\"And unlike PG&E, which loses nothing if customers switch from gas to electric, the city-owned Philadelphia Gas Works is strictly a gas utility...\"

PG&E stands to make out like a bandit if customers switch from gas heat to electric heat - at least, if Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant is shut down in 2024-25.

Pacific Gas & Electric, unsurprisngly, sells both gas and electricity. Now - what's more efficient, heating a house with a) a gas furnace, or b) electricity which has been generated by burning gas to boil water, then using expanding steam to rotate a wheel at exactly 15 rpm, then using eight magnets on the wheel to push electrons in a coil back and forth at 60 Hz, then pushing that electricity 100+ miles to Berkeley, then using electrons moving back and forth in Berkeley to heat a wire, then blowing air over the wire and into the house you want to heat?

Ding ding! You guessed it...the gas furnace is far more efficient. PG&E, however, makes more money on the inefficient way to heat a house, because they profit on both the sale of electricity and sale of the fuel used to generate it. In fact, the more gas PG&E burns, the more money the utility will make - and Berkeley's plan to eliminate gas hookups will make emissions even worse than they are now.

This is the perverse reasoning behind PG&E's shutdown of Diablo Canyon Power Plant. Though Diablo Canyon is both economical and profitable, its owner can make more money by burning gas, dumping 7 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, and sending ratepayers the bill.

Or so its boardmembers think. At this moment, two hedge funds are in a battle for hostile takeover of PG&E. This afternoon, a public watchdog group filed a lawsuit challenging suspicious changes to California's utility code which would benefit the utility. Suffice to say, the story is far from over.

One city just banned new natural gas hookups to save the planet. Could Philly follow suit?