What Are the Types of Home Heating Fuels?
What you use to heat your home is no small matter. Heating costs make up a large portion of the monthly household budget. Because heating is a recurring charge, even small price differentials can add up to large amounts over several years. Three main fuels exist in the United States: electricity, natural gas and the lesser-used propane. Choosing between these fuels may boil down to more than just cost. Does this Spark an idea?
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Significance
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The Department of Energy (DOE) states that 43 percent of an average utility bill goes to heating the home. Heating and cooling also contributes over 150 million tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere each year from the U.S. alone. How you heat your home and the type of appliance you use can reduce carbon emissions by 20 to 50 percent, reports the DOE.
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Electricity
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Electricity has been a popular home heating fuel for several decades now. The Department of Energy claims that most electric heaters are close to 100 percent efficient. Despite this, electricity is usually the most expensive fuel. The cost of electricity comes from the fossil fuels burned to produce it. Coal and gas used to produce electricity are only about 30 percent efficient.
Natural Gas
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Natural gas stands side by side with electricity as America's top two choices for heating fuels. Wherever oil deposits lay, natural gas can almost always be found. It can take millions of years to form natural gas as plant matter decays and is pressurized into oil and gas, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). New methods speed up the process of forming natural gas by "digesting" organic matter relatively quickly. Unlike most other fossil fuels natural gas burns very cleanly, but it still produces a sizable amount of greenhouse gases.
Propane
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Propane is a fossil fuel found mixed with natural gas that energy providers usually isolate from oil and gas, reports the EIA. Very few people use propane, only about 2 percent of the U.S. according to Energy Department statistics. Propane is most often found in rural areas without access to natural gas. Although propane is usually found in a gaseous state, its density increases about 270 times as a pressurized liquid and is easily transported as such. When one releases the pressure on a propane valve it returns into a gaseous state.
Choose a Fuel
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The debate between gas and electricity is a battle between costs and safety. The price advantage of the two main fuels, electricity and natural gas, depends on which state you live in. Natural gas tends to cost more than electricity on the west coast and Florida, but less almost everywhere else, according to home heating guru Michael Bluejay. Natural gas also carries the hazard of an explosion or dangerous leak, while electricity heating is accompanied by the risk of an electrical fire. Propane is rarely found in homes, and it is usually the only option when it is.
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- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Michael Cote'
