Berkeley Bans Natural Gas

Wall Street Journal ^ | July 21, 2019

[reaganaut1]

The Berkeley, California, City Council is getting headlines for its decision last week to ban supposedly gendered language from its city code. “Manhole” and “manpower” are now out in favor of “maintenance hole” and “human effort.” Somewhere George Orwell is crying, but the city’s progressive lords were even more destructive when they also moved to ban natural gas from nearly all new buildings.

The ordinance is due for a second reading this week and already has unanimous council support. Beginning Jan. 1, with few exceptions the city will deny developers permission to build a home, town house or small apartment building with natural gas hook-ups for cooking, heating or hot water. The ordinance’s stated goal is “fossil free new buildings,” and Berkeley plans to expand the ban to bigger apartment buildings and commercial structures.

Berkeley claims in its ordinance that “all-electric heating technologies are cost-competitive substitutes to their natural gas counterparts.” If that’s true in California it is only because the state’s climate regulations have increased the cost of fossil fuels. Electric heaters are generally less expensive than gas furnaces, but in most places gas is less expensive than electricity. Residential natural gas prices have risen 16% in California over the last five years while falling 8% on average nationwide.

Electricity prices statewide have also increased 20% since 2014 due in part to increased reliance on solar and wind and are set to rise even higher as the state weans itself from fossil fuels. Berkeley doesn’t want to wait until state regulators ban new natural gas hook-ups, as environmentalists demand faster progress toward carbon neutrality.

This being Berkeley, the natural-gas ban also contains a social-justice rationale. “Asthma and its relationship to natural gas present profound questions about equity,” the ordinance says

[Socon-Econ]

Hope some Republican oficial traverses California telling residents why their energy bills are needlessly high. It’s a good issue for Trump — to win, he needs more than immigration or the squad.

[crusty old prospector]

It has been a great week for them. Now, no more manhole covers as well.

[RinaseaofDs]

If that’s what’s happening in Oakland, I’m very glad. I’ve always loved Oakland and their teams, growing up in the East Bay.

If there is a gentrification going on there, excellent.

[richardtavor]

Electric cars just grab electricity out of the air and it is free! LOL.

[taxcontrol]

idiots

[central_va]

Let’s get this over with and all go Amish.

[DIRTYSECRET]

U R funny. How about smuggling propane tanks from out of state? U no that’s next.

[T-Bird45]

FTA: “Somewhere George Orwell is crying...”

Personally, I think he’s laughing his a$$ off, since he knows he wrote a novel, not an instruction manual.

[Truthoverpower]

This is completely meaningless

I went to UC Berkeley and work in Berkleigh all the time

Plain and simple there’s no new real estate to develop there at all it’s all been developed

The only thing happening is your typical tear down the old thing and put up the new more expensive thing and there’s already gas service so there you go

[xrmusn]

When my mother moved me from NY to CA in 1956 I vaguely remember being stopped at the CA/AZ border for a ‘fruit inspection’ check(I think).

Thought I was in a WWII movie with the guards wanting to ‘see your papers’ etc (I exaggerate).

I was 16 at the time and remember very little of that trip - how long? where stopped? how ate? I do remember going into my Senior year and on 17th bd quit and joined the Navy.

Talk about ‘pre busing’ - she uprooted me from a ‘stable’ home and school in NY State (32 in Grad class) to Glendale CA and more people in the SR class than in the town in NY we were living in...(well seemed like that)

[xrmusn]

Do they ever think long term????
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I ain’t all that bright....<: <: <:

Would that be considered a redundant statement?

I read the headline and immediately thought they were banning FARTZ.

I mean with nuclear free zones, gun free zones, banning fartz would fall right in line.

I did get to surmising that as long as ‘we’ have all these laws in effect we will never get attacked by a foreign power as they WON’T violate our ‘air space’, ‘12 mile limit’, skip customs, go against our sanctuary cities, gun free zones, etc etc etc.

Of course with the current bunch of clowns in politics, the DC area has become the safest ‘ground zero’ in the history of mankind.

ANY enemy worth his salt would do NOTHING to remove the likes of our present Congress etal.

[Lisbon1940]

There is construction all over. On Auto Row, they are keeping the old facades while building luxury condos.

[xrmusn]

When my mother moved me from NY to CA in 1956 I vaguely remember being stopped at the CA/AZ border for a ‘fruit inspection’ check(I think).

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Did it ever dawn on them that they were rejecting the 'WRONG FRUITS'??

[ridesthemiles]

You cannot fix stupid-—and neither can I.