Dear Menlo Park City Council, I am a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University who specializes in transitioning the energy infrastructure of cities, states, and countries entirely to 100% clean, renewable energy. Also, in 2017, I finished construction of my own all-electric (zero natural gas) home on the Stanford University campus. This home also won a Silicon Valley Clean Energy all-electric showcase award https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.svcleanenergy.org%2fmark-jacobson%2f&c=E,1,FfmmK2Pk90tEDnpQwJiDzFQesycCPzaqnqCar-G4nrSKsiuu67kGrfvA2M9yode-A3C2YbmpAJM0Hky-9fSIOF7Ou7ETkFhks5b2mp3mGvwNYc-F&typo=1 This home has no natural gas hooked up to it. It is run on rooftop solar PV, batteries in the garage, electric heat pumps for air and water heating and air conditioning, an electric induction cooktop, all-electric appliances, and it powers electric vehicles. In four years, I have not had a single blackout in my home. The five or six times the power went out in the neighborhood, my electricity stayed on due to the batteries. In four years, I have not paid a single electricity bill, natural gas bill, or gasoline bill. I have also been paid about $700 per year back by my utility for the extra solar I sold back to the grid. The overall payback time of the solar and battery system is five years with federal and state subsidies and ten years without. I avoided a $6,000 natural gas hookup fee and $6,000-$12,000 in natural gas pipes. I also avoided paying for some expensive roofing material. My induction cooktop boils water in half the time as a natural gas stove and cooks perfectly (much better than old electric resistance stoves). In sum, it is much less expensive to have only one source of energy in a home rather than two. Natural gas is not only an unnecessary cost for a home, but it also creates indoor air pollution (nitrogen oxides, uncombusted organics) when it is burned indoors. It also creates a fire/poison risk in some cases. In addition, where does the natural gas come from? In the U.S., there are 1.3 million active oil and gas wells and 3.1 million inactive ones. 50,000 new wells are drilled every years. The fossil fuel industry now occupies 1.3% of all U.S. land area. 50,000 new wells will be needed every year forever if we continue using gas. The U.S. is being destroyed state by state by natural gas drilling. Using gas in homes contributes to this devastation. Finally, we cannot solve the climate or air pollution problems the world faces if we continue using natural gas. Given that it is less expensive in medium and long run to eliminate the use of natural gas in buildings, the fact that we do not need natural gas in homes, and the fact that we need to focus on eliminating air pollution locally and global warming, I strongly urge you to ban the use of natural gas in buildings in Menlo Park. Sincerely, Mark Z. Jacobson -- Mark Z. Jacobson Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Director, Atmosphere/Energy Program Work tel: 650-723-6836 Stanford University jacobson@stanford.edu Yang & Yamazaki Environment and Energy Bldg (Y2E2) 473 Via Ortega, Room 397 Twitter: @mzjacobson Stanford, CA 94305-4020 www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/