California’s Natural-Gas Bans Push Largest Gas Utility to Find a New Strategy. Southern California Gas will need to spend billions to repurpose its system for a future with fewer gas customers

Wall Street Journal ^ | November 2, 2022 | Katherine Blunt

[karpov]

As California expands its efforts to phase out natural-gas use in homes, the nation’s largest gas utility is trying to reinvent itself for a future in which far fewer customers use its core service.

Southern California Gas Co., a unit of Sempra, is studying how to repurpose its system—and handle the costs of doing so—as the state works to ban the sale of gas furnaces and water heaters starting in 2030. The state’s initiatives are the latest in a series of measures aimed at reducing future gas use to address climate-change concerns. Already, about 50 California cities and towns have regulations in place to ban or limit gas hookups in new buildings.

SoCalGas faces an acute challenge in transforming its business away from natural gas, one that will require billions of dollars to build new pipelines and reuse or retire existing ones. Unlike California’s other large utilities, PG&E Corp. and Sempra’s San Diego Gas & Electric Co., SoCalGas doesn’t have an electricity business and relies entirely on its gas system for revenue.

The utility, which serves 21.8 million customers primarily in Southern California, said it envisions overhauling much of its system to transport what is known as green hydrogen, an energy source that doesn’t emit carbon when burned. As more homes and businesses install electric heaters and appliances, the company anticipates growing its industrial customer base by delivering hydrogen for use in electricity generation, heavy transportation and other carbon-intensive processes.

“Our system continues to be essential and used, but it gets used in different ways,” said Maryam Brown, the company’s president. “The appliances are going to change, but we still have to be able to meet reliability and resiliency needs.”

Betting on green hydrogen, which is made using renewable energy, isn’t a sure thing.

[ronnie raygun]

Give them to china and then blow them up

[ridesthemiles]

MY BEST ADVICE TO SO CAL GAS:

DO NOT SPEND A DIME trying to appease the idiots.

SIT TIGHT—Do everything the same as always.

AFTER ONE WINTER WITHOUT HEAT THESE NUTSO IDEAS WILL VANISH

[ridesthemiles]

Copper???

Copper???

Anyone here remember the Copper King in Atlas Shrugged???

[ptsal]

California is going to Hell

[from occupied ga]

BTW, your state has “Lizzo” Stacy Adams!

Not any more - she was sent packing after the election Oh and it's Abrams not adams - either way she's extra large economy size sack of rancid feces

[from occupied ga]

Better save that to see if we are stupid enough to keep the Democrats in power after next week.

Well? Were you Californians stupid enough? to me it looks like CA voters were stupid enough. Anyone who re-elects farting moron Swallwell by 66+% has got to be brain dead

[antidemoncrat]

I can’t believe as bad the “real” cost of living has gotten and how much of peoples’ freedom has evaporated and how high the crime rate is how many voters continue to push the “D” button to vote.

[from occupied ga]

It puzzles me too. I can only surmise that Democrats’ brains don’t work the same way ours do. The see high inflation and massive government spending just like we do, but we know government spending causes inflation, and they think the poor government has to spend more because of inflation. We see rampant crime because of Democrats letting violent criminals go. They see rampant crime and think those poor oppressed black people it isn’t fair to punish them because their ancestors were slaves 150 years ago. If we just give them enough of someone else’s money they’ll become productive citizens. Etc.