Who is the Winner in the War on Gas Appliances?
The County Council, along with state and federal government policy makers, is conducting a war on gas appliances. In 2022, the County Council passed Bill 13-22, directing the County Executive to adopt all-electric building standards for most new construction by December 31, 2026. These standards would require new homes and buildings to be designed without combustion equipment such as gas stoves, ovens, or dryers. While the law includes exemptions for certain outdoor equipment, it effectively eliminates gas appliances for most indoor residential uses in new construction.
The reasons for phasing out gas appliances revolve around health, safety, and climate change. Our gas appliances don’t entirely consume the gas; they pollute indoor air; they are dangerous. County climate planning documents cite buildings as responsible for more than half of Montgomery County’s greenhouse gas emissions, largely due to energy use and inefficiencies. The 2022 tragedy at the Friendly Garden Apartments in Silver Spring was caused by a gas-related accident.
All that’s true, of course, but those justifications amount to nothing more than cherry-picking facts to support a prejudice. There are plenty of arguments to refute these justifications. For the year 2020, the CDC’s WONDER database lists heart disease, cancer, COVID, dementia, nervous system disease, and pulmonary disease as the causes for 85% of MoCo’s deaths. Without any evidence delineating gas appliances’ contribution to those causes, the health and safety motivation for mandating electrical appliances is a bit sketchy.
Regarding climate change, we have to ask if forcing the county’s 1.1 million residents into all-electric appliances will really do anything to reduce the world’s output of greenhouse gases.
On a raw energy basis, natural gas remains significantly cheaper than electricity. At recent local rates, gas costs roughly $0.037 per kWh equivalent, compared with about $0.18 per kWh for electricity. While appliance efficiency and other factors complicate the comparison, the underlying price gap raises legitimate concerns about long-term household energy costs under an all-electric mandate.
Furthermore, maintaining multiple energy sources for homes and buildings sounds like a reasonable proposition. We are embroiled in an unforeseen conflict over electricity production, distribution, and consumption. At the same time, the region faces growing electricity demand from large data centers and other intensive users, creating uncertainty about future supply and rates. Pushing residents and businesses toward an all-electric future may exacerbate these pressures if infrastructure and generation fail to keep pace.
Overall, the council’s war on gas appliances achieves no improvement in safety, health, or climate change; it does secure a victory in the wars against the poor and the middle class.
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