The fossil fuel industry has a problem. Their products are killing the planet — but that’s just business. No, their problem is governments at various levels in the U.S. are starting to ban use of natural gas in new construction. This threatens their livelihood, and they are pushing back. Hard.
On a summer evening in 2019, city leaders in Berkeley, California, adopted a climate policy that inspired dozens of imitators and an even bigger backlash.
The famously progressive city was the first in the United States to pass an ordinance that banned natural gas hookups in new construction.
The idea spread to other California cities and is being considered in other cities and states. But opponents also were at work, and they helped to pass laws in four states—Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee—that restrict the ability of cities to ban gas hookups.
The fossil fuel industry has a problem and they’ve settled on a tactic. Natural gas is used for home heating, for heating water, and for cooking. The last is the one where people have direct interaction on a daily basis that leads to emotional attachments, and that’s where they are trying to make a stand.
A June 17, 2021 article by Rebecca Leber in Mother Jones lays out how they are proceeding — and it’s not just about climate. It turns out there are health concerns as well.
And why they’re scared we might break up with their favorite appliance.
Early last year in the Fox Hills neighborhood of Culver City, California, a man named Wilson Truong posted an item on the Nextdoor social media platform—where users can interact with their neighbors—warning that city leaders were considering stronger building codes that would discourage the use of natural gas in new homes and businesses. In a message titled “Culver City banning gas stoves?” he wrote, “First time I heard about it I thought it was bogus, but I received a newsletter from the city about public hearings to discuss it…Will it pass???!!! I used an electric stove but it never cooked as well as a gas stove so I ended up switching back.”
Truong’s post ignited a debate. One neighbor, Chris, defended electric induction stoves. “Easy to clean,” he wrote of these glass stovetops, which use a magnetic field to heat pans. Another neighbor, Laura, expressed skepticism. “No way,” she wrote. “I am staying with gas. I hope you can too.”
Unbeknownst to both, Truong wasn’t their neighbor at all, but an account manager for Imprenta Communications Group. Among the public relations firm’s clients was Californians for Balanced Energy Solutions [c4bes], a front for the nation’s largest gas utility, SoCalGas, which aims to thwart state and local initiatives restricting the use of fossil fuels in new buildings. c4bes had tasked Imprenta with exploring how platforms such as Nextdoor could be used to engineer community support for natural gas. Imprenta assured me that Truong’s post was an isolated affair, but c4bes displays it alongside two other anonymous Nextdoor comments on its website as evidence of its advocacy in action.
Leber details some aggressive moves by the industry to push back against the bans, and they are using all kinds of tactics including astroturf groups, targeted social media, etc. (The standard tactics corporations have been using for decades, which have only gotten more sophisticated over time.) They are also pushing hard on the legislative front.
The gas industry also has worked aggressively with legislatures in seven states to enact laws—at least 14 more have bills—that would prevent cities from passing cleaner building codes. This past spring, according to a HuffPost investigation, gas and construction interests managed to block cities from pushing for the stricter energy efficiency codes favored by local officials. In a potential blow to the Biden administration’s climate ambitions, two big trade groups convinced the International Code Council—the notoriously industry-friendly gatekeeper of default construction codes—to cut local officials out of the decision-making process entirely.
“Natural Gas” is a term the industry itself settled on in the 1930’s according to Leber as a marketing strategy. While largely forgotten now, at one time gas for illumination (back when gaslighting was about providing light, not psychological manipulation) was generated by several chemical processes, often in municipal plants. Natural gas eased out manufactured gas over time. It was comparatively cleaner and cheaper. (It was also cleaner and more convenient than heating and cooking with wood or coal.)
By the 1950’s, the industry was pushing gas hard, enlisting celebrity spokespeople, devising pop-culture references, and putting out advertising like the ad at the top of this post. And then there is this:
During the 1980s, the gas industry debuted a cringeworthy rap: “I cook with gas cause the cost is much less / Than ’lectricity. Do you want to take a guess?” and “I cook with gas cause broiling’s so clean / The flame consumes the smoke and grease.”
(if you think Hank Hill’s advocacy for propane as “God’s Gas” is over the top, the fossil fuel industry would beg to disagree, going by the video above.)
The drive to market natural gas has had results. Leber has some interesting numbers: gas stove prevalence in new single family homes was at 50% in 2019; in some cities 70% of cooking is done on gas stoves — and 68% of the industry’s revenue comes from housing, including apartments. (Presumably that includes heating and hot water as well.)
It’s Not Just About Greenhouse Gas Emissions — It’s About Health Issues As Well
One of the things the natural gas industry does not like to admit is that cooking on a gas range produces a number of chemical by-products from combustion that are not good. They have definite health effects — and this is beyond the obvious hazard of people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning for lack of ventilation. Here’s a sampling from Leber’s report:
...Gas stoves emit a host of dangerous pollutants, including particulate matter, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides. One 2014 simulation by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that cooking with gas for one hour without ventilation adds up to 3,000 parts per billion of carbon monoxide to the air—raising indoor concentrations by up to 30 percent in the average home…
...Nitrogen oxides, which are not regulated indoors, have been linked to an increased risk of heart attack, along with asthma and other respiratory diseases. Homes with gas stoves have anywhere between 50 and 400 percent higher concentrations of nitrogen dioxide than homes without, according to EPA research…
...a meta-analysis of existing epidemiological studies, one of which estimated that kids in homes with gas stoves are 42 percent more likely to have asthma than children whose families use electric.
How bad is it?
The UCLA study found that indoor NO2 emissions from running a stove alone can sometimes cause levels that the EPA would consider unacceptable outdoors, and running an oven at the same time makes things even worse. Indeed, the data shows that California’s buildings emit more nitrogen oxides than power plants, and only slightly less than cars.
There are several contradictory trends at work here. Energy efficiency has led to buildings that are well-sealed against drafts, etc. to the point where ordinary indoor air pollution is a problem. Any process that uses combustion to supply heat absolutely requires adequate ventilation. Covid concerns are also leading to rethinking how to handle air flow… Getting away from gas would simplify matters as well as being safer all around.
The Bigger Picture
Leber concludes by getting into all the ways the industry is trying influence people to stave off the inevitable. (They are astroturfing like mad and spreading F.U.D. in industrial quantities all across the energy sphere, like this group here.) She’s optimistic that the writing is on the wall for the fossil fuel industry — but we’re not there yet. There are some additional concerns that could be added to the story. It’s not just about the stovetop — it’s also about the infrastructure connected to it.
One of the things that’s part of that drive by the industry starting in the 1930’s to get more people to use natural gas is that there are now a lot of aging gas lines in this country, and they are not necessarily in good shape. The problem ranges from the gas transmission lines that cross the country to gas lines in neighborhoods, and in homes and apartments.
The climate and broader environmental effects are not negligible either. Fracking may have made natural gas relatively cheap and plentiful for the moment, but the effect on water supplies has been dire in some places. Methane leaks from pipes, gas production plants, and old wells are a significant greenhouse gas problem. What’s really problematic is that man-made fossil fuel emissions may be triggering massive natural emissions as the planet warms, from land and sea. Watch the fossil fuel industry take that as ‘proof’ that mankind isn’t responsible for climate change, and that there’s no point in doing anything.
There will be a tipping point where the natural gas industry begins to shrink and revenues decline. (We may be seeing that now.) Balance sheet economics will lead to tacit abandonment of maintenance and cleaning up old messes. As with all extraction industries, the goal will be to get out and leave the mess for others. That’s been the historic pattern.
For The New Year
Bottom line: if you use natural gas in any form, you should be thinking about when/how you are going to transition away from it, and what follows from that. (Ditto for other fossil fuel uses.) Here’s a summary of reasons; feel free to add ones that fit your circumstances:
- Climate — The most basic reason is that we need to get away from fossil fuels as quickly as we can. Man-made greenhouse gas emissions are cooking the planet, and may trigger worse to come.
- Safety — as the fossil fuel industry begins to contract, the infrastructure that supports it is going to become less reliable as Big Money begins to move out of it and tries to make it Somebody Else’s Problem.
- Health — indoor air pollution, toxic chemicals, aggravated health issues, the need for better ventilation.
- Home Value — fossil fuel appliances of all kinds may become an issue in home sales. Have we reached a point where solar panels on a roof are a plus? Are we going to see more homes and other buildings that can fall back on their own power systems as a back up to the grid?
- New technology — induction stoves offer faster cooking, more efficient use of power, and other advantages over conventional electric stoves. Good Housekeeping has a run down of pros and cons. Heat pumps offer a new choice for heating and cooling. Is one a good fit for where you live? Here’s some pros and cons.
- Changing Regulations — Going forward more and more governments are going to be looking at what kind of systems will be permitted for new building construction. That may well be extended to renovations and replacements. It may also include incentives to switch to more climate-friendly technology.
This is just a suggestion for going forward. Things break down or wear out and need replacing. People move — what will they be looking for at a new address? Some thought ahead of time can forestall scrambling in the future. Be prepared!
In any case, bon appétit!