WA State Building Code Council should eliminate natural gas in commercial buildings

Summer has always been the busy season for builders, a time when we can get in long periods of construction without worrying about weather slowing us down. But it did slow us down — this summer was especially brutal on our workers with suffocating heat and wildfire smoke compromising their productivity and health. Unfortunately, the recent staggering report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns us that summers like this are just going to get worse unless we do something now.

Many people think of natural gas as the cleaner of the fossil fuels, but it is in fact incredibly polluting — and pollution is partly to blame for what got us to this summer of heat and fire. Fortunately, there are big and viable steps we can take to reduce the factors the cause extreme heat and smoke. The first is the use of energy-smart building codes that incorporate the latest technological advances, and the second is the elimination of natural gas use in buildings.

We now have an opportunity to help update the commercial building energy codes that guide us as architects, engineers, and construction workers. This opportunity comes up only once every three years. After multiple years of smoky skies, we know we need to act decisively. On September 30, the State Building Code Council narrowly agreed to put forward a package of changes for public comment, including proposals that would promote electric heating and water heating in commercial buildings. The fracked gas industry tried to prevent these ideas from seeing the light of day — it will be critical that the public weigh in during the upcoming comment period and counter this vested opposition.

The building sector is Washington’s fastest-growing source of carbon pollution (up 50 percent since 1990) and buildings are responsible for a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas is one of the most potent greenhouse gases and the one that scientists now realize as the most critical to reduce.

Gas is not just polluting when it is burned but the production and transport of gas release huge amounts of methane. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that at least 2% of the natural gas transported to the end user leaks into the atmosphere.

Getting off natural gas might sound hard, but it is both doable and affordable. Electric heat pumps can do the job of gas furnaces and water heaters much more efficiently and without costly gas infrastructure. For instance, at the Caltech LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) exploration center in Richland, the original construction plans called for gas heating. After energy modeling showed big reductions in energy use from using heat pumps,they eliminated gas and saved the project time and money.

There is no reason not to act. Washington’s electricity is some of the cleanest and most affordable in the nation and on a path to become 100% fossil fuel-free by 2045. Tapping into that clean electricity to power our homes and buildings will be the most cost-effective way to reduce pollution in our state.

Technologies that can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions inside our buildings are already in use; we just need to make them the norm. Let’s take this step together to protect our families and our economy from the more devastating summers like this one.

By adopting strong energy codes that promote smart energy use, the State Building Code Council has a great opportunity to keep people in the Tri-Cities safe in our homes and help protect us from extreme weather.

This story was originally published October 11, 2021 at 9:36 AM.