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Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

Disagree.

I see the same thing where I live. Natural gas heating is much cheaper than electric. And we have one of the lowest electric rates in the country.

Gas heating was also cheaper when I lived in the Midwest.

In fact, I often feel the opposite of you - that Big Electric is pushing propaganda. I often see people switching to heat pumps "because it's more efficient", but they don't see their bills go down, and on top of that it's a lot more expensive to install. Even if the bills go down a little, they'll probably not make up for the added cost of equipment in the whole time they are in that house.

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My lay understanding is that gas is generally produced as a byproduct of pumping oil.

Consequently, as long as it's profitable to pump oil... more gas will be supplied to the market.

Which means that gas prices will generally be "low" (relative to energy content?) close to oil producers, as it's still profitable to "produce" gas even at low market prices (because you're mainly producing/selling more oil).

This is generally correct, that gas is often a byproduct. Consider the location and availability of gas pipeline and collector/compressor stations. And sometimes when pipelines are present they are already at capacity. It is a fascinating industry that is greening (less flaring, electric drilling).

Yes, for most of us, the cost of natural gas is almost completely transportation costs. The gas itself is only a very small fraction of our bill.

just pulled typical split-system listing in my country:

Gree Lomo Arctic R32 Inverter 2022 , about €740 (this is one of the top makers)

energy used while cooling: 0.7kW

energy used while heating: 0.7kW

cooling power: 2.7kW

heating power: 3kW

4x efficiency, yay! that's what heat pumps do

outside temperature from +43C to -25C. i've seen -30C and +48C in some models

Also, installation for split units is cheap around here

Split units in the US tend to be crazy expensive. When I was shopping for an AC, it was definitely a few thousand more than a regular (central) AC. I know folks in other countries buy it all the time, so it must be cheaper there.

"Cooling" and "heating" just means the inside coil is colder/warmer than the outside, it does not mean the inside temperature will be comfortable for everyone. Neither while cooling nor while heating.

Could you please explain what you mean? Split system in question is air-air, heat transfers between blocks via special liquid, and warmer /colder air spread through a room via fan. There are no coils. Also, keeping comfortable temperature inside is function of heat loss via walls/windows and effective power of cooling/heating

The special liquid is running through a system of tubes, called "coils" so it could exchange heat with the air. Keeping comfortable temperatures inside is also a function of the inside coil's temperature, which depends on the special liquid and the compressor. The higher temperature difference between the inside and outside coils, the higher compression is required and lower is the COP. Incidentally, the high inside coil's temperature is also required to heat the air inside at a reasonable rate.

technically speaking, you can crank up internal fan speed to eleven and get exhaust temperature slightly above current room temperature even if internals are way too hot. regular resistive heaters do that, with their heating elements fired up way past boiling water temperature

The problem is not the exhaust being too hot, but the heating element being too cold. Gas furnace, for example, burns gas at temperatures much higher than that of boiling water.

"much cheaper"

I can believe it has a lower price, but I'm sure the cost is higher.

Not in the least. With baseboard heating, the cost to heat my 1 bedroom apartment was on par with heating a 4 bedroom house (with gas). With a heat pump, at best it will be comparable.

Comment you're replying to was noting the difference between price-to-consumer and cost-to-planet.

> With a heat pump, at best it will be comparable.

Would it?

e.g. according to https://c03.apogee.net/mvc/home/hes/land/el?utilityname=ure&... unless you live in area with extremely expensive gas and very cheap electricity it will always be cheaper.

Thanks. Went to my gas and electric bills to look up the rates. Plugged in the numbers on the site. Heat pump estimated to cost me $400 extra per year for heating.

If I were doing a brand new build, it may make some sense just because I like to be "green". But paying several thousand just for the install, only to end up paying more per year: Just doesn't make sense.

I guess that's the crux of the green initiatives: people don't care about going green because they don't care about their environment footprint, thus generally don't care about the planet or other humans. Now if I phrased this too negative I'm sorry, but I guess I'm still right.

I think that website is wrong or using obsolete data. I compared with another https://www.pickhvac.com/hvac/furnace-vs-heat-pump-cost/ and it said that with exactly the same numbers the heatpump was 50% cheaper than gas. My own observation is that our heating cost reduced dramatically when we replaced gas with heat pump.

Electric resistive baseboard is obviously extremely foolish as a primary heating source. It's not a real point of comparison, but closer to a straw man.

The point is exactly that electric heat pumps and gas are comparable. Which means that other things start to tip the scale like not having gas in the house (fire safety), having nicer air conditioning for the summer from the same unit, offsetting the grid electricity use with your own solar (lower generation in the winter, but it still helps), and envisioning grid scale sources moving towards renewables.

I mathed it a bit. Assuming that there's no reclamation built in to current pricing, pricing in 100% reclamation would increase the cost of natural gas by ~40%. Still not more expensive than electricity if the article is to be taken at face value.

> Natural gas heating is much cheaper than electric.

Does this include the cost of dealing with the effects of emitting CO2 into the atmosphere?

The global economy runs on energy and emitting co2. Last I checked majority of electricity is mainly produced from burning fossil fuels.

You mean the costs of having to mow the lawn more or harvest more crops from all the increased plant growth?

https://www.nasa.gov/technology/carbon-dioxide-fertilization...

But also, how green is your electricity? The "electrify everything b/c it's greener" approach seems currently largely aspirational. My understanding is that most states still get most of their electricity from fossil fuels.

https://www.nei.org/resources/statistics/state-electricity-g...

My electricity is 99% green (wind + solar).

So is mine, supposedly, but overall we have a long way to go in switching the grid to renewables. The states that have the lowest dependence on fossil fuels for generation all have a significant amount of hydro power, which is probably not going to expand, and which can have its own environmental issues.

Some locations have a great mix of wind + sun, so minimal backup storage may be required. What is the plan/cost for offsetting solar cell production and recycling?

Solar electricity, including panel production and disposal, is so much less emissive than even the cleanest gas generator (let alone coal or such), that I honestly find that a worry for later. Let's get the world on low emissions before nitpicking about how to get it fully circular (likely, that's near-impossible and we'll eventually need to mine other bodies in the solar/star system, but that, too, I find to be a worry for later). It comes across as though you're asking a vegetarian if they've ever killed a mosquito. Perfect is the enemy of good

If it's a serious question, then this is where carbon capture will have to come in, if our emissions aren't already low enough to be workable for the earth's natural carbon cycles

You can get a lot closer to 100% green if you have rooftop solar no matter where you are. So moving to using more electricity just recoups your investment faster assuming you've overspecced even just a little.

According to [1], burning natural gas generates 0.0053 tons per therm. According to [2], the cost to reclaim CO2 from natural gas sources is approximately $90 per ton on the high end. Some quick math done on an old gas bill of mine suggests that reclamation would increase my bill by 40% (assuming that no reclamation is presently priced in).

So... If the article is correct, and electric energy costs 77% more than natural gas, then yes. Natural gas is still cheaper when factoring in emissions.

1 - https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-ca...

2 - https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2019.006...

> So... If the article is correct, and electric energy costs 77% more than natural gas,

If you use resistive heating, heat pump would be 40-50% or so cheaper. Of course with no subsidies the initial cost might be rather high.

I'll ask my landlord to install one right away.

Probably have to be an earth-exchange system to deal with temperatures lower than 40°F, given that heating my house in winter is the use case.

My Mitsubishi Hyperheat units have a COP above 1 down to -15F and still work normally at 5F (northern New Mexico, 6000', overnight). You're getting bad information.

Mitsubishis can work down to -13F/-25C and have a COP of 2.08:

* https://mylinkdrive.com/viewPdf?srcUrl=http://enter.mehvac.c...

If you live in US IECC Climate Zone 4 or above look for a cold climate air-source heat pump (ccASHP):

* https://neep.org/heating-electrification/ccashp-specificatio...

* https://ashp.neep.org/#!/

You can also get things installed in a dual fuel arrangement where you still have a gas furnace that kicks in if it does ever get 'too cold'.

My Lennox system is break even COP at -10 iirc. By then it's also running the heat strip, but we only hit those temps once or twice a year.

> According to [2], the cost to reclaim CO2 from natural gas sources is approximately $90 per ton on the high end

I may be reading that wrong, but I'm pretty sure that refers to the CCS cost when you capture at use (e.g. in a power plant). You can't really use CCS when you're heating a house, so the right price to compare to would be direct air capture which is an order of magnitude more expensive IIUC.

Let's see if we can fix that.

Found this article: https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-much-captured-co2-worth that suggests it's about twice as expensive. Though it seems that's the credit that the government pays, not the cost.

https://www.iea.org/reports/direct-air-capture-2022/executiv... suggests $125-$335 per ton, so not quite an order of magnitude but still a big difference for CCS.

Your [2] reference is about capture & storage for nat-gas power plants. Natural gas for heating is done at the endpoint. That's going to cost a lot more to capture.

From the perspective of an individual consumer it doesn't matter much. e.g. if you 100% rational (which is not necessarily the best approach) there is no additional cost for you related to you choosing to use gas regardless of what happens with the climate.

That's not being rational, that is being individualistic and short-sighted in name of greed/saving cash. Rationally you want to keep the Earth viable for human populations, for at least the sake of the future of your family if you are that individualistic.

Not on the individual level, free-riding is perfectly rational if you goal is to maximize your personal wellbeing, wealth etc.

Perhaps the issue then is the hyperindividualisation after the atomisation of society.

To my mind it's not perfectly rational to maximise my personal wellbeing and wealth in detriment of others, maybe I have a collectivist sense higher than others, maybe we should instill that across societies.

The 20th century went too far with the me-first approach, we can see it's not really working for societies.

You will pay for it anyway, in terms of increased taxes or insurance rates to pay for areas damaged by climate change, increased food and housing costs as useful land shrinks, and to pay for the upcoming climate refugee crises and ensuing wars. Pay a little more now, or pay a lot more later.

Gas costs just what the gas company asks for it, which is equal to what they think you’ll pay for it.

So it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to do this comparison to make some environmental point.

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