CityofSantaBarbaraSource: City of Santa Barbara
On July 27th, City Council adopted an ordinance that prohibits the installation of natural gas infrastructure in new buildings as an important step toward achieving its goal of carbon neutrality by 2035. The City is joining nearly 50 other jurisdictions in California who have taken similar actions in an effort to avoid greenhouse gas emissions related in the building sector.
The Council’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2035 will require a multi-pronged approach to address greenhouse gas emissions from the energy, transportation, and waste sectors. Energy use in buildings accounts for a substantial amount of Santa Barbara’s greenhouse gas emissions (roughly 40%), divided evenly between electricity and natural gas sources. Starting this fall, the electricity supply in Santa Barbara will largely be carbon-free with the launch of Santa Barbara Clean Energy, opening up a pathway to significantly reduce, if not eliminate, emissions associated with building energy use by transitioning away from natural gas.
Preventing the expansion of natural gas infrastructure into new buildings will avoid future emissions related to this potent fossil fuel. “Buildings are long term assets that essentially lock in their greenhouse gas emissions for decades. Therefore, designing green buildings provides an important opportunity to reduce emissions in the long run,” said Energy and Climate Manager, Alelia Parenteau.
This Ordinance applies to projects for which a building permit application is submitted after January 1, 2022 and only applies to newly constructed buildings. New buildings are defined as a project that meet two or more of the following criteria:
1. More than 75% of the structural elements of the roof or roof framing are removed;
2. More than 75% of the structural exterior walls (or vertical supports such as posts or columns when a structure has no walls) of a structure are removed or are no longer a necessary and integral structural component of the overall building;
3. More than 75% of the foundation system is removed, or is no longer a necessary and integral structural component of the overall structure, including, but not limited to: perimeter concrete foundation, retaining walls, post and pier foundations, or similar elements that connect a structure to the ground and transfer gravity loads from the structure to the ground.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) that are completely new buildings must be all-electric. ADUs that are being added on to an existing building and do not meet two or more of the criteria listed above are not considered new buildings and thus do not fall under this ordinance. Additionally, certain exemptions are allowed for the following: restaurants, clean rooms, laboratories, and projects where electrification is not feasible or it is in the public interest to allow natural gas infrastructure.
To read the ordinance and learn more about this change, please visit the Sustainability & Resilience website: https://sustainability.santabarbaraca.gov/climate-actions/#natgas
Did the city council calculate the amount of kilowatt hours would be required over the next 5, 10 years and confer with SCE if they had the planned capacity to accommodate that additional load (in addition with the increased demand placed on the further adoption of electric vehicles)? NO. Will this decision increase the cost of building new housing units? YES. Will it increase the cost of living through higher utilities? YES. Does the city council really care about affordable housing in Santa Barbra? Apparently not.
Our current mix of sources for the generation of electricity are:
Natural Gas — 40%
Coal — 19%
Nuclear — 20%
Renewables — 20%
Other — 1%
So, by mandating no natural gas in new buildings (i.e., all electric), we would be INCREASING the amount of coal and nuclear used for power generation. Plus, we would be increasing the amount of natural gas used in power generation, which is about twice as INEFFICIENT as using natural gas directly.
We have some true boneheads for city council members.
Chip et alia–your ‘facts’ are always cherry picked and suspect. Maybe it takes more gas to run an electric generation system a long way from the user than it does to heat a home with gas over electric but that is not a total picture by far. Electricity is, increasingly, generated by wind, sea, solar and high temperatures produced by the earth under oceans and ventilating to the surface and such. The overall effect is that electricity can be generated cleanly and increasingly cheaply. Whereas gas powered plants create huge waste that is dumped into the atmosphere for someone else to clean up. Why can’t we all see the future and protect the next generations?
Electricity can be generated increasingly cheaply? If that is the case, how come power bills keep increasing?
“Renewable” power generation is not more feasible than gas. An all electric house will be heated by natural gas burned far away at a power plant and transmitted with substantial inefficiency. During the increasingly frequent outages that are occurring as a result of reliance on “renewable” power, perhaps during a cold winter’s day lacking wind and sunshine, an all electric house will be heated by a wood fire or a gasoline/diesel backup generator. That is what our “renewable energy” plan is going to look like in reality.
Feel good politics that have the opposite effect of what is intended
People were upset when the light-bulb made kerosene lamps obsolete.
No one is arguing against the move to renewables RHS, but nat gas is a stepping stone in the right direction as well as a nice backup for when the renewables aren’t able to produce. City councils decision in no way increases the speed at which power companies switch to renewable sources. What it does do is increase the cost of living in Santa Barbara and provide the council members with a nice resume builder as they move up in the democratic machine. Another feel good measure that doesn’t actually do the people of Santa Barbara any good.
Chip has zero expertise in power generation. But we should sit around and listen to his half cocked theories he came up with chugging 40’s at the pit.
LandShark: Nuclear in CA disappears in 2 years. Natural Gas usage will jump to 60% to make up for it.
And when they had to stop burning whale oil because oil was cheaper.
Change is good, except for the climate kind.
Feel good snark has the opposite effect of what is intended.
Happy,
My data are absolutely correct. I was quoting for the country as a whole today and not some future date. We have to look at the country as a whole and not just CA. Especially if you are saying that 34% of our future generation is going to come from natural gas — good luck getting that much NG from within CA. Right now, CA imports more electricity than any other state — 32% of CA’s electricity is generated out of state, and a whopping 90% of the natural gas that our state consumes comes from out of state. It’s ridiculous to consider CA as a self-sustaining island — because it’s not!
Just to be clear regarding others’ comments, I do not advocate coal or nuclear or natural gas for power generation. But the problem with renewables right now is that they do not necessarily provide electricity when and where it is needed most. In other words, the supply profile from renewables does not match the demand profile (solar and wind are intermittent). Right now, many of the power grids in CA cannot use more solar because its time of peak power production is toward the middle of the day while the peak demand is later in the day. If we had a good electricity storage system (safe and efficient batteries) then we could solve the mis-match between the supply and demand profiles. We would probably still need natural gas as a backup for severe events (massive fires, earthquakes, etc) but we could still become almost completely powered by renewables. Bottom line: We will need natural gas for power generation until we can implement a widespread battery storage.
And way more expensive. Do we not care about affordable housing anymore? Guess not…
It takes more gas to make electricity far away than it does to make heat directly in a home. This will drive up the cost of living, support the gas industry, and increase the amount of CO2 going into the air.
Savvy move for the future because it helps force more renewable electricity generation. Rapidly falling cost of solar/wind + batteries are rendering it economically unfeasible to build new natural gas plants.
Wouldn’t subsidies to renewables be masking their true cost to society as well?
Seems to me the cost to consumers is being ignored. Cooking and heating with nat gas is WAY cheaper than electricity, and the cost of electric appliances is up to three times that of gas. Add solar panels and battery storage and a typical home will cost at least $20K more than a typical gas/electric house. I gather the theory is that as all-elec becomes predominant, costs will decrease for solar, etc. I am skeptical of that.