Posted on 11/17/2023 6:57:50 AM PST by george76
Natural gas remains the main source of heating in American homes despite the current administration’s electrification push. .
Heating homes this winter using natural gas is estimated to cut down energy costs by more than 40 percent compared to electricity, according to a recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Households using electricity to heat homes are projected to pay $1,063 on average between November and March, according to a Nov. 7 winter fuels outlook report by the EIA. In comparison, households using natural gas are only expected to shell out $601.
Region-wise, the biggest difference is in the Midwest, where electric heating is expected to cost $1,213—more than double the gas cost of $581. In the Northeast, gas heating is projected to be cheaper by $704, in the South by $507, and in the West by $417.
Natural gas heating is also cheaper compared to other alternative energy sources such as propane and heating oil, which are expected to cost $1,343 and $1,851 respectively.
High heating costs borne by households using electricity come as the Biden administration is pushing an electrification agenda. The administration is already imposing several restrictions on the use of gas-powered appliances. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced new efficiency standards for residential gas furnaces, pool pumps, battery chargers, dehumidifiers, ceiling fans, incandescent light bulbs, and gas stoves that would severely curtail their use...
Secondly, the Biden administration is offering rebates on the use of electric appliances in homes. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act set aside $8.8 billion in rebates for home energy efficiency and electrification projects.
In a June 2 interview with The Epoch Times, O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, said the Biden administration’s push for electrification of home appliances is bad news for Americans.
“That will make it so that nearly the majority of the current products on the market don’t meet the standards and have to be redesigned or removed from the market,” he said.
...
“Everyday things that people actually want are going to get more expensive or disappear, and the products that will be available will be more expensive but not better. People are going to wonder why life is worse.”
At present, there are more homes using natural gas than electricity in the United States when it comes to heating.
“Natural gas is the main space heating fuel in 46 percent of U.S. homes, making it the most widely used residential heating fuel in the country,” the EIA report reads.
“The share of U.S. homes that use electricity as a primary space heating fuel has grown to 42 percent from 38 percent 10 years ago.”
The Biden administration’s electrification push has attracted criticism for its unnecessarily burdening American consumers. In August, Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) raised concerns about the DOE’s energy efficiency standards on ceiling fans, arguing that it's against consumer choice and would result in higher prices.
“We are currently in a period of hot summer weather but also a time of high inflation. It is unconscionable that your department would seek to limit the options of the American people to stay cool in their own homes at a time like this,” she wrote in an Aug. 25 letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
More Than Triple the Cost..
An August report by the DOE revealed that natural gas is a far cheaper energy source than electricity. The cost of electricity was calculated to be $46.19 per million British thermal units (Btu). Natural gas cost only came to $13.97 per million Btu, which is 3.3 times cheaper than electricity.
The Energy Department’s analysis confirms that there's a “very clear and substantial cost-advantage of natural gas,” Karen Harbert, president of the American Gas Association (AGA), said in an Aug. 28 statement.
“Our nation’s domestic abundance of natural gas means American customers pay a fraction of what customers pay for other energy sources here at home and see significant savings compared to energy costs globally,” Ms. Harbert said.
“Our industry invests $91 million every day to ensure our vast modern delivery infrastructure provides the reliability Americans expect. America’s natural gas is critical to American and global energy security.”
The AGA estimates that households using natural gas for heating, drying clothes, and cooking save about $1,068 per annum on average compared to homes that use electricity for such activities. Through 2050, natural gas prices are projected to be half to a third of the price of other fuels.
Since 1970, the typical residential property has cut consumption by half even though homes have become bigger. AGA credits this to “steady improvements in building and appliance energy efficiency, and the positive impacts of gas utility energy efficiency program.”
President Joe Biden has implemented several steps to limit natural gas production ever since he assumed office back in 2021.
This includes a moratorium on oil and natural gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, imposing new taxes on gas extraction through the Inflation Reduction Act, and proposing revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act guidance, which would make it harder to permit natural gas projects.
In September, a bipartisan coalition of 25 governors committed to decarbonizing buildings across the United States.
“Decarbonizing buildings through accelerated energy efficiency and electrification is an imperative ... to reduce emissions and achieve U.S. climate targets,” a Sept. 21 statement by the U.S. Climate Alliance reads.
Speaking to Daily Caller, Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, said that the “political appointees in the White House ... are more interested in helping their big money backers in the green movement than they are in helping provide relief for working-class American families.”
“Higher electricity prices don’t hurt wealthy coastal elites, but they crush the poor, seniors, and those living on fixed incomes,” Mr. Pyle said.
In a March 21 letter to Ms. Granholm, House Republicans insisted that the department’s rules restricting gas appliances “has no basis in law or within your jurisdiction.”
"[The DOE] has enjoyed bipartisan support," it reads. "[But] your actions to appease the Biden Administration’s radical climate agenda does not reflect well upon the Department.”
The costs for electric heating will drop dramatically when the grid collapses. No electricity means no charges!
Down here in the South, reverse-cycle electric heat is cheaper than gas. Plus, you use the same unit.
Used to call that a heat pump.
Didn’t need a researched article to figure this one out. For years, I compared my electric bill to my gas bill.
Then one day, the legendary Dr. Bill Wattenberg out of 5000 watt radio station KGO stated the obvious, that we have abundant natural gas in California and switching to natural gas powered buses would save a bundle.
Of course, that was before Donald Trump lifted the totalitarian hand of Amerika off the backs of producers of oil and America became the top producer of oil in the world! Still, abundance of any form of energy is desirable in a free country.
Thnaks for that- we dont have all electric yet thankfully- our heater is oil, but rest of appliances of course are electric- but now ev
our electric per month, 3 in household, Is around 800-900 kwh per month while the state average is supposedly around 650 kwh, which I don’t understand as we no longer are doing 3 loads of laundry a day, or numerous showers a day like when it was 5 of us, we cut heat at night down to 60, only use ,iving room and kitchen, most of the day so lights not on all over house, don’t use oven often (mostly use microwave to heat up leftovers- use oven maybe 3 times a week for frying food, or occasionally baking a ha. Or turkey or whatever)
We should actually be below state average, as we are very co servative with electric use, but nope, we are 200-300 kwh more per month than average. I have to beleive that the state average is due to a good number of “snow-birds” shutting down house for Winter and heading south for winter.
All our appliances are “energy efficient” models too.
I suspect though something fishy might be going on as some days when we weren’t home for the day, our electric for the day shot up to 45 kwh- up from average of 25 kwh- this has happened a few times - even on days when we don’t do anything g out of the ordinary (ie no oven or Landry for the day)
One thing I don’t miss, but only beczuse I can’t physically do it anymore, is cutting splitting stacking and feeding wood to a wood furnace. However, when I was healthy, I did ,ove doing all that as it kept me in really good shape. I efen volunteered to cut split and stack other
People’s wood who needed the help for free- Wish I could still do it-
Yeah but by then everyone will have frozen to death or boiled to death so they won’t be able to take advantage Tage of lower costs lol
The company I work for is on a big electrification push. Corporate has mandated that all new equipment be electrically heated, not natural gas fired. We are already the biggest electrical consumer in this part of the state and we heat large ovens and many literal tons of molten metal with gas.
When the point is made that natural gas is cheap and much of our electricity is made from natural gas so electrification results in more expense and more CO2 emissions, their answer is that how the electricity is generated is not our concern, we need to be ready as green energy sources come online. They don’t care that we will spend millions more a year extra in electricity as we convert our gas heated equipment over to electric.
The result is millions in stockholders’ money wasted just to make the ESG score look better. So much for fiduciary responsibility.
NatGas is the most efficient energy source on the planet which is why Communists have to destroy it.
Cheaper, and far more reliable, as well.
It is not even close to being cost effective to heat with electricity north of PA.
The BTUs provided by Natural Gas, Heating Oil, Propane, wood Pellets or cord wood are vastly better. Here in NH we have very little choice because NG is not readily available outside of the cities. Electricity has been expensive ever since we built the Nuclear plant at Seabrook. So, most people like me outside of the cities choose either heating oil or propane. Then add some type of alternative heating source like my Harman Pellet insert or a wood stove like I had in my two former residences.
On the other hand most houses here do not concern themselves too much with AC in the summer. Only the newer forced hot air furnace homes also have built in AC units. Many people have added mini splits in the last ten years since they have become less expensive. You typically only really need AC here in July and August. So, most people like me put in window units in the bedroom windows just to cool at night for sleeping.
Had a home in the UK in 1975 that was all electric. It had a small boiler that heated one wall panel in the dining room we didn’t use and it heated up the water tank that fed the water heater (electric). We could only afford to heat the baby’s room. The rest of the house depended on that little boiler in the main hallway. I must have busted up a couple dozen pallets to make fire starters for the bags of coal I had delivered.
The first house I built I put in forced hot water heat that was driven by a little main boiler and fed hot water baseboard panels. It was efficient and much warmer than forced air heating.
Correct. Smart meters, smart phones, cars.. so they can force us to freeze in the dark.
They really crazy thing was the banning of fracking in NYS for natural Gas. There is SO much NG in the shale of New York state that it could power all of the northeast for the next 100 years. Yet, right across the border in PA people have become wealthy because of the gas wells drilled on their property.
I have a cousin with an old former dairy farm southeast of Buffalo about 40 miles. He has two NG wells on his farm. They are both capped. Not even pumping any out. Just in reserve for the future. He made them install a line to his house and barns. He runs everything off of NG.
The CEO’s of today’s large corporations are similar to the HC’s of the big time football schools. Basically, guaranteed large sum contracts with $millions in separation clauses to make them go away when they fail. This has resulted in corporate leadership that doesn’t worry too much about financial performance except as it affects them personally. After all, the costs of poor performance are someone else’s money, and if they can curry favor with the right people by being woke enough, there will be other lucrative opportunities.
Maybe “state average” includes people living in apartments.
A heat pump is definitely cheaper to run than a propane furnace, where I live.
Not in my area of Indiana. My gas bill multiplied six times it’s normal rate in the winter, while my electric bill went up by maybe $40.00, maybe a 25% increase.
Look what happened, last summer, to the dummies in CO, who volunteered!! to have “smart” meters installed on their a/c’s/homes.
Theirs were the FIRST homes to have a/c cut off, during the “historic” heat wave, IIRC.
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