571–580 of 766 posts
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US exported 6.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2022. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/imports-and-...
Yea at rather insane prices due to the Ukraine war. In 2022 the US imported 3 trillion CF, exported 6.9 trillion cubic feet, and extracted 43.8 trillion CF. By comparison in 2015 we only exported 1.8 trillion CF.
I recently got heat pumps in the hopes that I could phase out my oil furnace. What I can say so far is: The temperature is wildly inconsistent. I don't know if this is a software issue, a hardware issue, or just the way heatpumps work. I've had the installer come back and look at it, I've had the heat pump rep come and look at it too. They basically checked everything and tried to convince me this is normal. With oil…
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Right, the heat pump will reduce energy use to maybe 1/3 of a gas furnace, but natural gas is something like 6x cheaper for the same amount of energy, so it is an expensive folly. If California is serious about this, they need to reign in the utilities to reduce prices and or stop the attacks on solar installation.
Solar isn't a useful source of energy for heating in California, since the demand is almost entirely during winter mornings/evenings where the sun is down.
It requires a minimal amount of "smarts" and is all standard plumbing.
One of the big problems with heat pumps in New England is that our electricity costs 1.7x the US average ( https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... ). If you're in the South, a heat pump makes perfect sense. You're going to want AC anyway and it'll be way more efficient and save a ton of money when you want heat. In most of the country, even if it gets cold your electricity prices are still a t…
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No such thing as a global gas price. Natural gas pricing is regional as it cannot be easily transported.
US exported 6.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2022. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/imports-and-...
If shipping makes it an order of magnitude more expensive, then there is no global price.
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I live in the Bay Area California and get electricity from PG&E. I use a minimal amount of electricity and I paid 43 cents/kWh last month. Gas from Costco is $4/gal right now. I have a plugin-hybrid which does 4miles/kwh and 45mpg or in terms of money: 9.3miles/$ on electricity and 11.25gas-miles/$ on gasoline. But maybe you don't actually care about fuel efficiency, then you have an argument that it's cheaper to fue…
That’s astonishingly cheap for petrol, wow. We’re paying at least four times in my country minimum…
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> In a way this is the market doing what it's supposed to. There's a shortage of electricity because of everyone doing electrification upgrades, so the price of electricity rises PG&E electricity rates have absolutely nothing to do with free markets. The only thing setting PG&E rates is corruption and incompetence, but mostly corruption.
Customer choices in response to electric rates is absolutely free markets, though. I think that there's a lot wrong with the utility system in California (and the corruption actually incentivizes incompetence - the only way for executives to increase profits, make the stock go up, and get higher bonuses is to increase their costs, so PG&E is very good at inflating costs by doing stuff like burning down cities). But g…
The only thing stopping me from buying a great pump is how unreliable the power grid is in my area. Lines are above ground, with numerous trees overhanging them so a snow storm is high risk for a power outage at a time I can least afford it, as road conditions may prevent seeking shelter elsewhere. Conversely, with a furnace and a small generator to run the blower, I can keep heat on through a couple days without pow…
We lose gas heat when the power goes out (frequently) here too because the forced induction fans need electricity to run.
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Replace your heat pump? People installing new heat pumps are going to see much higher efficiency. 50,000 BTU = 5.27528 * 10 ^ 7 J = 14.6 kWh / 6.6 kWh = COP of 2.2 at 50f which is absolutely terrible. Modern heat pumps should have a COP around 4 at those temperatures and 3 near freezing. Also, “Subtracting 10%” would mean your grid losses are 17%. “annual electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) losses average…
Its brand new! Also, should have been 60,000 BTU - its a 15 SEER unit.
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Natural gas won’t stay cheap. It was cheap here in Australia 10 years ago and now it’s so expensive no one can afford to run gas heating and it’s only going up. Now (thankfully) the government has banned the installation of new gas heating and a lot of people are getting rid of gas cooking, hot water heating etc… it’s for the best.
The only reason that natural gas prices in Australia have gone up in the past 10 years is that gas producers in the eastern states were able to start exporting gas as LNG. As of 2023, Australia is the world's second largest LNG exporter (source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1262074/global-lng-expor... ) after the US (take that Russia!) and ahead of Qatar. Great for the gas exporting cartel but not so great for…
How can that be?
Direct consumption emissions are eliminated.
Those with solar (a growing percentage) reduce their indirect emissions from grid non-renewable generators.
And there is a growing percentage of green generation on the grid.