The New York City Council voted today to ban natural gas in new buildings, putting the nation's largest city at the forefront of national efforts to eliminate the fossil fuel and potent greenhouse gas.
Natural gas hookups and oil-burning equipment are not allowed in new buildings under seven stories starting in 2023. Existing buildings are not affected by the measure. Hospitals, factories, laundromats, and commercial kitchens are exempt. The bill will be signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
The city is not the first to try this. New York City is by far the largest to date to ban new hookups. 40 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions come from boilers, furnaces, and hot water heaters.
New buildings in the city will have heat pumps. That may be less of a stretch than it seems. Air-sourced heat pumps can move up to 4.5 times as much heat as the energy they consume in ideal conditions, and they are twice as efficient as the best natural gas furnaces. In New York City, they are three times more efficient than gas furnaces, and they have the added benefit of air conditioning in the summer. Ground-sourced heat pumps move about four times more heat than the energy they consume.
It is expected that the grid will be able to bear the burden. The Urban Green Council estimates that New York City's peak winter load is 40 percent lower than it is during the summer.
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The measure was opposed by the American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil, which ran Facebook ads asking people to voice their support for gas stoves. Fossil fuel lobbies have been trying to sway the public to switch to gas stove because people don't really care about where their heat comes from. Most people would be better off using a range that is more efficient and heatier than an open flame, since they don't have to worry about toxic fumes in their homes.
In recent years, the sentiment against natural gas has changed. Fossil fuel was once thought of as a way to eliminate dirty coal and build renewable power capacity. Natural gas can be worse for the climate than coal if leaks in the production and distribution systems are taken into account. Methane, one of natural gas's key components, is a potent greenhouse gas, warming the atmosphere 86 times more than carbon dioxide over 20 years. In older cities like New York, which have aging gas infrastructure, leaks are widespread, because even small leaks can have an outsize impact.
The city analyzed new buildings and found that the utility bills of all-electric structures were cheaper than gas systems in older buildings because they were better sealed and insulated. New York City has several all-electric buildings, and a 44-story electric-powered tower is set to be completed in four years.
The city's natural gas ban could serve as a template for other cities. Ben Furnas, the city's director of climate and sustainable living, told E&E News that the city has all four seasons. The next generation of buildings is going to be electric. We would like to be a model for the world.
