REVscene Automotive Forum - Moonbeam's Natural Gas Ban Plans

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Moonbeam's Natural Gas Ban Plans

Bateman: Vision Vancouver?s natural-gas ban costly for residents | The Province

Quote:

Gregor Robertson’s green obsession should be a grave concern for Vancouver taxpayers trying to make ends meet.

Lost in the hubbub over housing prices in the Lower Mainland this summer was the Vision-dominated city council rubber stamping its Renewable City Strategy, committing Vancouver to eliminating natural gas within city limits by 2050. Robertson wants a 70-per-cent cut in natural gas use by 2020, and 90 per cent gone within 10 years.

This will cost individual residents thousands of dollars — and was approved by Robertson and his council without any thought to the affordability crisis in Vancouver. This plan will make it more expensive for people to heat their homes and to buy things from businesses in Vancouver, and it means higher taxes to cover rising costs for hospitals, schools and buses.

Today, 56 per cent of all energy used by homes in Vancouver comes from natural gas, mainly to heat rooms and water. FortisBC has more than 108,000 customers in Vancouver – including homes, condo buildings, medical centres, restaurants and schools.

There are only two energy alternatives that could realistically replace natural gas — a district energy system run by the city, or electricity. Both are roughly the same price. Even with the news that FortisBC is hiking its natural gas price by $82 per year for the average residential customer, natural gas is still far cheaper than these alternatives.

Based on BC Hydro and FortisBC rates and average energy usage, a single-family home could see a $1,400 per year rise in energy bills if it moved from natural gas to electricity — and that’s on top of the up-front cost (likely thousands of dollars more) to convert or replace water heaters and furnaces.

It gets worse. In commercial, institutional and industrial buildings, 37 per cent of energy comes from natural gas. That means higher prices for customers, who will have to pay more to help business and restaurant owners foot the bill for the conversion and higher ongoing energy costs.

Hospitals are huge users of natural gas, not just to heat their buildings, but to sterilize equipment. A mid-sized hospital saves as much as $600,000 per year by using natural gas. Force them to use electricity, and more tax dollars will be needed to fund them.

More than a hundred schools use natural gas in Vancouver. The Vancouver School Board could need another $3.6 million per year for higher electricity costs.

Vision Vancouver is coming after vehicles, too. TransLink has been buying natural gas-powered buses for a few years, but Robertson’s plan may soon force them to buy fuel-cell buses — at more than twice the price. You can bet TransLink will be asking taxpayers for more money to cover it.

Robertson and his green gang know all this — and they don’t care. “The discovery in North America of large quantities of shale gas has now caused the price to crash, and this low cost is expected for years to come. What is not included in this price are the health and environmental damages caused by climate impacts from burning large amounts of natural gas,” their strategy says.

That will come as a surprise to taxpayers who have been shelling out for carbon tax on their natural gas bills for nearly a decade. And all this money will be spent by Vancouver residents to address less than 2.5 of the 732 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions released in Canada annually — one-third of one per cent (and Canada’s emissions are only 1.6 per cent of world emissions).

Vancouver taxpayers should demand city hall scrap the plan to outlaw natural gas. And if Robertson refuses, the provincial government should step in and remind Vision of the need to cut the cost burden on Vancouver residents.

Otherwise, the greenest thing about Robertson’s Vancouver will continue to be the stacks of money needed to live there.

I dunno how else to put it, but I fxxking hate Moonbeam's guts. :yuno:

My main takeaways from this idiocy is:

- 70% reduction in natural gas use by 2020 -- that's right -- in 3+ years
- 90% reduction in 10 years
- upfront conversion costs from gas systems will be in the thousands for typical home owners
- on-going costs on energy bill will be $1400 higher per year

I dunno about anyone else, but I definitely can't cough up "several thousands" all of a sudden in 3 short years, never mind the higher on-going costs afterwards...

Can we fxxking kick this guy out of City Hall already?

lol thing is, young Vancouverites don't have the balls to go out there and vote

inb4 50% turnout and Moonbeam is in for another term

iirc, last municipal election it was around ~40% - ~55% (?) turnout and majority were seniors who shudder and faint at the mention of change.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 6o4__boi (Post 8790102)

iirc, last municipal election it was around ~40% - ~55% (?) turnout and majority were seniors who shudder and faint at the mention of change.

And now those seniors are getting raped in the a$$. If they are on any sort of fixed income, I dunno how they're gonna be able to afford the conversion costs nor the higher on-going energy costs.

IMO, the situation is still not too late. Just because the strategic plan is passed doesn't mean it will get enacted yet. If there is enough backlash from the public, no elected politician will dare to press through.

Time to write up some angry letters and diu9 this fxxking idiot and his lackeys.

so does he expect all restaurant's to switch their stoves from NG to electric as well? This guy is a fucken nut case and I'm so happy I don't live in Vancouver and got out of the GVRD two weeks ago as well.

*sigh*
oh well...i did my part voting NPA and trying to out as many vision parksboard members as possible

i wonder how they're going to police this in to effect. mandate by a certain date to retrofit your home or have the gas cut straight up?

maybe we can heat our homes but burning furniture, books, and newspapers like in the movies

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manic! (Post 8790100)

LOL Vancouver.

Hey Hey now, It's the game of life!

heating the home is overrated anyways
i'll just wear my Patagonia jacket that has ethically-plucked feathers
:troll:

70% reduction in natural gas in 3 years this guy is fucking retarded....I swear people in power just come up with the most unrealistic shit possible.

I see it everyday with my upper management at work. My boss has a meeting with his boss, boss asks him how are we going to get from some odd millions to some odd more millions? My boss says well in 3 years we will want to go from making 60mill a year to over 100mill...I sit there with all other managers in fucking disgust and lol. We ask how the fuck are we going to do that? Boss says don't worry about the product you are selling just sell yourself and they will buy. This is his fucking plan....Im guessing moonbeam and my boss went to the same idiot school of business...

sorry for the rant but just had to vent at my frustrations with people in power who shouldn't be and get rewarded for stupidity...end rant!

Quote:

Originally Posted by twitchyzero (Post 8790125)

heating the home is overrated anyways
i'll just wear my Patagonia jacket that has ethically-plucked feathers
:troll:

maybe you can ask Trudeau for one of those free Roots jackets they were giving to those refugees...I mean if they are free might as well oh yeah there not its coming out of your tax dollars lol

He should get thorium as a nuclear power source up at full capacity before eliminating NG if he really wants green

great.. just as i'm planning all my reno's around gas appliances in order to avoid installing a 200w service panel...

We have a fucking moron here, who is loaded and made shit ton of money from real estate making policies. He clearly doesn't give a fuck about affordability. To him, it's all about the image of being a renewable city.

Electricity for heating/sterilization :lawl:

Heat pumps are good for some stuff, but you can only do so much with 50°C water and the life-cycles are short.

If we had electric boilers at the hospital, it would cost us (taxpayers) a fortune.

Is there not another politician that can beat this tree-hugging cunt?

my guess is he probably has a company or stock in one that specializes in electric appliances, or for retrofitting from gas to electric.

I might be wrong, but isn't electric heat horrifically inefficient compared to gas? I'm not sure what that translates to when you consider the whole loop (from where it's generated til it heats your water/house) but I have a hard time believing this whole thing is "green" when thousands of people will have to scrap perfectly good stoves, water tanks and heaters, then buy brand new ones that wouldn't have otherwise been built. Then on top of that I imagine the electric service for the entire city will have to be overhauled as I doubt whatever is currently in place has been built with enough of a buffer to handle swapping every btu currently being generated by gas to electric. Which means a lot of people and machines working, a lot of traffic delays and detours causing idling cars, etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by underscore (Post 8790148)

Unless it has some sort of heat recovery (i.e. geothermal, heat recovery coils in exhaust ducting, etc.) to increase your CoP, it's substantially less efficient than natural gas, yes.

Heat pumps generally have a maximum condenser water output somewhere between 50°C and 60°C, so you're limited in terms of what you can do unless your existing infrastructure was designed for those temperatures.

The other issue with running your heat pumps at high temperatures is that it increases the head pressure of your compressors, which decreases efficiency and lifespan.

If you have, for example, a building in which you have the majority of your space heating done by air handling units and reheat coils designed for 80°C water and want to retrofit your building to use 50°C supplied from a heat pump with exhaust heat recovery, you'd have to add additional coils into the supply duct work and air handling units, which means more piping and larger pumps.

You'd need heat recovery coils in the exhaust system to recover heat. If you use water in those coils, you can get down to about 5°C or you can use a glycol mixture, which is less efficient, to drop your evaporator water below 0°C.

Those extra coils increase resistance (decrease efficiency) in the duct work and increase duct pressure, so you'll have to run your fans at a higher rate (consuming more electricity) and may have to upgrade your duct work if the existing duct work can't handle the increased static pressure.

I suspect I am being naive, but if you think this is a totally dumba$$ plan, I urge you to write to your local politician -- including but not limited to Moonbeam -- to tell him in his face how stupid this plan is. With enough noise, the plan can eventually get scrapped. But if we don't make noise, the crooks in the office will think everything is A-OK.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hondaracer (Post 8790131)

great.. just as i'm planning all my reno's around gas appliances in order to avoid installing a 200w service panel...

you mean 200 Amp? Kappa :troll:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nabatron (Post 8790127)

70% reduction in natural gas in 3 years this guy is fucking retarded....I swear people in power just come up with the most unrealistic shit possible.

hey, that's his strategy...remember his brilliant plan/promise to abolish homeless by 2015 amirite gais???

i don't mind electric heating...but gas is cheap... and who is going to change the existing systems of their homes just cuz? they gonna do it for free? :lol

vancouver is like a high end hooker...

you need to pay to live(play)... and it aint cheap.

Quote:

Originally Posted by flagella (Post 8790140)

I thought he made money from happy planet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Traum (Post 8790159)

Robertson has made it completely clear that he doesn't really care about any public consultation, nor complaints.

I've written complaints to city hall, and just received a form letter that didn't even state that they would take my issue into consideration; rather, that their plan was carefully thought out.

Unfortunately for us all, you are being naïve =(

City of Vancouver clarifies its position on natural gas in new buildings - British Columbia - CBC News

having a timpo moment...so it's not a ban for existing buildings?
only a plan to eliminate it in new builds?