Natural gas stove ban would be great... if only it actually slowed consumption of natural gas

I'm not Andy Rooney, but I'm feeling cantankerous and curmudgeonly these days and, like the late Mr. Rooney, I'm not afraid to tell you about it.

This item on 'X', the site formerly known as Twitter, caught my eye the other day. I reposted it, in fact:

Effective ban on natural gas in new buildings on Johnson's to-do list https://t.co/7oVvU1hOXW

— Crain's Chicago Business (@CrainsChicago) September 28, 2023

I remember way back -- a couple of months ago at least -- when talk of progressives coming for our gas stoves was dismissed as another manifestation of reactionary paranoia. But don't worry: I'm not going in that direction....

Although it would be nice if we could consult back issues of major newspapers on some objective, third-party website, where we could track down and resurrect the assurances in this regard that were provided by so many worthy pundits. Something like what Nexus used to be... and is no more. I wrote a while back (in my long-winded, slow to the point, but unfailingly polite way) about how the removal of content from Nexus threatens all of us -- but this post is not about my Orwellian anxieties either.

Instead, let us stipulate, after the intellectual fashion of this era, Burning Fossil Fuels Bad, Electricity Good.

(Ideas more complex than this tend to give people headaches or at least hurt peoples' feelings.)

And, if we just accept this stipulation, we don't have to pretend that we buy the 'safety' justification for a natural gas ban. Nobody died when functioning gas appliances had pilot lights, and most gas appliances, and certainly all gas stoves, haven't had pilot lights for about a generation. (We can discount the occasional gas explosion -- otherwise you'd have to start toting up how many die from electric appliances that short circuit.) Besides, our pretexts are always good; it is only their pretexts that are bad.

So, we're all on board now, smug and secure in our righteousness... only... well... it's just... there was this other thing on my desk... and I've been trying to figure out how to reconcile this with our cause:

The company that provides my electricity is required to send me a disclosure every so often, letting me know how my electricity is produced. This is the most recent disclosure.

It has a lovely pie chart. Lovely, that is, until you see that the biggest single slice of the pie is natural gas. Forty two percent (42 really is the ultimate answer, isn't it?) of my nice, clean electricity comes from burning natural gas.

Another third comes from nuclear energy -- and we're all against that, aren't we? -- and still another 18% comes from burning coal.

I understand if you need to sit down for a few moments at this point.

Now, it would be great if we could get all our electricity from wind or solar power... I've got family in Florida that has solar panels on their roof generating so much electricity that, even after running the household, charging their two electric cars, and charging their electric golf cart, the household usually has some spare electricity to put into the electrical grid every month.

But the key words in the preceding sentence are "in Florida." The occasional hurricane notwithstanding, they don't call Florida the Sunshine State for nothing. Meanwhile, here in Chicago, there are long stretches where the Sun is not seen. Winter, for example. So my energy disclosure reveals that only 1% of my electricity comes from solar power.

Bummer.

So if I parade my virture by getting rid of my gas-fired stove, my new electric stove will still get 42% of its power from burning natural gas... and still more from nukes and coal besides. Which would be worse, right?

It's almost as if making sound policy in the grown-up world isn't as easy as mouthing the 'correct' slogans -- e.g., Burning Fossil Fuels Bad, Electricity Good. But that can't be right, can it?