Duluth energy commission urges plan to shift comfort systems off natural gas

The Duluth Energy Plan Commission urged the Duluth City Council during a council meeting to begin formal planning and secure funding to transition the city’s Comfort Systems away from natural gas toward geothermal and other thermal energy networks, and to create either a city position or a task force to carry out that work.

The recommendation matters because, the commission said, citywide greenhouse‑gas reductions have stalled in recent years and the natural‑gas sector has become a larger share of community emissions. "For the corporate city, we have made significant progress ... being at 63% greenhouse gas reduction from in 2023 from a 2008 baseline," commission chair Gary Olson said. He told councilors the community as a whole had achieved about a 40% reduction between 2013 and 2020, but that electricity sector gains (about 63% reduction) were offset by much smaller reductions in the natural‑gas sector (about 13% reduction), and that the natural‑gas share rose to roughly 41% of community…