A proposal to push the City of Winnipeg closer to phasing out the use of natural gas in new and existing buildings is in limbo.
The water, waste and environment committee decided Friday to receive the motion as information.
It would have directed the public service to investigate the “tools and mechanisms” to move away from natural gas heating in all existing and new residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Natural gas accounts for 40 per cent of Winnipeg’s emissions.
The motion was developed by the Climate Action and Resilience Committee, a citizen group, and aligns with the strategies outlined in the city’s energy investment road map that’s designed to help guide the government to net-zero targets.
More North American cities are taking steps to decarbonize heating and cooling, one of their most polluting sectors. Since 2019, more than 100 jurisdictions across Canada and the United States have signed natural gas restrictions into law, with varying degrees of success.
The Narwhal/Free Press lay out what a fossil fuel-free heating transition could look like in Winnipeg and what barriers stand in the way.
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Natural gas has been widely used as a primary heating source for several decades. The gas is about 95 per cent methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, which is released in large quantities in the production process. In a cold climate city such as in Winnipeg, that means natural gas heat produces a lot of emissions — both to make and to use.
Federal statistics for 2019 show about 65 per cent of Winnipeg households use natural gas for heat as do the majority of Manitoba’s industrial, commercial and institutional buildings. Natural gas heating accounts for nearly 40 per cent of Winnipeg’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“We all know that we’re facing a climate crisis. Even though we live in a hydro-rich province, we really do need to start thinking about how we can contribute to the long-term benefits of not burning fossil fuels to heat our homes,” Cindy Choy, chair of Sustainable Building Manitoba, said.
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Electric alternatives to fossil-fuel-
intensive heating are fairly common and many Winnipeg homes use electric furnaces as their primary heat source.
There are also air-source electric heat pumps, which draw in outdoor air, absorb its heat energy through coolant loops and pump warm air indoors. These have proven to work better in milder climates and even the cold-climate options can be inefficient at temperatures below -15 C. About 700,000 buildings in Canada have air-source heat pumps.
Ground-source heat pumps, called geothermal systems, also use coolant loops to absorb heat and blow out warm air, but the loops are buried deep underground and draw heat from the earth. These systems are more expensive to install, but they are more reliable in colder climates.
Heat pump purchase and installation costs can range from $5,000 to $40,000 but incentive programs can ease the burden. A study by the Canadian Climate Institute found heat pumps are the most cost-effective heating to install in new buildings, especially for cities with low-cost electricity.
The provincial government has promised to cover the cost to connect 5,000 homes to geothermal heat pumps. Efficiency Manitoba provides rebates and other support for homeowners switching to electric heat pumps.
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The move toward all-electric buildings started on the West Coast when Berkeley, Calif., instituted the first North American ban on natural gas connections for new buildings in 2019.
Vancouver became the first Canadian city to implement natural gas restrictions in 2020 when it introduced a bylaw that would have required space and water heating in new low-rise buildings to be zero-emission by 2025. Victoria introduced a similar gas heating ban to its building codes in 2022.
Montreal’s ban on natural gas heat in new low-rise buildings took effect this October and will extend to all new buildings by 2025.
Nanaimo, B.C., placed restrictions on gas as a primary heat source for new homes this summer while Prévost, Que. — population 12,000 — approved a gas ban in new and existing buildings last fall.
Several U.S. states, including New York, Maryland and Washington, have proposed some form of restriction on natural gas use in buildings, as have more than 100 American cities.
In 2022, Winnipeg’s water, waste and environment committee studied Vancouver, New York City and Ottawa’s efforts to restrict or ban natural gas use.
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Some of the bans have been short-lived. Vancouver voted to reverse its gas ban in July, a move councillors said would help spur housing construction. Berkeley’s was repealed in April after a U.S. federal court ruled the city did not have jurisdiction to regulate appliances.
The Canadian Energy Centre, Alberta’s publicly funded oil and gas “war room,” lobbied Nanaimo to reverse its natural gas restrictions last year — though the campaign was unsuccessful.
Other oil and gas lobbying efforts across America have tried to block or overturn gas bans and led more than 20 states to pass laws prohibiting local governments from introducing gas bans.
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Choy said natural gas bans come in stages, meaning not everyone would need to immediately replace their furnace.
“The transition can happen in a painless way,” she says. “Having a plan… and being able to go at it in a reasonable, data-driven, incremental way is how I would expect the city to proceed.”
The first step is to study the city’s options — including its jurisdictional authority, zoning and land use planning policies, bylaws and available grant programs — to introduce low-cost changes. Some jurisdictions, for example, have updated their building codes to high-efficiency standards (something the Manitoba government has committed to), others have introduced incentives to decarbonize building heat and many have started by banning fossil fuels in new construction.
Choy says the goal is to avoid sinking money into fossil fuel infrastructure and appliances that can come with fluctuating costs for consumers and will likely need to be replaced with low-emissions technologies in the future.
The exact steps the transition takes won’t be ironed out in the short term, but there’s a framework she recommends keeping in mind:
“The first thing is always energy efficiency: use less, reduce your demand. Don’t expand (natural gas infrastructure), don’t increase your use of energy. Adopt new technologies that can help us use our energy more efficiently.”
julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca
Julia-Simone Rutgers
Reporter
Julia-Simone Rutgers is the Manitoba environment reporter for the Free Press and The Narwhal. She joined the Free Press in 2020, after completing a journalism degree at the University of King’s College in Halifax, and took on the environment beat in 2022. Read more about Julia-Simone.
Julia-Simone’s role is part of a partnership with The Narwhal, funded by the Winnipeg Foundation. Every piece of reporting Julia-Simone produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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