Add that to banning fireplaces in new homes, things are going even further to make us dependent on the electrical grid. Who cares about rolling brownouts power outages. Maine is even predicting power outages due to natural gas supply. Let me have options!
In a landmark moment for the effort to combat climate change, the New York City Council voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to ban gas hookups in new buildings. The new law, which New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio will sign, bans new gas stoves, boilers and heaters in new buildings and buildings that undergo gut renovations.
There are a lot of cities in California. What city? Recognize that burning wood is inherently dirty, producing particles and gases that will pollute the air. If the area is in a valley, atmospheric inversions can cause smog to hang around for a long time. Logan, Utah has this problem, and it’s a rural city.
Mixed opinion about the Gas station ban . Some areas might really need one but where I live there are just to many close to each other . Some corners seem to have 2 gas stations and 2 drug stores.
I do approve of the gas range ban in new apartments because some people will leave the burners on for extra heat .
I grew up in Los Angeles. If I went down the street I lived on to the main intersection, the 4 corners were occupied by Texaco, Exxon, 76, and Mobil gas stations. And next to the Mobil was an Arco. Today there are only 2 of the 5 still standing.
The fact that there are 2 gas stations at the same corner means they are needed. I assure you that if they were not profitable they wouldn’t be there.
They tore out a Kmart. Built a new hyvee food store and gas mart. Our Costco has 6 lane gas station. Same as sams club. I will not miss a new development with no gas station. I’m good, thanks.
Petaluma California has banned new gas stations to be built, In between Berkley and Santa Rosa,
" It’s early days but here in California the initiative is taking off and, if it spreads, it could signal one of the biggest changes in transportation since the car displaced the horse and carriage.
In March, Petaluma in Sonoma county became the first city in the US to ban future gas station construction or any new pumps on existing sites. In July Sonoma county’s Regional Climate Protection Authority voted to explore ways to support the nine cities in the county considering bans of their own. A final vote on the resolution is scheduled for September.
I can’t speak to conditions in CA, but in my area, this is a situation that is resolving itself. Each year, more and more gas stations are closing in this area, probably as a result of the increasing use of hybrids and EVs, and generally-better gas mileage with newer IC vehicles. Less demand results in fewer places selling gas.
I spent 8 years as a Shell Dealer. Gas station operation is a stupid business.
The government is actively trying to put you out of business, either by increasing CAFE standards (higher mpg means fewer gallons sold) or by regulations like the one in this discussion.
Furthermore the industry itself is competitive to the point of self-harm. You’ve got a captive audience, everyone with a car needs gas. For some reason one operator will think “Hey, if I lower my price 5 cents/gallon, I’ll get more customers and drive more traffic my way.” Next thing you know, the other guy will lower his price too to keep his customers. Now no one is making a decent profit and they’re all complaining about it. Think about it this way: raising the price 5 cents doesn’t affect the average motorist at all, but for me as an operator it would have meant $5000-$7000 per month.
Sheesh, I thought it was someone else trying to start something but I see it is Barky. Slow day or something.
As commented on in another thread, take a trip across the 3000 miles of dead cell phone area, and ponder how insignificant a bon fire would be. Then scoot on back.
I remember in the good ole days to make sure we could make the 200 mile trip to the wife’s folks and back, I would carry an extra 10 gallons of gas in the trunk. Never knew if there would be a station open or with gas for sale. I guess I could do it again if I had to. When tyranny strikes or totalitarianism rules, who woulda’ guessed?
It is interesting for sure, that the oil companies manage to tabulate record profits year-after-year while the sellers of their product can’t get by unless a bunch of their customers come inside the store to buy some chips and a pop.
I would suspect though, that CA is being progressive about what the needs will be in ten years. Gasoline stations, like pavement, are forever. Once that gas station no longer provides a business purpose, no one ever wants to take on the property afterward and be left responsible for remediation of the soil before it can be improved/converted. Unused gas stations bring blight.
We have minimum gas prices, so no loss leaders for hopeful in store sales. Getting dragged kicking and screaming to all electric. Not against cutting things that affect climate change, I have a gas powered generator, could charge my car if needed I guess, not confident in the grid at this point.
I have no problem w/moving to electric cars. Imo however it should proceed on a time scale consistent with what folks who buy cars want. In other words there’s no need for governments to ban gasoline stations. When less gasoline is sold, the gas station owners in the area won’t want to build new ones.
For wood burning fireplaces, requiring natural gas versions (via the building code) in new construction makes sense. For existing wood burning fireplaces, monitor the air and when the air quality is bad enough, then ban folks from using them that day. This would vary area by area, even within the same state . It might be fine to burn wood in some areas anytime, if the air quality is always good, due to low population or wind patterns, etc.
No-exception gov’t dictates usually not the best method. In fact that can produce exactly the opposite of the desired effect. For example Calif’s current requirement that certain cars must have a treadmill emissions test. Many owners won’t do it for Covid reasons, and may be forced to drive a vehicle which produces more air pollution than the car the state is removing from the road. Another way a to say it, government’s should use a little common sense. Maybe such a thing is just not possible these days.
Sorry no new natural gas connections. in some places "New York City Council voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to ban gas hookups in new buildings and buildings that undergo gut renovations.
CA Altogether, 21 municipalities in the state have passed measures to require all-electric construction, according to a state tally,
while an additional 19 discourage gas hookups.
Bay Area cities like San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose have closed the spigot on natural gas by passing electric-only building mandates.
Yea, I guess you are right. If a city bans natural gas hookups completely, as well as wood burning fireplaces, there’s no option at all for the home-owner to use fireplace. I guess maybe there are electric fireplaces, but that seems sort of cheesy.
I think in this case it is fairly clear who is making the decisions. I think the key things to look at is “a regulation/law has been passed”. Can’t blame a store/business owner for passing laws and if there are no customers, the store owner will surely adjust their product line accordingly. That’s how this thing works.
As far as great profits, like a grocery store, gas stations work on about a 1-2% profit margin. So not a whole lot of money being made on selling gas. Selling air and donuts are a little more profitable.
When they start calling a wood burning fireplace environmentally unfriendly, I’m tuning out. People first, environment second.
It’s sort of out of hand in my opinion. If people need heat from a wood fire or fuel from fossils, let them have it until you provide a viable alternative…that doesn’t consist of charging on an electrical grid powered mostly by fossils. Total shell game.
I agree with you @Scrapyard-John especially since the elephant in the room is not fireplaces that now require catalytic converters,gas furnaces, or ICE cars, but industry.
I’m not against environmentally sound practices at all. Regardless of however skeptical I am personally of the climate change science.
But reduce the demand first with alternatives that make sense. Then there’ll be no need to ban anything. No one (practically) will want to buy gas or cut wood if they don’t need to, right? Just my thinking. I mean why the heck wouldn’t I want a Tesla if they were affordable and fueling it was free? I have no oil stock (that I’m aware of, who knows what I’m propping up with my 401k ).
