In a last act of defiance against science and reason, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the politician who told residents to rush to bars for one last evening because the Trump administration was forcing him to close them down during the pandemic, requiring a Navy hospital ship to be sent weeks later to deal with all of the ICU patients, has now decreed that no new gas stoves, boilers and heaters can be installed in new buildings or any that undergo renovations.
Despite spending a trillion dollars on subsidies for solar and wind, the percentage of energy derived from fossil fuels is the same as 10 years ago. The reason is simple. By subsidizing and mandating old technology that didn't work well, we de-incentivized progress. New York City already suffered brownouts due to closing Indian Point Nuclear Nuclear, which made his donors at Natural Resources Defense Council cheer anyway, so how will the city power the new "electric" appliances that will be sold instead of gas?
With gas, except from Pennsylvania. Natural gas is obviously far more efficient than other fossil fuels, it is why electricity costs can remain low without coal, but converting gas to electricity which is then transmitted over power lines where it is stepped up and transformed, is obviously less efficient to anyone with a clue about physics than just using gas.
This is about politics, not science, and Manhattan and Brooklyn care as little about science as they do economics. As long as shoulder cats are still allowed in cafés that serve their avocado toast points life is good. Except New York City is overwhelmingly poor. And adding to their electric bills is doing them a huge disservice, because anyone with science literacy knows this isn't doing a thing to help climate change.
