It is awesome to see that more and more homes are converted away from fossil fuels.

The rebates and the IRA help make it more affordable now, though it is by no means free.

However, one should not think of electrification as an expense. It is an investment in a cleaner, more efficient and healthier future. And one day, when the house is sold, it may well fetch a higher price than if it had been left behind in the gassy past.

Do these people not know or do they not want to admit the majority of the electricity generated to their homes comes from fossil fuels? You are charging your EV with natural gas.
Sorry guys no free lunch.

Thank you Westbrook, you beat me to it. Electrification without a non-fossil fuel source of electricity is just trading the location at which the CO2 is generated. And it is less efficient than if you simply burned the gas where you are when you factor in the losses sustained in generation, transmission and in some cases battery charging. It's either naivete or virtue signalling.

Westbrook, your electricity comes from Peninsula Clean Energy. It is 100% clean on a yearly basis. It will be 100% clean on a 24//7/365 basis by 2027. No fossil fuel. Peninsula Clean Energy continues to purchase more wind, solar, and battery power that will replace all fossil fuel, even the small amounts distributed now.

Westbrook and Menlo Voter, if you aren’t already, switch to PCE for your electricity. It is the default for all residents in San Mateo County. Their ECO100 plan procures 100% of the energy from renewable sources. Default plan has very low c02 emissions. See Web Link for more details
Electricity is being and can continue to be procured from clean resources. Gas will always be burning fossil fuel and carbon intensive.

Contrary to what the previous posts want you to believe, data tells us that using a heat pump water heater reduces GHG emissions by 80% over a gas water heater. The intuition is simple:

1. Most of our electricity is now from clean sources that don’t emit CO2. Gas water heaters obviously are CO2-generating machines, and methane leaks further increase their emissions.

2. Gas water heaters are up to 80-90% efficient in turning gas into heat, but heat pumps are 350-400% efficient, because they move heat from the air, rather than generating it.

Not only do heat pump water heaters reduce emissions by 5x, they keep NOx, benzene and formaldehyde and other harmful gasses out of our homes.

And they are not expensive: they can be obtained for about the same cost as gas water heater after all rebates and tax credits are applied.

In closing I would like to point you to this web site which, though specific to San Mateo County, does a fabulous job of describing the advantages of heat pump water heaters:

Web Link

Here are detailed calculations to back up the conclusions in the previous post: that a heat pump water heater emits 80% less greenhouse gasses than a methane water heater. I also provide references for the most important data.

----- you are welcome to skip the rest -----

We calculate the gas combustion emissions that result from putting one joule of energy into the water.

First the gas water heater.

Noncondensing models (most common by far) are up to 90% efficient. Generally, 5% of the gas produced at the well head leaks before it reaches the final consumption point but let's ignore this for simplicity. So to get 1 joule into the water, we combust 1 / 0.9 = 1.1 joules of gas.

Now the heat pump water heater.

Per this CEC's report, in California in 2022 Web Link 54.2% of total electricity production was emissions-free and 45.8% was gas combustion in a variaty of plants with different efficiencies (peaker plants, combined cycle gas turbines, old plants, new plants). For simplicity, we can (generously) use a 50% efficiency number for California's gas fleet: Web Link

Per Rheem/Ruud, their heat pump water heaters have a Uniform Energy Factor (UEF) of 4.0; link: Web Link

To put 1 joule of heat into the water, we need 0.25 joules of electricity at the water heater. (Just like we ignored gas leaks, let's ignore electricity transmission and distribution loss for simplicity.) Of these 0.25 joules of electricity, 0.25 * 45.8% = 0.11 joules are produced by gas combustion. At 50% fleet efficiency, this means combusting 0.22 joules of gas.

So the gas water heater will actually pollute 1.1 / 0.22 = 5x more than using an electrical heat pump.

San Mateo County Resident:

PCE is just "greenwashed" power. The power coming from the grid is a blend of all types of power. Until the power coming to my home is coming directly from renewable sources only, it is all the same power and a large portion of it is produced by burning natural gas.

People like Menlo Voter will not be convinced by facts.

Folks like that are content to sit and do nothing, or even convince others to do nothing, while the world burns.

The data is clear. Switching to all electric dramatically reduces carbon emissions. We should all be moving in that direction, each at our own fastest possible pace.

Ronen:

The data is clear that if you switch to all electric and have a non-fossil fuel derived electricity reduces carbon emissions.

Anecdotally,
"Additionally, to help pay for the infrastructure required to meet Panasonic’s anticipated electricity demand, Evergy plans to ask the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) for a rate increase on residential customers’ energy bills in parts of the state, according to The Kansas City Star."

Also, They are currently deriving partial power from burning coal.

My question to you is 100% renewables at what cost? $

Kansas residents weren't told of future rate increases.