To The City Council:
This ill-conceived natural gas ban proposal being rushed through under the cover of summer (when most people are not paying attention) needs to be stopped dead in its tracks at today’s City Council Meeting.
Look at the City Manager’s Report – all the holes in this proposal are right there in plain sight:
1) The financials used to justify this are highly rigged/biased/unrealistic in 4 main ways:
First, a 30 year equipment life expectancy for residential heat pumps? No way!
Heat pump hot water heaters only last 10-15 years (12.5 years on average), while heat pump space heaters only last 10-20 years (15 years on average).
Don’t believe me? A simple Google search will reveal the truth.
Second, generous PCE BayREN rebates are included, with no guarantee that they will be still around when people are forced to make this costly transition.
Third, as pointed out later in the report, costly building upgrades may be required in terms of additional wiring and electrical panel upgrades – and those are not accounted for in the analysis.
I myself have a 20 year old house (not that old) that I would put solar on except for the fact that the associated electrical upgrades needed ($5000+) make it a no-go economically. I’d be looking at that same 5k “hidden cost” under this proposal – no thanks!
Fourth and finally, the cost of electricity keeps on steadily rising, and will continue to rise as wildfire response and cleanup costs (owing to PG&E’s incompetence) and prevention costs (including the $20 billion PG&E now plans to spend to bury 10,000 miles of power lines to reduce wildfire risk) are factored in. That needs to be taken into account in this analysis.
Bottom-line: The financials used to justify this aren’t worth the paper they are printed on!
2) They don’t even try to financially justify the conversion of clothes dryers and gas stoves (because they can’t – from the report: “These were not found to be cost effective”).
3) The ban isn’t even going to yield great results – from the Report:
“It is important to note that an ordinance to prohibit the installation of new gas equipment in buildings would yield the least amount of greenhouse gas emission reductions compared to other options studied (except for electric ready requirements.)”
and later on:
“It is important to note that no one electrification policy or program will be the silver bullet to achieve 95 percent electrification of the existing building stock by 2030.”
4) Excessive noise is now going to be allowed to accommodate heat pumps – from the Report:
“Menlo Park’s noise and building setback regulations likely need to be modified to accommodate building electrification needs as some heat pump equipment require more space and some models of heat pumps exceed the city’s noise ordinance requirements.”
5) Heat pump water heaters are not yet ready for prime-time – from the Report:
“For heat pump water heaters, contractor knowledge is still relatively low making it difficult in some cases to find an available and knowledgeable contractor.”
Sorry, but I don’t want to be a guinea pig for contractor training.
6) Berkeley – the most environmentally progressive city out there – isn’t even pushing things as fast as Menlo Park is trying to do – and it’s not even close. Per the Report, they are taking a phased approach that stretches out to 2045 with a first phase (from 2021-25) that involves “community engagement, pilot projects, education campaigns, well trained job force, additional incentive programs, and larger scale financing programs, and collaboration with regional and state partners” And their second phase would include requirements/mandates implemented “only after accessible funding and financing programs are in place or the upfront costs of electrification reach parity with gas infrastructure.”
You know that you’re “off the rails” when you’re off to the left of Berkeley on something
Bottom-line: You need to send this proposal packing, City Council members – or else in this time of recall mania, you will each find yourself a target once word gets out of what this proposal involves and just how bad (and costly) of a mandate it is.
Dave Sharp
MP Resident
