Gas Appliance Pollution - Impacts and Solutions
Gas appliances produce more air pollution than power plants. Learn how policies to improve air quality are targeting appliance emissions.
Gas water heaters and furnaces which account for 96% of all gas burned in homes, create significant amounts of outdoor and indoor air pollution. While the pollution from gas furnaces and water heaters is vented to the outside, leaking gas appliances or gas lines are found in approximately 15-25% of all residences depending on the age of the home, according to home energy assessment data.
Gas combusting appliances such as gas water heaters also create significant outdoor pollution in the form of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, carbon monoxide, fine particles and greenhouse gas emissions. A report from RMI and Sierra Club estimates that NOx emissions from gas appliances are more than twice the emissions of gas power plants as those facilities have been regulated for decades.
In March 2023, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) adopted regulations requiring the elimination of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from new water heaters by 2027 for larger water heaters and 2031 for smaller (generally residential size), and new furnaces by 2029. These new Bay Area emissions standards are the first in the nation to phase out existing gas water heaters. In a short few years, homes in the region will no longer be able to install gas combusting water heaters or furnaces. Organizations like the Regulatory Assistance Project have also created a water heater model rule that can help jurisdictions around the US phase out NOx emissions.
Join Electrify Now and the Advanced Water Heating Initiative as we explore the outdoor pollution from gas appliances and how communities are phasing them out to improve air quality. We’ll discuss:
How significant is gas appliance pollution outdoors?
What are the policy pathways to regulating gas appliance pollution?
What are communities doing to improve air quality from gas appliances?
Will electrification improve local air quality?
Panelists
Nancy Seidman - Regulatory Assistance Project
With more than 30 years of experience in environmental and energy policy, Nancy Seidman works with RAP’s U.S. team to advise policymakers, advocates, and other utility sector participants on the intersection of environmental and energy policies. Her work focuses primarily on climate change, air quality policy, and the benefits of energy efficiency.
Dylan Plummer - Sierra Club
Dylan has been organizing in the climate movement for close to a decade, fighting against proposed fossil fuel infrastructure projects and destructive industrial timber practices in the Pacific Northwest. He has helped with campaigns on both the local and national level with a focus on grassroots organizing and communications. As a Senior Field Organizer at Sierra Club he is working to transition communities in the Pacific Northwest off of fracked gas. He also serves as a Trustee on the Progressive Workers Union's Executive Committee.
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