Without the use for space heating, very little gas will be distributed, making the distribution system totally uneconomic for small users.
The distribution system leaks methane. It’s ~3% of what goes through it when there is high usage, but the amount of leakage probably doesn’t go down unless you start decommissioning it.
You want to protect the workers who have to breathe the fumes
No, it’s relevant for the cost of distributing the gas. It’s not cost-effective to run a gas distribution system just to commercial kitchens without the much larger distribution going to heating.
Propane doesn’t offer the benefits you seem to think it does. It’s more expensive and the distribution system for it likely has as many issues as the natural gas does. Going after natural gas distribution while we still have larger and more significant sources of emissions is a minuscule bandage solution at best. At worst it solves a very minor source of emissions problems at a major cost in both money and convenience.
Those commercial and residential emissions - those are largely about the fuels burned in buildings. 14% of the total is enough to matter — and when we’re running out of time to get emissions to zero, we need to cut it all to zero, not pick and choose.
What evidence do you have that it would be cost-ineffective to pipe natural gas to only businesses? The only thing they do these days when someone opts out of using natural gas is turn off the valve at the street. The gas still flows to other businesses and neighbors. It doesn’t matter what Berkeley does because Oakland, Richmond, Hayward and every other town or city around Berkeley is not going to ban the use of natural gas. It’s a non-starter. It’s pointless to do.
There has been a ton of modeling on how declining numbers of ratepayers cause methane gas prices to skyrocket. If you actually get rid of almost all the people buying it, the last few are left paying a fortune for what was once common infrastructure shared by many people.
Right. And once it gets rolling, the disconnect (electrification) rate will undoubtedly increase. The sooner folks understand this, the sooner we can all get along to managing the wind down of the gas infrastructure in an intelligent way.
There are only tiny numbers of billionaires, and we need to get emissions to zero to stabilize temperatures, so we’re all going to need to pitch in, even if that means something like “change how we heat and cook” instead of “switch to sailboats instead of diesel mega-yachts and private jets”
Three reasons:
Heating is irrelevant for commercial kitchen gas usage.
You’re just trying to yoke this terrible idea to a more sensible one for residential heating.
No, it’s relevant for the cost of distributing the gas. It’s not cost-effective to run a gas distribution system just to commercial kitchens without the much larger distribution going to heating.
If that’s right, you don’t need to ban gas cooking, just ban residential heating and let the market take care of it.
Y’all just want to tear shit down to pat yourselves on the back.
Definitely could do it that way. But everybody is better off if we do it in a planned way instead of leaving people to deal with that kind of a mess.
So whats the plan to replace gas in commercial kitchens? Oh wait there isn’t one.
Two options right now:
Propane doesn’t offer the benefits you seem to think it does. It’s more expensive and the distribution system for it likely has as many issues as the natural gas does. Going after natural gas distribution while we still have larger and more significant sources of emissions is a minuscule bandage solution at best. At worst it solves a very minor source of emissions problems at a major cost in both money and convenience.
Those commercial and residential emissions - those are largely about the fuels burned in buildings. 14% of the total is enough to matter — and when we’re running out of time to get emissions to zero, we need to cut it all to zero, not pick and choose.
Removed by mod
What evidence do you have that it would be cost-ineffective to pipe natural gas to only businesses? The only thing they do these days when someone opts out of using natural gas is turn off the valve at the street. The gas still flows to other businesses and neighbors. It doesn’t matter what Berkeley does because Oakland, Richmond, Hayward and every other town or city around Berkeley is not going to ban the use of natural gas. It’s a non-starter. It’s pointless to do.
There has been a ton of modeling on how declining numbers of ratepayers cause methane gas prices to skyrocket. If you actually get rid of almost all the people buying it, the last few are left paying a fortune for what was once common infrastructure shared by many people.
Right. And once it gets rolling, the disconnect (electrification) rate will undoubtedly increase. The sooner folks understand this, the sooner we can all get along to managing the wind down of the gas infrastructure in an intelligent way.
I’m not saying it’s pointless but uh…https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaires-emit-more-carbon-pollution-90-minutes-average-person-does-lifetime
There are only tiny numbers of billionaires, and we need to get emissions to zero to stabilize temperatures, so we’re all going to need to pitch in, even if that means something like “change how we heat and cook” instead of “switch to sailboats instead of diesel mega-yachts and private jets”
Oh for fucks sake. Get off your high horse.