Climate activists push city to shut down gas utility - Palo Alto Online

Climate activists push city to shut down gas utility, citing mounting natural disasters | News | Palo Alto Online |

Alarmed by the recent floods, heat waves, and wildfires that have devastated some communities and caused orange air in others, a coalition of Palo Alto students and climate activists is pushing the city to speed up its plan to shut down its gas utility.

The group, which includes 350 Silicon Valley and the Palo Alto Student Climate Coalition, made its pitch on Monday night, Aug. 7, when more than a dozen residents addressed the City Council.

They cited the recent events as proof that the city needs to take more dramatic actions to meet its goal of going carbon neutral by 2030.

Some members of the group called on the council to pass a resolution declaring a climate emergency to signify the city's commitment to a clean-energy future.

Angelina Rosh, a member of the student coalition, noted that other cities, including San Francisco and Hayward, have already taken such a step.

"Passing a resolution declaring a climate emergency will show the community that the city recognized the imminent threat of climate change and will further its pledge to commit to mitigate this climate emergency," Rosh said.

Maya Perkash, who like Rosh is a rising senior and member of the coalition, said it's critical for Palo Alto to put in place proper incentives and measures to get people to go 100% electric on their properties.

This includes setting a sunset date for natural gas. Julia Zeitlin, an activist with 350 Silicon Valley, said the city has a "unique opportunity to be the first city in the United States to set a sunset date on natural gas."

"This would send a clear message to residents and communities beyond that the future is electric," Zeitlin said.

To date, the city has been cautious about phasing out gas. The council's 80x30 goal — which calls for reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2030, with 1990 levels as the baseline — prioritizes electrification of buildings and vehicles throughout the community.

To date, however, the only program its adopted calls for encouraging residents to replace gas-fueled water heaters with heat pump water heaters.

The council's Sustainability/Climate Action Plan, its blueprint for achieving climate reductions, does not currently include a sunset date for gas. The recently adopted, three-year work plan for 2023-25 acknowledges the need to plan for waning gas sales but stops short of initiating a full-on shutdown of the municipal utility.

It includes as a policy the development of a "financial and operating plan for declining gas utility sales that maintains safety and solvency while providing affordable gas service to remaining gas users."

But given the events of the past summer, including the marine heat wave, some believe this is no longer enough.

Katie Rueff, a leader of the student coalition, said in an interview that the city is on a trajectory of lowering gas use by taking such actions as assisting low-income communities to make the transition.

Setting a shut-off date is important to help the city manage this effort, she said.

"It feels like an inevitability — we will need to shut off the gas. … We need to at least be setting that date so that we can start planning for it," Rueff said in an interview.

Rueff, who is also a member of 350 Silicon Valley, asked the city on Aug. 7 to set a sunset date by the end of the year.

"We'll need to equitably electrify," Rueff told the council.

Larry Klein, a former City Council member and mayor, is also pushing the city to sunset its gas utility. In an interview, he pointed to recent headlines as a call to action for Palo Alto and other cities.

"An extraordinary number of things have happened around the world — all bad — ranging from the ocean heating up to levels never seen before off the Florida coast to Phoenix having an incredible number of days of over 100 degrees, to New York City's sky turning orange and temperatures in Iran going so high that people are dying left and right," Klein said.

"The basic point we're making to the City Council is that as good as you've been so far, you've got to speed things up. The problem isn't slowing down; it's speeding up."

Shutting down gas won't be easy, given the large number of appliances throughout the city that rely on gas. Compounding matters, the city's Utilities Department does not believe that the current electric grid can accommodate the projected demand for electricity.

The city is now launching an effort to modernize the grid and add capacity, an effort that is expected to take seven years to complete and cost more than $220 million, according to a June presentation from utilities officials.

The city will also have to ensure that the upgraded grid is fully reliable and that power outages are rare and quickly resolved.

Klein said he believes the issue of reliability is a "red herring," given that he believes the city has a strong record of keeping the power on.

"If you compare the inconvenience — and it's hardly ever more than an inconvenience – that occurs when there's an outage, comparing that to the amount of greenhouse gas that is pulled into the system from the gas utility, it's not a close call," Klein said.

"It's really an issue brought about by people desperate to find a reason to preserve the status quo."