Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the problem with natural gas?

Natural gas is a highly explosive, heat-trapping gas that is hastening global climate change. It also leads to unhealthy indoor quality and worsens asthma, especially among children. The onsite combustion of gas in buildings alone is responsible for over a quarter of our state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Our state also has some of the oldest gas infrastructure in the country –- Massachusetts’ gas pipes can date back to the Civil War. Unsurprisingly, these gas pipes leak. A lot. Replacing these leaky pipes will cost ratepayers tens of billions of dollars.

Hundreds of studies have linked the production and use of natural gas to poor health outcomes. Fracking chemicals are linked to cancer, heart problems, neurological damage, birth defects, and asthma. In our homes, studies have connected the nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide produced by gas stoves to increased rates of childhood asthma and other negative outcomes.

At every step, the business of natural gas also deepens environmental injustices. Corporations overwhelmingly site natural gas infrastructure – extraction, pipelines, compressor stations, and more — in communities of color, low-income and working-class communities, and Indigenous communities which are already burdened by compounding injustices of systemic racism and unequal access to opportunity.

Why can’t we switch to "renewable" natural gas?

At first, renewable natural gas seems like an elegant solution to the problem of natural gas. Your gas company can keep sending fuels into your home through the same pipes and your building can keep its furnace and boiler. Everything can stay the same, only greener.

Of course, there’s a catch. Multiple catches.

First, renewable natural gas, also known as biomethane or broadly as a biofuel, is not as clean and renewable as utilities and fossil fuel companies would like you to believe. Biofuels can be created from industrial food waste, manure, gas from landfills, and other sources. Producing renewable natural gas still contributes to pollution, environmental contamination, and greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable natural gas is primarily methane, a greenhouse gas about 85 times more powerful than carbon dioxide on a 20-year timescale. Running renewable natural gas through our tens of thousands of leaky gas pipes will not solve our climate problems.

Second, renewable natural gas is expensive – nationally, these fuels are currently four to seventeen times the cost of natural gas. In our state’s official decarbonization plan, the Massachusetts 2050 Decarbonization Roadmap, renewable gas is modeled as six to ten times more expensive than natural gas.

Finally, renewable natural gas is in short supply. Even over decades, only about 10% of existing natural gas demand could be met with renewable fuel alternatives.

Why can’t we switch to hydrogen?

Hydrogen is over three times as explosive as natural gas and five times more flammable. It can’t be safely piped into our buildings using our existing pipes and systems. Instead, hydrogen must be blended with natural gas or expensive biofuels. Using our existing gas system, hydrogen could only provide about 7% of our energy before the whole system would need to be replaced.[1] If we’re replacing the whole system anyway, we should replace it with air source and networked ground source heat pumps which are safer, cleaner, and more efficient.

Hydrogen likely will play an important role in decarbonizing other parts of our economy. Hydrogen can be used for energy storage, long distance transportation, and high-heat industrial processes such as aluminum and steel manufacturing. It simply does not have a place in our homes and buildings.

What is an all-electric building?

All-electric buildings burn no fossil fuels or other explosive gases onsite. No gas, propane, or oil for heat, stoves, hot water, washing machines, fireplaces, or anything else for that matter. All-electric new construction is cost-effective and practical with today’s technology. It’s also sustainable. As our state’s electrical grid gets cleaner, buildings with heat pumps will eventually run entirely on renewable energy.

Efficient building electrification runs on heat pumps. Heat pumps heat and cool buildings – two for the price of one! They are more efficient than gas heat and effective in cold climates.

There are two types of heat pumps. Air source heat pumps, which move heat between a building and the outside air, and ground source heat pumps which require digging wells into the ground to exchange heat.

For cooking, induction stovetops, powered by electricity, offer a clean alternative to gas. Cooking with induction is safer, more precise, and faster than cooking with gas, and induction cooktops do not produce the harmful indoor air pollution from nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide associated with gas ranges. Flat-top electric ranges are also a safe choice.