The greenies are pushing to remove natural gas from buildings and homes. They think the all electric home produces less carbon dioxide emissions. This story was front page on yesterday’s Wall St Journal. This idea is a looser in the real world.
The electricity has to be generated by real power plants. Fake power plants (wind and solar) cannot be depended upon to produce electricity when needed, leading to blackouts like they had in Texas last winter. Real power plants burn something (natural gas, coal, wood chips, anything) to make steam to drive steam turbines which drive the generators. Due to unbreakable laws of thermodynamics, only 40% of the heat energy gets turned into electricity. The other 60% is carried off by the plant’s cooling system. And the same 60% loss occurs in gas turbine plants.
Whereas a gas stove or water heater puts almost 100% of the heat energy into heating pots on the stove or water in the water heater. Natural gas burning appliances will save 60% of fuel compared to electric appliances. And gas stoves are better than electric stoves, they will boil water faster and when you turn down the heat, it goes down right now. Turn down the heat on an electric stove and it takes a while before the pot cools off, leading to burned food or boil overs.
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