kettle is probably not worth the hassle though, especially not if you want your local building inspector to sign off on anything.
My total energy bill decreased after I installed a heat pump, even though the season was colder (based in degreee days). Electricity may be several times more expensive than gas, but heat pumps are several times more efficient, especially in mild climates like Berkeley
> Electricity is several times more expensive than gas per unit of energy in CA
Fossil fuel usage is vastly more expensive when the externalities are accounted for. This is like saying it's more financially responsible to just put everything on credit cards and ignore the ever-growing balance statements.
Natural gas was the largest source of electricity generation in California in 2021, accounting for nearly half of the power generated in the U.S. state.
Natural gas plants are entire factories designed to extract as much energy per unit of gas as they can. If you want to just compare carbon emissions, it's better to burn gas in a plant to generate electricity to do whatever you wanted than to pipe the gas to a home. This is not even accounting for the fact that this also removes the danger piping highly flammable gas to people's homes, and that it also removes the source of pollution away from population centers.
As a $European, I can only be jealous. We were importing our natural gas from Russia. Fortunately it was a mild winter, so people got away with lots of extra layers and blankets.
The word "renewable" gets thrown around a lot to the point where you forget what it means. But it means a resource that you can renew: It doesn't run out, you don't need to depend on others, and best of all it doesn't need to be bought from a crazed homicidal neighboring nation.
Compared to the last few years, it was not a mild winter. Colder than usual even (I mean I had to wear a coat in early December, when I was in t-shirts around Christmas in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and it's still cold in mid-April) but we haven't had a polar vortex that would have put significant stress on the grid
It is unfortunate that the people of Berkeley keep electing local officials who want to grandstand instead of spending their time more wisely governing the city.
There are certainly lots of right-now problems to solve in Berkeley, including at the operations of the City of Berkeley, and yet council can find time for a foreign policy agenda, a climate change agenda, a human rights agenda, etc.
Heavy handed interventions from upper courts, like this one, only make itbmore likely that localities will fracture and separatism will take root. The central government should be making it easier for municipalities and states to set their own policy, not harder. Otherwise the political future of an already divided country is a dark one.
Every watt that is on used to heat makes more carbon in Berkeley today than it does to heat with a gas of some kind. I do, however, agree that new builds should be all electric, with the exception of commercial spaces.
I think the key to managing statist left wing busybody governments is distraction. We need to get more stupid things on their radar, since they've already tackled the scourges of plastic straws, big sodas, and food deserts.
How about a fourth kind of garbage bin? Maybe a purple one for waste that has bad vibes. Bad vibes are the third leading cause of harshed mellows in the US.
I don't know if this is a good legal decision, but it's certainly a good practical decision. California's forced electrification is a disaster in the making.
Particularly since we’ve been in a climate emergency for a few years now. In fact I think Berkeley was one of the first cities to declare one. How is electrifying households a disaster but emitting more green house gasses isn’t?
California's grid is in no way prepared for the plans of forced electrification that are now in place. It is essentially a plan for the impoverishment and immiseration of Californians in pursuit of utopian climate dreams - an extraordinary waste of resources.
Berkeley has declared a climate emergency, a housing emergency, a homeless emergency. Turns out City officials don’t do anything different in an emergency
Well of course the largest fossil fuel exporter on the planet is not going to tolerate some local community instituting a ban on fossil fuel use, why should anyone be surprised?
The way things are shaping up, it's going to be the countries who have to import all their fossil fuels who will be the most interested in developing renewable energy as a replacement for fossil fuels.
They should have thrown some financial incentives to the developers instead of trying to institute a ban like crazy people who want to control others. A lot of bay area developers already don't want to deal with venting so you don't get a proper range vent and in unit dryers are often of the (more efficient) condensing variety, I could totally see developers foregoing gas hookups if the city threw them something to encourage heat pumps.
> A lot of bay area developers already don't want to deal with venting so you don't get a proper range vent and in unit dryers are often of the (more efficient) condensing variety, I could totally see developers foregoing gas hookups if the city threw them something to encourage heat pumps.
Sounds like they already have something to encourage heat pumps; you don't have to put in venting for heat pumps, and they don't want to deal with it. Problem solved. You should really have a proper range vent regardless of the heat source, but I guess that's not mandated, so there you go.
Oh please, just look at Blackrock, Fidelity, State Street, Vanguard etc. investments in fossil fuels and fracked natural gas. I haven't looked lately, let's see who runs Chevron these days:
Even if big oil captured the judiciary, why would they care what Berkeley does when Europe generates more than enough demand for American natural gas exports?
The reason for Europe's natural gas demand at the moment is because the EU has this minor dispute with that other large supplier of natural gas: Russia.
Lesson learned: Don't depend on resources that can run out or be denied to you.
Right now there are literally simply not enough craftsmen around able to rip out/replace/supplement (my corner of) Europe's natural gas heating systems fast enough. The waiting lists are insane.
This means that the EU is stuck having to import natural gas as an interim emergency measure. But ask any county in northwest Europe and I bet they'd tell you that Berkeley is doing the sane thing here.
So Russian gas is going to start flowing again soon? I am not holding my breath on that one. In any case, the global harm that's come from building a multi-decade dependence on Russia for anything as crucial as oil and gas is far worse than the harm coming from some gas stoves, so European powers don't get to comment on sanity in this debate.
> So Russian gas is going to start flowing again soon?
No. I think you must have misread something.
In my previous post, I am strongly implying that Russian gas is not going to start flowing again anytime soon, if ever.
> In any case, the global harm that's come from building a multi-decade dependence on Russia for anything as crucial as oil and gas is far worse than the harm coming from some gas stoves
The use of large numbers of gas stoves (and gas ovens, and gas central heating) is what leads to this kind of dependency in the first place.
> European powers don't get to comment on sanity in this debate.
I'm talking about all the counties (villages, towns, cities) large and small, who have been working hard to help their local home-owners and renters get through this winter and beyond.
But I hate that the elected officials here feel the need to get involved in issues beyond their scope.
Last week I was emailed by the city schools that they want to take the lead on… slavery reparations. What? Leave aside if reparations is right or not right, why the heck does the schoolboard think solving this problem is part of their job? It’s like deciding the school district will do ABI. It looks like resume building to me.