I’ve read somewhere that natural gas at $4 has roughly the same cost per btu as coal. That both are roughly 1/3 the price per btu as oil. That for oil to be priced in equivalent btu as natural gas and coal...oil would have to priced at roughly $30@ barrel.
Is that correct?
Anybody know?
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/fuels-reference-equivalents-d_1089.html
Kinda a clumsy table but I have been curious for some time myself.
Average Heat Content of Different Fuels
Fuel Type No. of Btu/Unit
Kerosene (No. 1 Fuel Oil) 135,000/gallon
No. 2 Fuel Oil 140,000/gallon
Electricity 3,412/kw/hr
Natural Gas 102,800/1,00 cu ft (Therm)
Propane 96,000/gallon
Pine (20% moisture)* 18,000,000/cord
Hardwood (20% moisture) 24,000,000/Cord
the thing i love about coal is that it is a CONSTANT, EVEN heat... with any other heating(except maybe electricity) you get a warm/cool cycle as the unit kicks on raises the temperature then the house cools down till the thermostat kicks the unit on again
Try the calculator at: http://riversidecoal.com/coal-calculator/heating-calculator.html
According to http://www.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=about_energy_conversion_calculator-basics
100,000 BTU can be generated from 0.00045 metric tons of coal, 9.78 cuft Natural Gas, and 0.0017 bbls of crude oil.
One reference has coal at $82.75/metric ton coal (http://ycharts.com/indicators/australia_coal_price). Approximate oil at $100/bbl and natural gas at $4 per 1000 cuft.
That works out to 4 cents for Natural Gas, 17 cents for crude oil, and 37 cents for coal to generate 10,000 BTU.