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Earlier this year, NSW Premier Chris Minns refused to follow Victoria’s lead and legislate a statewide prohibition on gas connections to new buildings. Since then, armed with untested legal advice from a deep green activist group, councils have been taking matters into their own hands.
Across the state councils have been legislating, or beginning the process of legislating, gas bans through amendments to their Development Control Plans (DCPs). Councils often impose these bans on their constituents after little to no consultation with industry, the votes of just ten to twelve councillors affecting thousands of the municipal constituents. The councils that have approved gas bans or initiated the process to do so, as listed by green group 350 Australia, is increasing. According to the 350’s website, it’s all part of “a growing, council-led movement across NSW leveraging their powers over the planning system to create all-electric, gas-free new homes and businesses which are better for our health, energy bills, and the environment.” City of Sydney Council, Lane Cove, Canada Bay, Woollahra, Inner West, Ryde and Waverly councils are among those that have already embraced the cause.
Ironically, Randwick Greens Councillor Rafaela Pandolfini proposed a gas-ban despite her local government area being home to Australia’s first biomethane injection plant, located in Malabar, where human waste is used to produce biomethane for injection into Jemena’s pipelines to the tune of 95 terajoules (TJ) per annum. Translated from energyspeak, that amounts to the equivalent of 26389MW/h — enough to meet the annual gas needs of around 6,600 NSW homes. If required, the Malabar plant could be scaled up to 200 TJs, which would supply the gas needs of roughly 13,330 residences.
This move by councils was initially dismissed by critics as unlawful under Chapter 2.2 of the NSW State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP), which prohibits councils banning new gas connections if the stated aim of their DCPs is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It appears, however, that rather than consult their constituents, councils are heeding the counsel of self-proclaimed ‘grassroots organisation’ 350 Australia, a tax-exempt charity [4] with annual revenue, as of its last financial filing, of $1,704,015. For the curious, the ‘350’ represents what the group maintains is the perfect C02 level, measured in parts per million, for a happy global climate.
Hardly a grassroots organisation (more on this later) 350 Australia is heavily invested in a slick campaign — Electrify Your Council — which provides pre-packaged resources to councillors keen to introduce similar bans. Head to their campaign’s homepage and you will find a ‘Council Tracker’, a brochure of legal advice, detailed policy guides, FAQs, petitions, QR codes, even a pre-drafted template for councillors to propose as a motion and vote on at their meetings. In reviewing the minutes from some of the aforementioned council meetings, it appears quite a few councillors have made use of this resource. Just how firm a grasp sponsoring councillors have on gas usage, the gas industry and related matters is moot.
Who are 350 Australia?
350 Australia is part of global activist organisation 350.org established in 2008 by American climate activist Bill McKibben, who has been predicting doom for more than 20 years and is prone to such rash pronouncements that even Scientific America, a firm advocate of the warmist cause, has urged him to drop “the overheated rhetoric”. Among McKibben’s claims, that “koalas are virtually extinct in Australia”. According to the Financial Post, 350.org “has the look and feel of an amateur, grassroots operation, but in reality, it is a multi-million dollar campaign run by staff earning six-digit salaries” (some of the salaries on offer at 350 Australia can be found here). Upon the release of Jim Chalmers’ 2023 Budget, 350 Australia released an official statement decrying the Albanese government for missing “the opportunity … to properly tax the gas industry and cut their handouts”, going on to say that “ending funding to fossil fuels is a basic step towards cutting emissions and it’s a real shame the government chose to stand still instead.” [5].
How is it that such a dark green organisation’s slick urgings can be accepted as accurate and impartial by councils? More than that, do councils have the authority to act counter to state policy as laid out in the SEPP rules mention above? According to 350 Australia they do, as explained in the following advice to NSW councils (emphasis added):
In the context of NSW not acting [to ban new gas connections], local councils have the power to use the DCP instrument … Councils can insert anti-gas provisions into their DCP on health and economic grounds and that approach is a legally robust way to achieve no new gas in those developments.
This rationale explains the confidence with which some councils recently amended their DCPs, turning away from the “environmental” reasoning behind earlier bans and instead embracing health-and-economic reasoning. A critic of such a legalistic work-around will see fatal flaws in the approach, chiefly that it arises from estimates rather than hard data, is speculative, and based on studies that invoke worst-case scenarios rather than more realistic projections.
Health Grounds
The claim is that occupants of buildings and homes are exposed to harmful combustion products via gas heating and cooking appliances, as asserted, albeit with with telling qualifications and caveats, in papers such as “Damp housing, gas stoves, and the burden of childhood asthma in Australia”. The report’s authors, in their own words, sought to “estimate” [6) the contribution of gas-stove exposure to childhood asthma, in the same paper conceding alternative energy sources for cooking “would not produce indoor emissions” is “unlikely, as cooking itself can be a major source of emissions” [7). 350 Australia repeatedly quotes from this study to insist electrifying all homes in Australia will result in a 12.3 per cent reduction in the national asthma incidence. Read the study in full, however, and this statistic is based in a worst-case scenario that assumes home kitchens have no rangehoods, exhaust fans or kitchen ventilation such as windows. 350 Australia also claims that “a child living with a gas stove faces a similar asthma risk to a child exposed to second-hand cigarette smoke” [8], an assertion to be found nowhere in the study. Read the four-page Knibbs, L. et al study here. To cap it all off the study admits (emphasis added):
Like most modelling studies, the main limitation of our investigation is the validity of the input data. We used standard methods, were selective in what we included, and performed sensitivity analyses, but we may have under- or overestimated the burden of asthma attributable to each risk factor.
Economic Grounds
Councils’ enthusiasm for banning gas is based on the claim that it will save you money. The City of Sydney engaged 350 Australia to conduct an analysis [9] which, once again, makes speculative claims rather than any based on hard data. Examples include;
“Bill savings include avoiding the annual gas network connection fees, assumed to average $1 per day”.
At present, AGL energy rates for electricity are 18.8 cents higher per kWh than natural gas (even after allowing for a 3.6MJ to 1kWh conversion). Therefore, any savings made by not having a yearly gas connection will be eaten up by spending more money on electricity to power the same appliances. In addition, many modern electric appliances cost more off the showroom floor than traditional gas ones.
“Both gas and electricity prices are assumed to rise at 1% (after inflation) per year – the financial savings projected by the model would be higher if these energy prices were to increase more rapidly”.
Despite the Albanese government’s promise of a $275 reduction in domestic bills by 2025, electricity prices are trending in the opposite direction. According to the Australian Energy Regulator’s (AER) Annual Retail Market Report, 2022/23 energy bills have risen by as much as 19 per cent since the previous calendar year [10]. The AER has given reasons for the price hike, such as “relatively stronger coal and gas costs compared with previous years” and the closure of the Liddell Power Station in NSW in April 2023 [11]. Slated to be shuttered by 2025 is Eraring, Australia’s largest generator, with three more plants to be retired by 2030 [12]. According to AER’s ‘State of the Energy Market 2023’
while the exit of coal generation is necessary to meet emissions reduction targets and inevitable due to its declining financial viability, disorderly exit poses risks to both reliability and wholesale prices. The first of these reliability gaps is forecast in summer 2023–24 and will increase in frequency thereafter.
The impact of reduced supply is already apparent. Late in 2023 the NSW government had to urge NSW residents to cut energy usage lest the struggling electricity grid fail [13]. Given the fast-response nature of gas-powered plants, which “need as little as five minutes to ramp up to full operating capacity” [14], the banning of gas can only exacerbate the supply problem of an increasingly unreliable electricity grid by forcing residents and businesses to use electrical appliances instead of gas- powered ones.
There is a word for this approach: insanity
[1] https://350.org.au/electrify-your-council-council-tracker/
[2] https://www.jemena.com.au/future-energy/future-gas/Malabar-Biomethane-Injection-Plant/
[3] State Environmental Planning Policy (Sustainable Buildings) 2022 – Chapter 2.2
[5] https://350.org.au/press-release/budget-2023-a-fizzle/
[6) ‘Knibbs, L. et al. Damp housing, gas stoves, and the burden of childhood asthma in Australia (Medical Journal of Australia) 2018 (7): pg 299 – Opening paragraph)
[7) Knibbs, L. et al. Damp housing, gas stoves, and the burden of childhood asthma in Australia (Medical Journal of Australia) 2018 (7): pg 301 – Discussion)
[8] https://350.org.au/files/2023/08/Analysis_-City-of-Sydney-ban-on-new-gas-connections-3.pdf (page 1 – Background)
[9] https://350.org.au/files/2023/08/Analysis_-City-of-Sydney-ban-on-new-gas-connections-3.pdf
[10] Annual Retail Market Report 2022-23 (aer.gov.au) (page 47 – Fig 2.18)
[11] https://www.ipart.nsw.gov.au/1-july-2023-electricity-price-increases
[12] https://www.aer.gov.au/system/files/2023-10/State%20of%20the%20energy%20market%202023%20-%20Full%20report_1.pdf (Figure 3.17 – page 58)
[13] https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/aemo-may-call-on-emergency-power-reserves-as-nsw-grid-wilts-20231214-p5erh4
[14] https://www.aer.gov.au/system/files/2023-10/State%20of%20the%20energy%20market%202023%20-%20Full%20report_1.pdf (Chapter 3.7.3 – page 61)
McKibben appears to be a hypocrite. He decries economic and technological growth, yet wants simple -to-use gas cookers replaced with expensive computerised glass panels. Wants us to reject globalisation and big government, yet harasses local government to control how Australians feed themselves in their own homes! Agree John, the 350 organisation has misconstrued the Knibbs et al. study. The Knibbs et al. study states:
“While our results suggest that 12.3% of the childhood asthma burden could be averted were gas replaced by a different energy source for cooking, this assumes that the new energy source would not produce indoor emissions; this is unlikely, as cooking itself can be a major source of emissions. More important is our finding that the burden of childhood asthma associated with gas stoves could be reduced from 12.3% to 3.4% were all homes with gas stoves fitted with high efficiency range hoods that vented outdoors.”
What of the other 87.7% of burden? Pets? Flowering plants?
Leave my gas stove-top and range hood alone please politicians. I urge Australians to read these research articles in their entirety. Controlivists will cherry pick data, out of context, to justify banning the life out of us. I would be very angry if my local councillors banned critical and essential appliances based on misinterpreted health science. It would prove their incompetence, and their contempt for our human right to use our brain.
Interestingly, the Knibbs et al. research cites a reference to a study (Franklin et al.) of the effect of formaldehyde on the level of Nitric Oxide coming off a child’s breath (no mention of gas stoves). Formaldehyde gas is also given off by new carpets, new flooring, new furniture (e.g., flat pack, pressed MDF), varnish, paint etc.
First thing my pregnant friends do when they buy a house? Renovate.
Their children are being born into newly (and garishly) painted baby rooms complete with new carpets, feeding sofas, cabinetry, cots, plastic change tables and plastic/fluffy toys and clothing. All new and all imported. Their houses are almost airtight and utterly claustrophobic, nary an open window to be seen. No windows in the kitchen or bathroom! I would suggest health researchers consider these other variables to answer for asthma in Australian children.
My mental health will decline if I don’t have access to a gas stove-top to cook my own food. I have tried using an induction cooktop, never again. I can’t tell the difference between 9 levels (!) of heat, so the lack of control put me in a state of stress. The water either boils like an exploding volcano tube, or stops dead. One cannot ‘have another element standing by on a lower setting’ because said element beeps and turns off if no pot is detected. Elements randomly switching off mid cook.
I can’t manage with this disorientating and confusing thermodynamic degree-requiring plate of glass! Life is hard enough, I just want a low-to-high knob, and a flame, thank-you. Any ban on gas stoves would force me to a bottled portable stove or the complete abandonment of any countertop cooking. I’m sick of government and urban elite banning and destroying Australia’s industries. We do not need to give up gas technology, because the bio-gas technology is promising. Cooking is my one pleasure in life, free from tribal land declarations and social engineering harassment. What is there to look forward to in Australia anymore?
There always has been a war between electricity and gas in new developments.
As the bidding develops the builder/developer is offered free gas appliances or conversely free electric ones if gas is connected or electricity only.
It has now got to the stage where the electricity grid cannot sustain the local development of electricity only in new devellpments.
Recently the new residents of Box Hill in NSW were told by their electricity supplier to put in gas.
That’s because the provider cannot guarantee to be able to provide electricity for all needs on demand because of grid constraint.
As gas is not laid in the new development,the new owners have to install bottled gas on tiny blocks of land.
Mr Minns is wise not to ban gas, particularly in the new aspirational electorates.
Is it possible a reason is that individual smart meters can be externally controlled while gas delivery can’t be.
YES
The ACT administration is another council that has declared war on natural gas.
There is an illicit method being used by health experts to attribute harm. Example, lead poisoning. Deaths on certificates attributed to Pb lead, 15 per annum in USA, but 412,000 per annum by the Lanphear method (to Lancet, March 12 2018) which treats a premature death as one when the patient had more than a nominated blood lead level. By this approach, so many major causes of death can gain hyper-inflated estimates of the total, leading to many times more attributed deaths than actual deaths.
Estimates of Asthma-induced deaths from kitchens seem to suffer this effect, but I am not a specialist in this field, so caveat emptor.
Geoff S
Geoff, maybe our great left wing health experts in an on council, should outlaw shopping centre delicatessens because of the wide range of foodstuffs there that contain nitrates that is also is causal lead to asphyxiation – emphysema. Fruit and vegetables also contain naturally occurring amounts of this compound- Green leafy vegetables more so.
They did curtail the use of kerosene heating on account of death via the hypoxia route ,didn’t they!
Interestingly euthanasia is touted as a dignified Godsend on account that it is basically an accelerated form of degenerative heart disease leading to a purposeful death by asphyxiation – in this particular progressive move it is deemed as an acceptable dignified and lawful form of asphyxiation.
However,in summary, probably the the greatest deaths in the above mentioned kitchen scene/scenario is the slow lifelong poisoning from high caloric fried fatty foods that eventually leads to arterioscleroses/atherosclerosis,that is presumably unbeknown and unintentional on the part of the cook, being lovingly delivered by heart felt desires and served with cherished abandon by ones loving spouse. Furthermore with advancing age this sophisticated platter could well be garnished with a peppering of large amounts of sodium chloride salt, #1 to render the taste buds effective and #2 to ensure that the spousal arrangement in question remains largely for all intended purposes in an upright state as that pertains to the concept of the fore mentioned idea of dignity!
Heaven forbid. Nutritional sarcasm really has no place or part to play as it relates to the caloric vow centred round the kitchen table.
Caveat emptor-indeed.
Geoff, maybe our great left wing health experts in an on council, should outlaw shopping centre delicatessens because of the wide range of foodstuffs there that contain nitrates, that is also a causal lead to asphyxiation – emphysema.
Fruit and vegetables also contain naturally occurring amounts of this compound- Green leafy vegetables more so.
They did curtail the use of kerosene heating on account of death via the hypoxia route, didn’t they!
Interestingly euthanasia is touted as a dignified Godsend on account that it is basically an accelerated form of degenerative heart disease leading to a purposeful death by pathophysiological asphyxiation – in this particular progressive move it is deemed as an acceptable dignified and lawful form of asphyxiation.
However,in summary, probably the greatest deaths in your above mentioned kitchen scene/scenario is the slow lifelong poisoning from high caloric fried fatty foods that eventually leads to arterioscleroses/atherosclerosis,that is presumably unbeknown and unintentional on the part of the cook, being lovingly delivered by heart felt desires and served with cherished abandon by ones loving spouse. Furthermore with advancing age this sophisticated platter could well be garnished with a peppering of large amounts of sodium chloride salt, #1 to render the taste buds effective and #2 to ensure that the spousal arrangement in question remains largely for all intended purposes in an upright state as that pertains to the concept of the fore mentioned idea of dignity!
Heaven forbid.
Nutritional sarcasm really has no place or part to play as it relates to the caloric vow centred round the kitchen table.
Caveat emptor-indeed.
Just one more thing Geoff. Presumably the contracting of Asthma would involve a departure from this mortal coil earlier than otherwise expected. If this is indeed the case would it be prudent on the behalf of the gas industry to factor in pricing and other factors in accordance with and regarding the drafting of future prospectuses as they relate to the net zero Voice and the clean and green mantra being espoused at the local council level?
Furthermore would be a wise move for the intelligent elites in the gas and local government industry to band together on behalf of their prospective constituents and vertically integrate with a guilt edged component both pricing and Bowen gas policy. Perhaps this gaseous conglomerate of gas and gov could even branch out into the euthanasia industry and incorporate the cremation sector and even give thought to acquiring large swathes of the nursing home sector, including tapping into federal funding on offer so as to make the dispatch, pricing, profitability and timing of death as seamless as possible. On top of that the enforced introduction of the World Economic Forums voice in regard to government green economic policy would allow the energy Tsars at the local government level to charge higher council rates in accordance with rate payer age in order to facilitate a greener local government area ‘sooner’ rather than later.
GREEN-GREENER-YOUNGER
Mitcham Council in SA have an agenda to replace gas appliances in council/community premises with electricity. The thin edge of the wedge, no doubt. Never mind that the so-called renewables state is reliant on gas and Vic brown coal to keep the electricity grid going, for much of the time.
It is part of their “climate emergency” which led to them wasting $100,000 on free EV charging stations, which lasted about a year. Too unreliable, too slow, in the wrong places.
What we really have is a “council emergency.”