Natural gas ban turned down in CA on new construction (Los Angeles: how much, house)

[mgforshort]

The City of Berkeley has settled a lawsuit by the California Restaurant Association to repeal that city’s first-in-the-nation ban on gas hookups in new construction, dealing a final blow to more than a hundred similar measures in California cities including Sacramento.

Berkeley’s 2019 gas ban became a cornerstone in a national battle over the future of fossil gas in buildings as dozens of other municipal and county governments followed suit — including Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles.

The Friday announcement comes after a federal appeals court declined to rehear the case on Berkeley’s ordinance that a panel of judges struck down last year for preempting federal energy law."

The bold text is from "The Sacramento Bee."

We live in Paradise, N. California and most homes in our area have a generator to help out when the electric power is down due to heavy winds or high demands in the summer. We have a big one on NG, good enough for us and for a neighbor, and also 2 smaller inverter type generators. Yes, I'm way beyond paranoid. Besides the high winds, occasionally the power is down due to heavy demand all over the state. NG gas generators are expensive to buy and to run, but they pollute much less than the small portables on regular gas. Unless you had spent five and a half days without PGE power please don't offer negative comments. This is a win for the good guys.

To put this in a different way, I lost count how many times we lost PG&E electric; sometimes it is an hour, sometimes it is several days. The NG is always there, so at least we can run a fireplace to keep us from freezing, and NG supports the whole house generator, albeit the cost is around $ 2.50 per HOUR. The smaller portables run 10 hours on 1 gallon of gasoline, more or less, depending on the load.

[mattja]

California: "Let them eat propane."

Oops, sorry.

California: "Let them do without when the power is off. And they better not burn wood for heat or cooking!"

[JGC97]

Personally, I'm happy to see Berkeley back down. And I hope other cities will, as well. It's one thing to ask customers to make a conversion for new construction and let it evolve naturally. It's another to force these changes and not realize how much this will cost people to purchase these. Especially, when the rest of the world isn't making the same change. As if one city changing is going to make that much of an impact. It over reach by government and I don't like that. Whether it's what we have in the way of energy for our home, what type of light bulb we use, or what sort of car we drive. People should be able to choose because they're the ones paying the bill.

[citizensadvocate]

Its interesting how CA turned 180 on these policies overnight from making it defacto mandatory to banning it. There even was a fuel switching law that forbid air source heat pumps that are found in many warmer parts of the country which is why they are nearly nonexistent in this state for residential construction compared with other similar climate states.

[GuyInSD]

Hmmm...I wonder what effect this will have on California State's plan to (effectively) ban Natural Gas powered Furnaces and Water Heaters starting in 2030?
"the zero-emission standards would apply to new space and water heaters sold for use in both residential and commercial buildings....CARB staff plan to take a proposed regulation to the Board for consideration in 2025 with any implementation beginning in 2030."

* Effectively, as in anything after 2030 would have to have zero emissions.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by mattja

California: "Let them eat propane."

Oops, sorry.

California: "Let them do without when the power is off. And they better not burn wood for heat or cooking!"

Full cord of oak on the side of the house. Yep. Went through a full cord this winter already.

[mattja]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

Full cord of oak on the side of the house. Yep. Went through a full cord this winter already.

Right on.

BAAQMD is telling people to fink on their neighbors if they burn wood.