Berkeley becomes first U.S. city to ban natural gas in new homes

Fortunately Berkeley has a relatively mild climate, but I could see this being a big potential problem in many other places.

Just like with electric cars, environmental greenies seem impatient to want to switch over to using electric power even before all that electric power is generated by renewable sources.
California burns natural gas to generate much of its electric power, so this mandate will ironically only reduce energy efficiency.

 

And the other half from AZ and NV from fossil and nuclear?

 

Back in the late 1960s, I lived in an all-electric home with my mother in Buena Park, California. We had electric baseboard heaters but no air conditioning. We just relied on fans.

 

The problem is, electric turbines have only around 30% efficiency and around 60% is heat energy (which could be used for heating/chilling buildings or dissipated in cooling towers). You also have transmission losses and such.
Firing a gas stove or a gas boiler "on the spot" is much more efficient since you need the heat, not the electric power.

So, this decision, especially now when the resources are plentiful, only makes sense if you are afraid of strong earthquakes that can crack pipelines or you want power plants that operate on natural gas to make money instead of you.

 

I wonder what will happen to the people that like to cook real meals. Its damn near impossible to control heat on an electric stove. I personally will never again buy electric kitchen appliances. And considering how my house seems to lose power every time we get snow here in Atlanta, I'm not sure I would ever want to give up my gas logs.

 

Not to mention the quality of the energy. One is fire burning and the other one is (induced) electromagnetic energy vibrating with 50-60 Hz. The food tastes different.

 

Never noticed food tasting different, but I do know my gas oven was much more consistent temps than my electric and i just hate cooking on an electric stov .