Phasing out natural gas heating - question

[razz]

From CBC.ca news -

"Ontario's Liberal government is not denying a published report that its long-awaited action plan on climate change aims to phase out the use of natural gas in both home heating and the electricity system.

Premier Kathleen Wynne and Environment Minister Glen Murray have been working for months on an action plan to reduce carbon emissions through a mix of incentives to choose green options and new regulations to shift people away from using fossil fuels."

While I can understand the concern about burning fossil fuel's impact on the environment today, the $$$$ impact on the average consumer with some of the ideas being generated are questionable.

My question is technically intended though. Why is phasing out the only option being considered for the longterm? Surely with the technology available now and in the works, there can be major improvements in the actual combustion or the actual burning to reduce the impact of emissions and the cost to consumers.

This will affect consumers across North America so the push for greater efficiency must be in the works. Has anyone heard or read about alternatives to simply phasing out the use of fossil fuels?

[JaneV2.0]

I'm thankful electricity is affordable where I live, and I don't trust the safety of natural gas, so I would welcome its phaseout. I would be thrilled at a push in this country for green energy, but I'm sure I'll be long dead before this country gets off the dime with respect to renewable sources. Other countries (e.g.Germany) are moving full speed ahead.

[jp1]

razz, the problem is that there's simply no way to burn natural gas without procuding carbon dioxide. Simple chemistry dictates this. Natural gas already burns exceptionally clean, producing few other byproducts, mostly just water and carbon dioxide. (hence the reason a natural gas fired cooking stove can be safely operated in one's kitchen for long enough to cook dinner without being vented to the outside.) The only way to continue burning natural gas to generate electricity and not pour carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is to capture that carbon dioxide and sequester it somewhere. This has been/is being tried with limited success, and with the difficulty of needing to keep it sequestered for forever. Not to mention cost.

[Gardenarian]

It needn't be too high tech.
Of course we need to phase out natural gas to create electricity. It is very wasteful. It's more than past time to be using solar, wind, and biomass for electric production.

I think the government needs to make more of a push to get corporations, cities, and individuals to reduce their energy use. I'm at this moment in a library that has walls of windows, yet all the lights are on. Absolutely unnecessary. This is common business practice - just ridiculous. Who leaves their lights on all day at home?

As to phasing out use in homes, retrofitting houses so they use energy more efficiently is probably a good way to start.
Increasing the amount of insulation would decrease fuel use.
Using rugs (38% of heat is lost through floors) would be a baby step.
Adding windows to south and west walls might help for some houses. Using insulating blinds and curtains at night would help reduce heat loss too.
A lot of people use old gas cooking stoves; it might be time to replace those with a more efficient alternative.
Insulating gas water heaters (and hot water pipes) reduces waste.
Individuals can also install solar panels that feed into the grid.

Once a renewable-powered electric grid is in place, it would make sense for most to switch from gas furnaces to electric heat pumps and solar or electric water heaters.
People in rural areas could use wood or other biomass for heating.

It can happen. What we need is an energy saving propaganda war.
The drought in California really got people into the mindset of not wasting a single drop. Even now that they have a little rain, the people I know re-use every bit of water they can. It's time we all started thinking that way, about water - and about energy.

[Williamsmith]

I have a gas range, a gas fireplace and a gas forced air furnace. My gas bill is less than $50 a month. I'm not giving up my gas until there is an alternative just as cheap and just as efficient. I live in a region where we have the fewest sunny days of anyone short of the Pacific Northwest. Solar is worthless to me. And I want government out of the energy business. They really screwed things up with ethanol subsidies. Now we out corn in our gas tanks instead of on our table. And producing ethanol takes more energy than it creates. Get the government out of oil subsidies and the price will rise to the level where all the alternatives will start making sense but don't punish me financially.

[jp1]

I actually agree with williamsmith for the most part. Solar voltaic panels have dropped tremendously in price over the past few years as they have reached a point where they can be produced in large enough quantities to be done much more cost efficiently. A few more years of gains and they will make economic sense against other forms of electric production like natural gas. This is why utilities across the country are freaking out and pushing for an end to net metering or at least a surcharge for grid tied solar systems. Solar currently is not threatening their livelihood but they are taking a long view and realize that 20 years down the road it very much will be.

[JaneV2.0]

Germany is not exactly sun-baked, is it? How does mixed green power work so well there?

[Teacher Terry]

NV changed the rules and quit giving people a break on their electricity if they had solar panels so the solar companies all left and people are fighting the changes hard because they invested a lot of $ in solar panels and now are screwed. We usually have gas heat which is cheap heat but this house has electric and it is really expensive. We live in a fairly mild 4 season and in jan & feb our electric bill can be 400.

[jp1]

Electric heat only makes economic sense if you have a geothermal heat pump or live in a place where temperatures rarely get below the 50's. Air cooled(warmed) heat pumps become inefficient when outside temperatures get much lower than that and electric resistance heaters are inefficient at any temperatures. Their main benefits are simplicity, small size and low initial purchase cost.

[jp1]

Germany is not exactly sun-baked, is it? How does mixed green power work so well there?

Sizable government investment and prioritization. So it will never work here. The same people who are today always bitching about how the government never should've built the interstate highway system* would scream bloody murder at the idea that we might want to have government policy and/or expenditures directed towards renewable energy.

*(j/k about the interstate highways. It would only be if the government was trying to build them today that we'd have people howling against the idea of socialist roads. Since they already exist and are obviously useful and beneficial to our society in many ways the people who think government can do no right and who ought to think they are horrible don't say anything because everyone else would point out how silly their point of view was.)

[Gardenarian]

Natural gas is cheap because it is heavily subsidized. The actual costs are astronomical.

Here is an interesting article on the issues around hydropwer: http://www.wired.com/2016/05/death-birth-american-dam/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

[Williamsmith]

Natural gas is cheap because it is heavily subsidized. The actual costs are astronomical.

Here is an interesting article on the issues around hydropwer: http://www.wired.com/2016/05/death-birth-american-dam/?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003

Renewable energy receives more than twice the amount of government subsidies than all fossil fuels.
If the actual costs of natural gas is astronomical, then renewables are other universe light years more costly. Government needs to back out of the subsidy game, and let the market determine the costs. Radical environmentalism is peddling fear in order to control the narrative.

[Gardenarian]

With natural gas, you also have to factor in the ultimate environmental costs.

As to heat pumps being only useful in mild climates, there has been some great work building completely passive houses (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/business/energy-environment/26smart.html?_r=2&ref=earth&pagewanted=all)in areas where the climate is very extreme. With adequate insulation and proper sun orientation, a heat pump should be sufficient for just about anywhere.

[Williamsmith]

Show me a 2000 sq ft passive house you can build for less than $100/ sq ft and I will get excited. But at an estimated price of $550,000.......you are just digging yourself a debt hole you will never climb out of.

[razz]

While I can appreciate the impact of carbon dioxide, I don't see how homes can be retrofitted for billions of people especially those in cold climates and those in very hot as AC is a great electricity user as well. Most electricity is sourced from nuclear or fossil fuels directly or indirectly as the base load source of electricity.

Passive homes have a long way to go unless you give up huge acreages to house those living in high density apartments and condos who still use energy. We need our acreage to feed our populations.

It does seem to me that if the problem is carbon dioxide, it would be wiser to look at uses for that rather than all the other options that are being presented.

This government is noted for going blindly into so-called solutions, very costly ones, to problems without looking at the opportunity costs of doing so, IMHO anyway.

[Williamsmith]

The financial loss of abandoning nuclear technology has been in the trillions of dollars. We need to get back to it. You want to talk about phobias ....environmentalists have nuclear phobia. It remains the single most promising solution to climate change. Given the predictions of apocalypse due to global warming....why not put our collective efforts into safer enhancements to nuclear technology?

[ToomuchStuff]

Back in the early to mid 2000's (no later then 2007), I saw a press release about a Toshiba nuclear reactor that was being designed for "home use". I was shocked and intrigued at the same time. (went to look for it, but found not the same article) http://www.wired.com/2007/12/toshibas-home-n/
Guess what, it has issues as well.
Natural gas has been used for more then 100 years, and the infrastructure is there. To modify existing infrastructures to something else, is a costly proposition that one needs to look at the payback for.
Shifting the use of gas from homes, to a central location to switch everyone to electricity, has issues as well.
Passive housing, is a different design, and then you have to change expectations as well. My preference, a monolithic dome, has a cost of around $130 a square foot. But a lot of people don't want to live in something that looks like an egg, even though it doesn't burn, has no roof to replace, uses less power, etc. You can force your values on others, but not enforce them to believing them.

[razz]

Back in the early to mid 2000's (no later then 2007), I saw a press release about a Toshiba nuclear reactor that was being designed for "home use". I was shocked and intrigued at the same time. (went to look for it, but found not the same article) http://www.wired.com/2007/12/toshibas-home-n/
Guess what, it has issues as well.
Natural gas has been used for more then 100 years, and the infrastructure is there. To modify existing infrastructures to something else, is a costly proposition that one needs to look at the payback for.
Shifting the use of gas from homes, to a central location to switch everyone to electricity, has issues as well.
Passive housing, is a different design, and then you have to change expectations as well. My preference, a monolithic dome, has a cost of around $130 a square foot. But a lot of people don't want to live in something that looks like an egg, even though it doesn't burn, has no roof to replace, uses less power, etc. You can force your values on others, but not enforce them to believing them.

What would I google to find out about the egg design that you mentioned above? That is new to me.
ETA: I googled 'monolithic dome' and got a lot of info that is really interesting. Wonder how popular they are and where?

[JaneV2.0]

I was pretty sanguine about our hydroelectric centered electricity production--until I checked again and found that PSE gets 29% of its energy from natural gas, and a percentage from coal! Some form of nuclear power may be inevitable, but Three Mile Island, Fukushima, Chernobyl, and--here in Washington--Hanford, make me very dubious of its safety.

I'd love to see much more active--and passive--solar construction. And the same push for green energy as other countries have. Bill Gates seems to agree:
http://usuncut.com/climate/bill-gates-only-socialism-can-save-us-from-climate-change/

[jp1]

While I agree that we need to be designing houses with the environment in mind, the way we used to. There's a reason houses in the deep south have big tall windows and houses in new england much smaller ones. I cringe everytime househunters goes somewhere like Chicago and the people are looking at apartments with entire walls that are floor to ceiling windows. There's just no way that apartment isn't going to cost a fortune to heat and air condition, and in winter it will probably be cold regardless of how much energy is spent trying to warm it. Home builders today and in recent decades have focused on esthetics and convenience to the builder. Basic changes that need not cost more, like shading houses in phoenix from letting direct sunlight in and using solar hot water panels for their hot water needs would go a long way towards more energy efficiency at minimal cost for example. Some retrofits can be done to existing housing such as better insulation, but ultimately those buildings are a sunk cost and people will be living in them for decades to come.

Count me among the environmentalists who DO support nuclear power. The US nuclear power industry has not ever recovered from Three Mile Island. And that's a shame. There are much much safer nuclear plant designs in existence now but none are here. They are all in Europe and elsewhere.

[jp1]

It does seem to me that if the problem is carbon dioxide, it would be wiser to look at uses for that rather than all the other options that are being presented.


Nature's use for carbon dioxide is to grow plants. During past episodes of warming periods on earth there were a lot more big leafy rainforest type plants, in areas where they don't exist today. They absorbed massive amounts of CO2 and eventually the planet cooled and they died off. Maybe someone more imaginative than me will come up with an alternative use for massive amounts of CO2, but my guess is that we'll live with it until we manage to extinct ourselves. After humanity has gone extinct and stops exerting its massive effect on the planet I imagine the same thing will happen again with huge quantities of plants eventually absorbing up all the excess CO2 and bringing the planet's temperature back down. Trusting that the earth will likely go on just fine after we're gone gives me a lot of comfort.

[Williamsmith]

Nature's use for carbon dioxide is to grow plants. During past episodes of warming periods on earth there were a lot more big leafy rainforest type plants, in areas where they don't exist today. They absorbed massive amounts of CO2 and eventually the planet cooled and they died off. Maybe someone more imaginative than me will come up with an alternative use for massive amounts of CO2, but my guess is that we'll live with it until we manage to extinct ourselves. After humanity has gone extinct and stops exerting its massive effect on the planet I imagine the same thing will happen again with huge quantities of plants eventually absorbing up all the excess CO2 and bringing the planet's temperature back down. Trusting that the earth will likely go on just fine after we're gone gives me a lot of comfort.

+1

You won't hear climate change alarmists talking about how green the planet is getting because of the CO2 increase and the ability of the earth to defend itself. So far, they haven't claimed that human intervention is causing increased volcanic activity....why because that would create a cooling effect on the earth. We need to respond to these climate concerns with good common sense engineering but flushing our financial common sense down the drain , in essence jumping out of the fast moving vehicle to our death before it runs over the cliff.....is insanity. Alot of environmentalism is being taken over by people who yearn for the kind of life nomadic tribes used to enjoy. But the population of the planet is not conducive to these simplicities unless you plan on killing off a bunch of people.