Natural gas meters measure gas used for heating, hot water and cooking. Some say to address climate change residential natural gas should be phased out, now that electricity has become cleaner. (Brandon Quester / inewsource)
Not long ago natural gas – the fuel that probably gave you your hot shower this morning – was hailed as the clean “bridge fuel,” the one that would create a safe transition for society from yesterday’s dirtier home fuels, coal and oil, to a fully renewable future.
But now the gold standard for a home, from a climate-change perspective, is to go all electric, some home energy efficiency experts say. No gas meter.
”Right now people understand the benefit of having an electric vehicle, and soon I think they will also understand the benefits of having all-electric homes,” said Rachel Golden, a senior campaign representative at the Sierra Club.
Consider these current realities: The pipes that deliver natural gas to your home are now understood to be leaking significant amounts of climate-warming gas. Natural gas is mostly methane, a climate super polluter. It’s 84 times worse than carbon dioxide at keeping heat close to the Earth in the short term.
One energy efficiency contractor, Dan Thomsen, estimated he finds natural gas leaks at a quarter of the homes he tests. The nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund has developed significant expertise in methane through academic partnerships. It has found gas leaking in numerous places and has begun mapping it.
Second, the electricity that runs along transmission wires to your home comes from ever cleaner sources, including wind and solar. In the San Diego Gas & Electric coverage area, 43 percent of electricity came from clean sources in 2016. Each year, electricity is a cleaner fuel than it was the year before.
Most of the climate-harming carbon dioxide emissions you generate at home come from your hot water and furnace – not from the stove – so no need to panic yet about losing those beloved gas burners. Water heating and space heating make up more than 80 percent of household emissions and cooking less than 10 percent.
So the focus now is on more efficient water and space heaters. “You can now get a much more energy efficient electric space heater or water heater than a conventional gas heater,” Golden said.
What she is referring to is something you will probably soon hear more about: the heat pump. A heat pump works for both heating and, if you want it, air conditioning, by reversing its process depending on need. It runs on electricity.
The best time to consider one may be when you think about replacing your furnace and are contemplating air conditioning. That is an increasingly common scenario for Southern Californians as temperatures rise. General contractor Dan Thomsen runs Building Doctors, a Los Angeles company that tests homes and recommends cost and energy-efficient changes for comfort. He recently had his own gas meter removed. He recommends customers rethink heating their homes with gas.
“You’re burning natural gas in a metal box,” Thomsen said about home heating, calling it archaic. “There is off-gassing that’s from it. There is carbon monoxide that is from it. There are toxins that come with burning gas.”
Thomsen, like several people interviewed, recommended heat pumps. He is sure the future is electrification of homes. Mauzy Heating Air & Solar, a vendor and installer in San Diego, also called heat pumps very efficient. But the company has seen no uptick in sales. It recommends them for people who have solar systems on their roofs, because that electricity is paid for.
Sean Armstrong of Redwood Energy, which specializes in all-electric construction, recommends heat pumps for many more situations than just solar homes. He installs them in affordable apartment buildings across California.
The National Electric Manufacturers Association (NEMA) once issued medallions like this one to promote the all-electric home and spur demand for electric appliances. Read more here. (Courtesy NEMA)
“A refrigerator uses more electricity for heating and cooling than a heat pump in an apartment,” Armstrong said.
Heat pump technology also works on hot water heaters. But if you want to switch to one, you may have trouble getting a rebate from your utility. State rules currently require a complicated test, basically a set of questions, if you are switching from gas to electric or vice versa. The rule was originally intended to keep utility companies from poaching each other’s customers by offering rebates as incentives to switch fuels.
California utility regulators are considering whether that government policy is outdated and should be reexamined.
This rule drives some forward-looking contractors crazy.
“Fuel switching is a big issue in our state, because there are people who want to do what is right for them, right for their lifestyle. They don’t want to pollute. They don’t want to use natural gas,” Thomsen said.
The main defender of the rule may be the gas-only utility Southern California Gas. SoCalGas has more than 21 million gas customers and is the provider from Visalia to the Mexican border in Imperial County. Like San Diego Gas & Electric, it is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy.
“SoCalGas has long supported energy efficiency programs that help our customers save energy, save money and reduce emissions,” the company’s Chris Gilbride said in a statement.
Natural gas keeps energy affordable across California, gas companies say. Paying utility bills is a major concern for many residents. Many customers cannot afford to risk higher bills. One-third of SoCalGas customers currently need assistance paying their bills.
At Green Energy EPC, a mainly solar company in San Diego, Sam Syed said it’s probably best for gas customers to make no change. “Gas is cheaper so we usually recommend they stay with that,” he said. Syed said customers have not complained about being denied rebates when they wanted to switch fuels.
SDG&E spokeswoman Helen Gao agreed that the disincentive to switch is not a problem. Most customers swap out gas appliances for gas appliances, and electric for electric, she said.
Switching from gas to electricity can also sometimes mean having to increase electrical service to your circuit breaker box, another cost, though not always. Another consideration that favors gas is that your bill is the same no matter what time of day you use it. Increasingly, electricity customers are billed extra for using power at the times when most people need it – after school and work.
Several people said it is impossible to generalize about which fuel is less expensive. It depends on location, the number of people in your home and their living habits. Armstrong said new, electric space heating is often a little less expensive than gas and an electric water heater a little more.
inewsource is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to improving lives in the San Diego region and beyond through impactful, data-based investigative and accountability journalism.
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Gender Identity
Gender Identity
Gender Identity
Women
80%
Women
82%
Women
75%
Men
20%
Men
18%
Men
25%
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation
Sexual Orientation
Straight
87%
Straight
82%
Straight
100%
LGBTQ-identifying
7%
LGBTQ-identifying
7%
Not specified
7%
Not specified
7%
Speak a language beyond English at home
33%
Speak a language beyond English at home
18%
Speak a language beyond English at home
75%
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
Race/Ethnicity
White
67%
White
73%
White
50%
Hispanic or Latinx
20%
Two or more races
18%
Hispanic or Latinx
50%
Two or more races
13%
Hispanic or Latinx
9%
Age
Age
Age
20-29
40%
20-29
45%
20-29
25%
30-39
47%
30-39
45%
30-39
50%
60 or older
13%
60 or older
9%
60 or older
25%
* The percentages in the charts have been rounded and may not add up to 100.
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Lorie Hearn is the chief executive officer, editor and founder of inewsource. She founded inewsource in the summer of 2009, following a successful reporting and editing career in newspapers. She retired from The San Diego Union-Tribune, where she had been a reporter, Metro Editor and finally the senior editor for Metro and Watchdog Journalism. In addition to department oversight, Hearn personally managed a four-person watchdog team, composed of two data specialists and two investigative reporters. Hearn was a Nieman Foundation fellow at Harvard University in 1994-95. She focused on juvenile justice and drug control policy, a natural course to follow her years as a courts and legal affairs reporter at the San Diego Union and then the Union-Tribune.
Hearn became Metro Editor in 1999 and oversaw regional and city news coverage, which included the city of San Diego’s financial debacle and near bankruptcy. Reporters and editors on Metro during her tenure were part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories that exposed Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham and led to his imprisonment.
Hearn began her journalism career as a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, a small daily outside of Philadelphia, shortly after graduating from the University of Delaware. During the decades following, she moved through countless beats at five newspapers on both coasts.
High-profile coverage included the historic state Supreme Court election in 1986, when three sitting justices were ousted from the bench, and the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris. That gas chamber execution was the first time the death penalty was carried out in California in 25 years.
In her nine years as Metro Editor at the Union-Tribune, Hearn made watchdog reporting a priority. Her reporters produced award-winning investigations covering large and small local governments. The depth and breadth of their public service work was most evident in coverage of the wildfires of 2003 and then 2007, when more than half a million people were evacuated from their homes.
Laura Wingard is the managing editor at inewsource. She has been an editor in San Diego since 2002, working at The San Diego Union-Tribune, KPBS and now inewsource. At the Union-Tribune, she served in a variety of roles including as enterprise editor, government editor, public safety and legal affairs editor, and metro editor. She directed the newspaper’s award-winning coverage of the October 2007 wildfires and the 2010 disappearance of Poway teenager Chelsea King. She also oversaw reporting on San Diego’s pension crisis.
For two years, Wingard was news and digital editor at KPBS, overseeing a team of four multimedia reporters and two web producers. She also was the KPBS liaison with inewsource and collaborated with inewsource chief executive officer and editor Lorie Hearn on investigative work by both news organizations.
Wingard also worked at the Las Vegas Review-Journal as the city editor and as an award-winning reporter covering the environment and politics. She also was the assistant managing editor for metro at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. She earned her bachelor’s degree at California State University, Fullerton, with a double major in communications/journalism and political science.
Brad Racino is the assistant editor and a senior reporter at inewsource. He has produced investigations for print, radio and TV on topics including political corruption, transportation, health, maritime, education and nonprofits.
His cross-platform reporting for inewsource has earned more than 50 awards since 2012, including back-to-back national medals from Investigative Reporters and Editors, two national Edward R. Murrow awards, a Meyer “Mike” Berger award from New York City’s Columbia Journalism School, the Sol Price Award for Responsible Journalism, San Diego SPJ’s First Amendment Award, and a national Emmy nomination.
In 2017, Racino was selected by the Institute for Nonprofit News as one of 10 “Emerging Leaders” in U.S. nonprofit journalism.
Racino has worked as a reporter and database analyst for News21; as a photographer, videographer and reporter for the Columbia Missourian; as a project coordinator for the National Freedom of Information Coalition and as a videographer and editor for Verizon Fios1 TV in New York. He received his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2012.
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Ingrid Lobet is a reporter at inewsource specializing in the environment. To contact her with tips, suggestions or corrections, please email ingridlobet@inewsource.org.
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