[Greenbuilding] cost of electric versus natural gas and gasoline

Mon Mar 10 00:08:47 CDT 2008

Imagine how much money you'd keep in your purse or wallet every month living
in a true Zero Energy Lifestyle home that has virtually no electric utility
bill, not buying gasoline for 75% to 90% of your driving and even possibly
getting a check from the utility company during the moderate spring and fall
months. (depending if your utility company has net metering and pays you for
your home generated electric contribution into the grid). 
The issue that isn't getting much press is the impending economic disaster
of World Peak Oil....during the gas crunch of the mid seventies oil was
$3.00 a barrel, now it is $103.00 a barrel...and rising. Regular gas will
hit $4.00 a gallon this summer, diesel in California already hit $4.00 last
year....Almost everything you buy to eat, wear or use is transported by
diesel trucks and trains. 
There are 1.5 Billion Chinese and 1/2 Billion people in India coming on line
to throw their demand into the world market for oil and oil products. There
simply isn't enough supply of fossil fuel to feed the total demand for
petroleum products. Prices are going to rise and supply will diminish.
People in the North East U.S. are paying a thousand dollars a month for
heating oil to warm their homes this winter. Next winter it will be even
more expensive. The world energy experts predict the abundance of fossil
fuel will simply cease to exist in 7 to 10 years. Mankind has been through
the stone age, the bronze age, the iron age, the age of industrialization
(with wanton disregard for waste and the environmental consequences), we
will see the end of the Oil age. As a species we MUST adopt to alternative
technologies to power our lifestyles. Hmmmmm.....we orbit a STAR and live on
a warm planet....hmmmmmm. If we can send a man to the moon, satellites to
the planets and probes to the bottom of the sea, surely some clever person
can figure out how to achieve the successful use of this free solar and
geothermal energy!!??!! Yep. Its been done. Internationally patented.
Working examples in Siberia, India, Africa, Europe. Ought to work here, too.
www.isomax-terrasol.eu (click U.S. flag for English) 
View World Peak Oil videos at: www.isomax-terrasol.eu/de/politik/oel.html   
And if you're interested in getting into the business of a solution,
www.eyedestu.com We are seeking License Partners to help proliferate this
truly viable alternative technology Zero Energy Lifestyle. We believe this
will be a multi-Billion dollar retrofitting industry....as oil prices
escalate and heating/cooling costs become astronomical over the next few
years. 
This proven technology is a paradigm shift away from thinking in terms of a
intermittent operating reactive system that cycles on and off during the
day/night over to a proactive system that runs continuously in the
background at a slow rate to maintain a constant temperature inside the
home. And 100% of the energy comes from the sun and the earth. That's the
warm soft facts. Now you have a choice.

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Keith Winston
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 1:00 PM
Cc: greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] cost of electric versus natural gas and
gasoline

I'll observe that this conversation has bifurcated:

The original question was about "which is cheaper", and the responses
brought in efficiencies to better answer that question.

The efficiency conversation then branched into generation efficiency. In
principle, of course, everything you need to know about generation
efficiency is visible in the price (I mean, that's what Capitalism is for,
right?)... though there may be minor externalities like climate change and
the end of the world as we know it...

This is why one might consider the carbon footprints of different options,
for example, as well as or instead of economic valuation in some cases. But
that doesn't necessarily relate to paying the bills this year.

Just wanted to clarify, in case this wasn't all obvious to everyone.

Keith

Bob Korves wrote:
> Efficiency losses also occur in the case of oil (and propane), which 
> must be extracted, transported, refined, (liquified), stored, and 
> transported -- much less so in the case of natural gas.  Or course, if 
> your electic power comes from fossil fuels then some of this 
> efficiency loss will need to be considered there, too, but not all 
> electricity comes from fossil fuels.  The calculations can get pretty 
> involved, especially if the embodied energy costs of drilling, mining, 
> infrastructure, and the like are considered, as they properly should be.
It isn't all about dollars...
> -Bob Korves
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Reuben Deumling" <9watts at gmail.com>
> To: "Ted Inoue" <tedinoue at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Greenbuilder list" <GREENBUILDING at listserv.repp.org>
> Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 8:18 AM
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] cost of electric versus natural gas and 
> gasoline
>
>
>   
>> On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 5:10 AM, Ted Inoue <tedinoue at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> Ben,
>>> For a comparison like this, one must also consider the efficiencies 
>>> of the energy conversions involved as that makes a substantial 
>>> difference in the outcome of the comparisons.
>>>
>>>       
>> This is a very important point, and doing so will reveal that the 
>> 100% efficient electric energy (measured at the level of your house) 
>> must--as others have pointed out on this list in the past--be 
>> multiplied by the efficiency with which coal or natural gas or oil 
>> was burned at the power plant where the electricity that is delivered to
your house was produced.
>> Commonly this is assumed to be somewhere around 35% or .35.  
>> Transmission and distribution losses are commonly also tallied in the 
>> case of electricity.
>>
>>     
>>> For example, if you use electric baseboard heaters to heat a house, 
>>> that delivers "electric heat" at essentially 100% efficiency. Every 
>>> kilowatt hour of electricity pumped into the baseboards delivers the 
>>> full 3413 BTUs of heat.
>>> On the other hand, a natural gas furnace will have a combustion 
>>> efficiency that diminishes the actual BTUs delivered to heat the 
>>> home. If you buy one therm and that is combusted at 85% efficiency 
>>> then you've lost 15% of the energy right off the bat, and have to 
>>> figure that in.
>>>       
>> Including the losses at the source then would suggest a rather 
>> different comparison between electricity and natural gas as a heating
fuel:
>> electricity: 35% (not counting T&D losses) vs. natural gas or propane:
>> 65-85%
>>
>>
>>     
>>> Next, you typically wouldn't run straight electric resistance heat, 
>>> but instead would use a heat pump. A good heat pump delivers 8-9 
>>> BTUs of heat for every one watt put in (see the HSPF rating). This 
>>> effectively improves the comparison in favor of electric heat by a 
>>> factor of 2+.
>>>
>>>       
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