Why is the Ontario government so in love with natural gas?

And why is Enbridge Gas trying to incite a culture war?

I am off to Detroit (by train) with Docomomo US to see midcentury modern architecture so I may not post Friday or Monday. Also I am having some eye issues so Frank and my other volunteer line editors may find a few errors in this post. I will be back to normal next week. I hope.

Enbridge, which supplies most of the gas to Ontario homes (including ours) is taking a leaf from the American gas industry’s playbook, with a new campaign implying that someone wants to take away people’s freedom of choice.

They are running ads implying that someone wants to take away citizen’s right to choose which energy you cook with. It sounds like they are trying to light up a culture war as happened south of the border, where the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Richard Trumka suggested that perhaps they should be looking at the dangers of cooking with gas. It got crazy, with even Donald Trump’s former doctor chiming in:

Canadian conservative politicians have seen the value of culture wars, and Enbridge has hopped onto the bandwagon with our supposed “right to choose” which energy to cook with. There is no such “right” that I know of in the Canadian constitution; Many products and materials are regulated by the Canadian government and many are banned. Many Canadians don’t even have the option, because their homes don’t have a gas connection. If you like cooking over wood or charcoal, you have no right in some areas around Montreal or Quebec City; because all the heating is electric, wood fires are a major source of particulate pollution.

Enbridge Gas has hired a well-known grilling expert, Ted Reader, to pump gas. They quote him in the National Post:

“Natural gas is essential to achieve culinary perfection on the grill,” says Reader. “I can’t imagine cooking without natural gas; it’s such an important tool to the food service sector. There are a lot of culinary advantages over electric.” 

“Cooking indoors with natural gas is also preferred,” says Reader. “Gas enables you to fine-tune what you’re cooking. It allows you to achieve and maintain a perfect simmer, or you can sear meat right away — and precisely.” 

Enbridge studiously ignores the dangers Nitrous Oxides and particulates that come with burning gas, or the methane and CO2 emissions that contribute to climate change. Gas barbecues don’t use that much gas, but Enbridge knows that while people don’t care much about what is in the furnace room keeping them warm, they are attached to their stoves and love their barbecues. 60% of American families have gas grills, but I couldn’t find Canadian data or the breakdown between propane and natural gas. I suspect the vast majority use propane, so this whole campaign is about the culture war, not the gas consumption. And nobody is coming for your propane barbecue.

But Enbridge and Doug Ford are everywhere, trying to pump up the gas.

There are lots of environmentalists and politicians trying to reduce our gas consumption and electrify everything, to reduce the CO2 emissions that come from burning fossil fuels. You won’t find them in the Ontario government; it is doing everything it can to expand the use of gas. The Ontario Energy Board (OEB), which regulates gas prices, recently refused to let Enbridge amortize the cost of new gas infrastructure for subdivisions over the next 40 years, but wanted developers to pay for it all upfront. According to John Woodside of the National Observer,

At the centre of the OEB’s concern was that gas infrastructure, like pipelines, is typically paid off over 40 years through consumer gas rates. With the energy transition off fossil fuels well underway, there is a risk the gas infrastructure could become worthless. As people increasingly replace gas furnaces with electric heat pumps, there will be fewer customers for gas, leaving a shrinking pool of people to pay for the infrastructure. That would push rates up, encouraging more people to ditch gas, creating a vicious cycle called a “death spiral” for utilities.

Gas infrastructure is expensive, and developers or homeowners might decide that heat pumps are a cheaper way to go. That would be bad for Enbridge, so the government slapped together Bill 165 or the Keeping Energy Costs Down Act to defang the OEB. Environmentalists call this a scandal and complain that “this government is acting as the arm of Enbridge and bending political decision-making to serve its corporate interests.”

The government seems positively obsessed with gas, paying C$234 million to expand infrastructure into rural areas. Doug Ford says "Folks in rural, northern and Indigenous communities shouldn’t have to pay more simply to heat their homes." So every taxpayer will subsidize them to the tune of $26,000 per house, more than enough to seal, insulate and heat pump them so that they don’t pay any more.

Then there are the peaker plants, the natural gas fired generators that were suppolsed to be used only at peak times, when there wasn’t enough power from hydro, nuclear, or renewables. Except Doug Ford cancelled all the renewable projects when he was elected in 2018 and even dismantled a few, at a cost of C$231 million.

Now the Ontario grid that was 96% carbon free is down to 87%. Tim Gray of Environmental Defence tells the Star:

“It should be shocking to the people of Ontario that we’re going in exactly the wrong direction in a time of escalating climate crisis. Never before in history have clean alternatives been cheaper or more accessible. It’s an ideological commitment to fossil fuels at the expense of consumers wallets and the future survival of our society.”

It could be ideological; others have noted the connections between the new Minister of Energy and certain land developers who were going to pave the greenbelt around Toronto and lock in carbon emissions for the next 40 years. Now, Enbridge is trying to whip it into a culture war. And we will all pay for this later.

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• More: Burning stuff is depriving us of years of healthy living

• The gas stove freakout is ridiculous but unsurprising

• Piles of peer reviewed research show how bad cooking with gas is for your health

• New research shows that gas stoves emit unsafe levels of nitrogen dioxide