It's time to rip up gas networks

By Matthew Wright

CLIMATE SPECTATOR reports:It's time to set a date to phase out Australia's old 19th century gas networks. In their place, the electricity network can take on all of the energy tasks of the old gas networks and do it with higher efficiency and better economies of scale, bringing cost saving to all consumers at a time when the cost of living is constantly rising.

Simply put, all the services provided by the gas network today can be provided more efficiently by electricity. Some of the money saved from the expense of keeping the old legacy gas network will be rolled into upgrading the electricity network and the rest will be delivered as savings to energy consumers, who will pay less when they pay once for electricity, rather than paying twice for both electricity and gas.

Here we have a big long-term productivity opportunity. It is completely inefficient and costly to be running an extra, redundant and inferior energy network. Already, in the 1930s, the role of gas was diminishing, being replaced by much safer and more controllable electricity for lighting. Since that time, the ever expanding energy needs of our modern economy – for powering computers, refrigeration and televisions – have been met by electricity and not by gas.

Today, gas is only able to fulfil three energy tasks in our homes. Each of those three – cooking, heating and hot water – can be achieved much more efficiently, and at a lower cost, using electricity; and even lower again, once the gas network is closed, and better economies of scale in the electricity network are realised.

Gas cooking is about 35 per cent efficient (well to pot), while induction electric cooktops are 85 per cent efficient (solarfarm to cooktop). A shift to induction electric from gas will halve energy use for cooking.

Gas heating of Australian homes is, at best, 70 per cent efficient, while small domestic heat pumps (reverse cycle air conditioners) offer upto 800 per cent of the heat delivered, versus the energy consumed and paid for from the electricity grid. Much of the nation's housing stock already has reverse cycle air conditioners installed and, due to lack of awareness, in Victoria these units are remaining idle for six months over the heating season, which consumes 72 times the energy of the 20 or 30 cooling days in summer in that state. In the many cases where reverse cycle air conditioners are already installed, the switch from gas to electric is just a matter of education and getting people to reach for their air conditioner remote control.

Previously, gas hot water was the lock-in that was keeping a number of people from doing away with gas altogether in their households.

Fortunately, Innovative Australian hot water company, Edson, is currently offering a very high performance, high efficiency stand alone electric heat pump, which delivers upto 75 per cent renewable ambient heat into your hot water in a year, or a heat pump-boosted solar hot water unit that delivers upto 90 per cent of your hot water heat from stored solar energy in the atmosphere outside by utilising the refrigeration cycle. With some well directed incentives, the entire industry can move to the same type of Japanese inverter CO2 heat pump models that Edson is using in its product range.

Outside of environmental concerns, one of the biggest reasons to get rid of gas is to reduce the risk of burns and poisoning that effects mainly children living in houses heated with gas. Burns from gas are a significant factor in young and old people being admitted to hospitals, the shift from 19th century gas to 21st century induction cooktops does away with this problem.

Earlier this year, the federal Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson was pushing a very expensive requirement that all residential properties with gas appliances should be fitted with an expensive carbon monoxide detector, after even more recent deaths from dangerous gas appliances. In this case, he was responding to a case where number of young children had died. These deaths were completely preventable.

If we get moving on this, 10 years is the right timeframe to completely phase out gas. And we can start right away by not connecting any new estates or post-renovation reconnections to the gas network. New houses could be in excess of $5000 cheaper if they didn't have to be connected to the redundant gas network.

We can restrict the sale of gas heaters and offer incentives to switch from existing gas appliances to heat pumps and insulation.

Renewable ambient heat is Australian households biggest source of renewable resource and it's ready to be exploited today. Gas is dirty, inefficient and dangerous; our children and families will be safer, and breath easier, without it.

Matthew Wright is executive director of Beyond Zero Emissions