Free Republic

Winter is coming, to borrow a phrase. Every New Yorker knows that during our long cold season, we rely on utility companies to supply us with power and heat. Life would get darn uncomfortable otherwise.What many may not know is that Governor Andrew Cuomo and his climate-obsessed administration has been working hard to deprive utilities of the fuel they need to keep our lights on and our central heating systems operational. There were even power cuts in New York City this summer because of Cuomo's irrational aversion to fossil fuels, and one downstate utility company stopped accepting new natural gas customers because of...

I was talking to two friends in their twenties recently, about our travel experiences in foreign parts, and we circled around like an airplane looking for a landing place before we all agreed that foreign parts are all very well, but they’re not… comfortable. Now, sometimes it’s worth it to endure some discomfort in the name of travel — of seeing new places and broadening your horizons.  I put up with an awful lot of it when I was a kid, traveling by train across Europe.  It was worth it because I had stuff to see and places to go....

The magnets cluttering the face of your refrigerator may one day be used as cooling agents, according to a new theory formulated by MIT researchers. The theory describes the motion of magnons — quasi-particles in magnets that are collective rotations of magnetic moments, or “spins.” In addition to the magnetic moments, magnons also conduct heat; from their equations, the MIT researchers found that when exposed to a magnetic field gradient, magnons may be driven to move from one end of a magnet to another, carrying heat with them and producing a cooling effect. “You can pump heat from one side...

Carol Newby's search for bags of wood pellets to fuel the family pellet stove took her on a tour of Southern New Hampshire last week, with little success. "We usually get them at the local Agway," she said, "but they were in short supply and what they had was committed to customers who'd made pre-buys." She was able to get a few bags at the Lowe's in Epping, but when she went back, they were out. After coming up empty at tractor supply stores in Epping and Hooksett, she tried a nearby Home Depot, which also had no pellets to...

Any FReepers have any idea why the radiators in my home are just sort of warm to the touch but not toasty? Or, even stone cold? Enough to cause 60-66 degree temps in the house, which is decidedly NOT comfortable? Is it bad valves? Bad boiler (but there's plenty of hot water from the sinks)? A bad pump? When the maintenance guys bleed the non-functioning radiators, hot water pours out, but the radiator was not radiating heat. Just as cold as stone. The maintenance guys told me that a "second pump has just been installed", but I am still forced...

CINCINNATI —Ohio Gov. John Kasich has declared a statewide energy emergency for all 88 counties. The declaration was made in order to expedite the shipment of propane and heating oil to rural parts of the state. Kasich's declaration temporarily eases regulations on shipping companies and delivery drivers. They will be allowed to drive more hours and more consecutive days than they normally would, as long as they can still do so safely, the declaration read. Those longer hours are meant to help companies make the necessary deliveries of propane and heating oil to customers, as they are needed. snip This...

Apart from heating and cooling the house, water heating is one of the biggest energy drains in the average home. But what if you could literally use cold water to create hot water? That’s just what San Diego inventor Hal Slater claims to have done with the creation of a water heater system that promises to improve water heating efficiency by as much as 50 to 100 percent. The system works on the basis that cold water supplied to households in temperate climates averages around 70° F (21° C), which the researchers say is 15° to 20° F (8° to...

WASHINGTON _ The Senate on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a sweeping measure to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other protected areas to oil drilling, as well as to approve construction of the Keystone pipeline project. Tuesday's vote was the first time in four years that the Senate has voted on a measure including ANWR drilling, and it failed miserably.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid New England winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can't afford enough heating oil to stay warm. She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston's West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension and Social Security benefits. Her heating aid help this year will drop from $1,035 to $685. With rising heating oil prices, it probably will cost her more than $3,000 for enough oil to keep warm unless she turns her thermostat down to 60 degrees,...

Utility company PROHIBITING illegal immigrants from obtaining electric, gas, water or sewer service in Alabama... A major utilities company in Alabama is now prohibiting illegal immigrants from receiving electricity, gas, water or wastewater services to heated reactions on both sides, but they're just following the law. The Decatur Utilities company is now one of many in the state that follows the newly signed immigration law which prohibits business with illegal immigrants in the state or its subdivisions. 'We did not [originally] document or confirm whether or not they were citizens or aliens here legally,' Stephen Pirkle, Decatur business manager and...

When Eugene Jenkins showed up at St. Paul AME Church at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, he didn’t know he would be one of the last people to get a ticket for assistance with his heating bill. He waited in line until 7 a.m., when officials started to hand out the tickets, then went home for a few hours before returning at 10 a.m. By the time he had finished up his paperwork, it was 1:15 p.m., making for a long day. Jimmie Samuel, executive director of the agency, said the need for assistance in Bibb County has spiked, while the available...

As metro Atlanta's temperatures grow colder, the demand for heat is, well, heating up. A day after hundreds of people queued up outside a Marietta community center to apply for assistance with heat and power bills, hopeful applicants began lining up again around midnight, waiting in the sub-freezing temperatures for the doors to open Thursday morning. This time, however, officials let those in line come into the Mansour Center on Roswell Street an hour early at 7:30 and get relief from temperatures that dropped to 27 degrees. “We’re freezing,” said Lecher Eady, a Marietta mother who arrived at midnight seeking...

Will you have a warm house to come home to this winter? If so, you should consider yourself to be very fortunate. With the United States experiencing the highest levels of long-term unemployment that it has seen since the Great Depression, millions of Americans families are simply out of money. All across America this winter, families are going to be forced to make some heart breaking decisions. For many, the choice will come down to either heating their home or putting food on the table. According to the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, more than 10 million U.S. households...

MADISON, WI -- JULY 14, 2009 -- The stress of rising natural gas prices is leading many consumers to rethink how they heat their homes. For some this means moving towards modern alternative energy options, while others have been turning to a more traditional method for a solution to these rising costs. In Canada and the United States, wood burning stoves have been reevaluated as a potentially viable option for home heating. The case for modern woodstoves has developed with the improvement of the products on the market, as wood heating technology has substantially advanced in recent years. With the...

Sorry for the vanity, but I can't seem to find any good reviews/comments/opinions on Storage Heaters online. Everything seems to come out of England, and the last place I want to trust any info out of is that place. Here's the deal. My Mother-in-law wants to convert her basement into a livable space. She has baseboard heaters upstairs, but they're expensive to run. The electric company is pushing "storage heaters"--the kind where bricks are heated up and release heat at intervals so she doesn't have to use the baseboard heaters (which she'll have in the basement, too). Anyone know something...

... Aptly, perhaps, for an era of hard times, coal is making a comeback as a home heating fuel. Problematic in some ways and difficult to handle, coal is nonetheless a cheap, plentiful, mined-in-America source of heat. And with the cost of heating oil and natural gas increasingly prone to spikes, some homeowners in the Northeast, pockets of the Midwest and even Alaska are deciding coal is worth the trouble. Burning coal at home was once commonplace, of course, but the practice had been declining for decades. Coal consumption for residential use hit a low of 258,000 tons in 2006...

High natural gas costs expected to boost heating bills this winterBy THOMAS CONTENT tcontent@journalsentinel.com Posted: July 6, 2008 Consumers should expect energy price sticker shock to continue well past the summer driving season, as pain at the pump is poised to give way to furnace frustration next winter. The price of gasoline, above $4 for the past month, is on people’s minds — and it’s visible at nearly every major intersection. But another energy jolt may be coming as the price of natural gas, the primary fuel used to heat Wisconsin homes, is at historic highs for this time of...

Summer has barely begun, but Maine residents looking to install wood heating systems this winter may already have waited too long, stove dealers and firewood suppliers say. Stoves that burn firewood are available, but finding the logs will be difficult. Wood pellets are in good supply – for now. But the special stoves that burn them are largely sold out. With home heating oil averaging well above $4 a gallon, many Mainers are desperate to find a more affordable way to stay warm this winter. For households that have done nothing so far, however, lining up a stove and fuel...

American West Heating Nearly Twice As Fast As Rest Of World, New Analysis ShowsColorado River, Utah. The West's most pronounced temperature increase is in the Colorado River basin, which has warmed more than twice as much as the global average, with effects that put at risk a major water supply. (Credit: iStockphoto/Eric Foltz) ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2008) — The American West is heating up more rapidly than the rest of the world, according to a new analysis of the most recent federal government temperature figures. The news is especially bad for some of the nation’s fastest growing cities, which receive...

Home heating oil dealers on Wednesday urged Congress to put extra money in the U.S. economic stimulus package to fully fund a program that helps poor families pay their expensive winter heating bills. The New England Fuel Institute and the Petroleum Marketer's Association of America asked lawmakers to back a proposal to add $3.6 billion to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), as part of the stimulus package that will send rebates to taxpayers to spur the economy. "No one should have to choose between putting food on the table or staying warm," said Shane Sweet at the...