Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson continues to put his eco-ideology ahead of his taxpayers’ best interests as he pursues his inane natural gas ban.

Yes, Gregor is sticking to his plan to eradicate natural gas within Vancouver city limits by 2050, using the building code and other regulatory and legislative means. That means he is dooming future Vancouver residents to paying $1,500 more per year in heating costs if they go electrical, or five times the current rate if they move to so-called “renewable” natural gas.

The irony is that to get that much “renewable” natural gas, Vancouver would need to add a number of landfills within city limits to create methane. To put everyone on electricity will take a heckuva lot more than just one Site C dam, which is already drawing the ire of environmentalists.

It’s all-too-typical of Robertson and his Vision Vancouver acolytes to make everyone else pay, while they play at greenwashing. From the real experts on natural gas (via today’s Vancouver Sun):

Jason Wolfe, a FortisBC spokesman, clarified claims by his company that the city’s plans included a natural-gas ban. Rather, the plans would serve as “an effective ban” that would ultimately raise rates for all gas customers, he said.

“The approach the city is using is effectively taking gas out of the equation by all these little changes. Making it so that a builder (or) developer will just throw up their hands and say: ‘Look, either I can’t afford it or it’s not worth the headache to put gas in anymore, and I’m just not going to do that.’ That’s the same as a ban to us,” Wolfe said.

… At $10.21 per gigajoule, the residential rate for renewable natural gas is more expensive than conventional gas, which is now priced at $2.05 per GJ.

In a city where cost of living is the number one problem, this deliberate, mean-spirited energy gouge should be on every taxpayer’s mind.