Now if HB1589 does NOT ban natural gas in new homes, then why would our Bellingham city council and other western Washington city councils oppose ballot initiative "I-2066 [which] would repeal provisions of a new state law meant to hasten Puget Sound Energy’s transition away from natural gas by prohibiting the state and all local governments from banning, restricting or discouraging the use of natural gas in new or existing homes or commercial buildings. It would also require gas utilities in local governments to provide natural gas to its customers who demand it even if other energy resources are available." 1
HB1589, passed March 28, 2024, while it does not ban natural gas in new homes it does the following:
(a) "pressures utility companies, specifically Puget Sound Energy (PSE), to move away from fossil fuels and towards the state’s often touted goal of 100% clean energy." Well that sounds good and dandy but only if we have enough electricity, but wait a second, I thought natural gas was clean energy anyway.
(b) Starting in 2025 "a utility may 'not include electric air source heat pumps with gas backups as part of its electrification programs.”4 That doesn't sound good since it includes natural gas.
They believe it is "nothing short of a ban". “'It will make it more expensive to build homes. It will make our energy grid more unreliable for the people that are living in those homes, and it will force people living in current homes that are served by Puget Sound Energy Natural gas to convert their homes and potentially be unable to stay and live in their home,' said Jan Himebaugh the managing director of external affairs for the Building Industry Association of Washington."4 Now is this a lot of hyperbole or legitimate concerns? You be the judge.
Now our power grid is at it's breaking point, according to many experts and AI executives that use massive amounts of energy; so wouldn't it be a good idea to slow down until our power grid is not at it's breaking point and able to support these initiatives? Just this past January, on the coldest days, many residents here in the Bellingham area were without power due to the massive energy usage and also fallen trees on power lines. “'Our grid is maxed out right now nationally, and that’s true at almost every regional level,'” said Chris Heimgartner, the general manager of Public Utility District No. 1 of Whatcom County. “'In order to really get deeply decarbonized, we are going to have to go absolutely crazy building transmission.'”7
Now add to that, politicians want only electric cars instead of gas cars, e.g. "Washington sets path to phase out gas vehicles by 2035." and the "plan would require 100% of new passenger cars and trucks to run on zero-emission technology"3 Meanwhile in reality We don't have enough electric vehicle power stations nor power to support everyone switching to electric vehicles, and even worse semi trucks. Imagine the grid lock to charge vehicles. Or worse, truck deliveries slowed down due to charging. Do you know that's how grocery stores get groceries so we can happily buy tonight's dinner. While the concept is good, the batteries are not. Lithium batteries are very dangerous and have caused many fires, injuring and killing people, and even burning down buildings and other vehicles. They also lose their efficiency during very cold days, and get dangerous during very hot days. But here is a shining light though, it's new technology batteries: Batteries that are solid state and others even safer batteries with sodium instead of lithium.
Now politicians think windmills and solar panels can provide the power backup that we need daily, but if solar panels only provide energy in the daytime and don't get along with hail 8, and windmills are ugly, and burn out often when overwhelmed with weather, what kind of reliable energy is that? There is a shining light here too, an awesome technology that I'm so excited about: geo energy. Companies like Eavor of Alberta, Canada and others in Texas, ironically are using oil drilling equipment to drill up to 4 1/2 Km deep into the earth to use earth's heat to heat liquid to steam which powers steam generators.5 Here's a good example of their process, which by the way doesn't even use a pump, but what is called an "Eavor-Loop" or "thermosiphon effect."6 This is the industrial version of geo power, something I've pondered for years but didn't have that kind of knowledge nor capital to have proceeded with that endeavour.
Finally there's a new energy sucker. Nope it's not bitcoin, or the other crypto currency mining companies. It's bigger than those existing problems. This one is AI and now Microsoft Azure Chief Technology Officer Mark Russinovich warns us, that US data centers will soon hit size limits due to our overwhelmed power grid. 2 In fact, they are working against the environment:"Microsoft has been working furiously to help add capacity to the grid, inking a deal to reopen the Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant" and if that wasn't bad enough:"Google signed a deal to power its artificial intelligence data centers using small nuclear reactors."2 Well that's terrible! What happens when there's an earthquake, and or title wave? And for what, AI a multi billion dollar business which will one day be a trillion dollar industry and the end of us when it turns terminator on us, according to technology experts.
Ok suppose we do achieve the goal of building a bigger power grid, what about a Carrington like disaster? (A geomagnetic storm the sun, a coronal mass ejection that knocked out telegraph equipment across the globe; in some cases causing fires that burned down buildings.9 So would putting all our energy eggs in one basket be wise?
Okay and now for the big stinker. What about terrorism? Have you not heard of very sick people attacking our power, water, etc infrastructure? I'm not going to talk about this further, you can google it and educate yourself for it's a big stinker, especially with all the "unvetted people" that have "entered our country" as Bill Clinton recently mentioned about a horrible crime.
In conclusion, if our politicians can just slow down on this and wait for the technology and power grid to catch up, we can most definitely get to 100% clean energy, but it won't be from big fancy pants speeches and demands from crazed environmentalists who are flipping out.
(1) https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_4bbc44bc-8a71-11ef-889d-c77412aa11f4.html
(2) https://www.semafor.com/article/10/11/2024/microsoft-azure-cto-us-data-centers-will-soon-hit-limits-of-energy-grid
(3) https://ecology.wa.gov/about-us/who-we-are/news/2022/sept-7-clean-vehicles-public-comment
(4) https://www.king5.com/article/tech/science/environment/new-state-law-does-not-ban-natural-gas-discourages-use/281-04f7f343-1669-4e60-858c-18ff176c750a
(5) https://youtu.be/eCrrm0v_460
(6) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1heSdz4CyQ
(7) https://www.cascadiadaily.com/2024/mar/05/a-maxed-out-power-grid-what-it-takes-to-keep-the-lights-on-in-whatcom-county/
(8) https://riskandinsurance.com/rising-hail-damage-costs-are-rattling-the-solar-industry-luckily-parametric-solutions-are-on-the-case/#:~:text=The%20average%20solar%20hail%20claim,the%20previous%20two%20years%20combined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event#:~:text=The%20geomagnetic%20storm%20was%20associated,of%20the%20electrical%20power%20grid.
[ ] Brackets are used to correct the spelling of a person's quote or add more descriptive words to avoid English and Literature Teachers from having a heart attack, LoL.
By Chief Editor Angelo-Lk-Whatcom-Rider-Writer, Published: 10-15-2024 Updated: Not yet buddy
The ugly illustrations are drawn in a feverish hurry of 1-3 minutes by yours truly under his high school pen name Zouk
And of course, when in a hurry, I use AI if it's not too much bull biscuits! Usually takes the liberties of advertising itself on the pic.
About The writer: I've lived in Bellingham since February, 2011, and love the beautiful trees & greenery producing all that oxygen, and of course, the lake, bay, hills and mountains too. I've also been in the lovely Anacortes area for part of that time, going back and forth, since moving here.
Educational/Professional Background: Economics & Political Science Degrees at UCF. Attended Graduate School of Economics at FSU, and have worked for the FL Labor Dept as well as consulted for the FL Labor Dept on behalf of the US Labor Dept. I've been happily working in my own businesses since 1993.