Economy
San Francisco gas-furnace ban will gouge residents and strain vulnerable electric grid
Progressive California is digging itself deeper and deeper into a literal energy crisis. Last week, twenty members of the Air Quality Management District “approved the plan to phase out and ban gas-powered systems that emit nitrogen oxide, or NOx, and that contribute to air pollution. Three board members were absent, and one member abstained” writes National Review.
The ban will phase out the sale of new gas furnaces and water heaters in Northern California. As a result, it will “be costly for residents, will further burden an already stretched electric grid, and will have minimal environmental impact” energy experts and economists told National Review.
“The move is emblematic of California’s approach to energy, which involves ramping up the demand for electricity while gutting the state’s ability to meet its electricity needs,” they said.
Specifically, it is “a regressive policy that’s going to increase costs in a state that is already unaffordable, it’s going to do minimal in terms of reducing [greenhouse-gas] emissions, and it’s going to stress a problem that we already have no plan of addressing, which is [that] our grid is going to be unable to provide reliable electricity,” said Wayne Winegarden, a senior fellow in business and economics at the California-based Pacific Research Institute who is studying the state’s electricity shortfall.
Winegarden said California already has a major housing-affordability problem. “And now we’re going to make it even less affordable,” he said. While there are state and federal incentives and subsidies for people to purchase and install electric heating systems, Winegarden, an economist, called it a “shell game.”
“Subsidies don’t get rid of the costs,” he said. “They just redistribute the costs.”
The board’s vote did not address natural-gas stoves because it doesn’t regulate indoor air pollution, notes National Review. However, earlier this year, the Biden administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission was considering restrictions, and possibly a ban, on natural-gas stoves.
Economy
2024 Presidential Election Details Unprecedented Diversity Shift in Republican Party
Following President-elect Donald Trump’s re-election, NBC News National Political Correspondent Steve Kornacki highlighted how the Republican Party has become “more diverse than it’s ever been in modern times.” Kornacki shared this insight on Meet The Press with Kristen Welker, explaining how data shows minority groups have increasingly moved toward the GOP, while the Democratic base has grown among white, college-educated voters.
Kornacki credited Trump’s impact on reshaping the Republican Party, noting that over the past eight years, the GOP has gained ground among voters under 30, those earning under $50,000, and those without college degrees. Using a screen to display recent election data, Kornacki compared shifts from the “pre-Trump” era in 2012 to now, showing a significant increase in support for Republicans among minority groups.
“Again, pre-Trump versus now,” he explained. “The Black vote is still overwhelmingly Democratic, but there’s been a 15-point shift. It used to be 87 points for the Democrats, down to 72. Hispanic voters, once solidly Democratic, are now basically a toss-up. And Asian Americans have moved by 32 points toward the GOP as well.”
These shifts, he said, represent a profound change since Trump first became the GOP’s leading figure, solidifying the party’s appeal to a broader array of Americans and transforming the Republican coalition.
Kornacki pointed out the reverse trend for the Democratic Party, which has increasingly attracted white voters, especially those with higher incomes and college degrees. As the Republican coalition diversified, Democrats gained support from college-educated voters and households earning more than $100,000 annually.
In a review of key swing states, Kornacki highlighted Trump’s success in securing states like Wisconsin and noted Trump’s historic achievement of winning the popular vote, a first for a Republican in 20 years. He also mentioned “giant strides” in typically blue states like California, emphasizing how Trump’s expanded voter base contributed to his overall win.
Welker confirmed that the election results are essentially finalized, though counting remains underway in some areas. “If you remember from 2020, it took about a month to get all the national popular vote,” Kornacki added, noting that California, where only 75% of ballots have been counted, will add millions of votes to the national total due to mail-in ballot delays.
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MaineIdea
March 22, 2023 at 6:53 pm
What these dolts don’t understand is that every speck of green energy being produced is already in use. The rest is produced by fossil fuels (and nuclear if you don’t consider that green). Every gas, natural gas, or diesel piece of equipment that you convert to electric causes great harm to the environment and CO2 emissions. Not only the metals that have to be extracted for batteries from places that don’t do it cleanly, but every new item that gets converted to electric causes a power plant somewhere to burn a little more fossil fuel. And guess what…. directly turning natural gas into heat by burning it on your kitchen range is way more efficient than burning that gas to make heat to produce steam to drive a turbine to produce electricity to be transmitted 100’s of miles to power a resister (stovetop burner) to make heat. There is an efficiency loss at every step so for every pound of gas you would burn on your stove to boil water, a power plant will have to burn 1.3lbs?? to boil the same water on an electric stove. Even worse for electric cars that have to charge batteries and then turn that back into electricity. Ugh…
BillInOK
March 23, 2023 at 7:56 am
Not to mention the expense to homeowners who will need to add the wiring for powering any and all replacement units. One for stove, one for water heater, one for dryer, one for furnace… It just won’t be possible.