Arkansas HVACR NewsMagazine January 2022

News Magazine January 2022

FEATURE STORY

and — counterintuitively — it will increase in natural gas consumption. ” “ Heating homes with natural gas is straightforward and efficient. The gas is piped into the house and then burned in a furnace with efficiency exceeding 90 percent in modern models. This means that 90 percent of the energy contained in the natural gas ends as useful heat for the home’s residents. However, that use — as all fossil fuels — produces carbon dioxide emissions. An electric heater can be just as efficient and produces no emissions. But what about the electricity used to run it? When natural gas is being burned in a power plant, only about 45 percent of the energy contained in it will be converted into electricity. As that electricity is transported and distributed, additional 6 to 10 percent is lost; and the amount of electrical energy delivered to a house is typically just one-third of the energy contained in the natural gas fuel. Consequently, the overall efficiency of a gas heater is almost three times as high than that of its all-electric counterpart. ” 6 Hill author, Ognjen Miljani ć , is a professor of chemistry at the University of Houston . He states, “ A broader lesson … is that politicization of energy leads to bad decisions — both on the political left and right. ” “ Energy issues are always complex and the two-party U.S. political landscape tends to treat most choices as binary. They are not — and nowhere is that clearer than in the case of natural gas. It is a carbon- emitting fossil fuel, on one hand. On

the other hand, it is cheap, much cleaner than coal and produced domestically. It has evolved into the transitional fuel of our time, allowing the U.S. to quickly ditch coal while giving renewables time to expand to the scale needed to power the entire electricity-hungry country. Once those renewables have reached that scale, banning natural gas in residential construction starts making environmental sense. Until then, these proposals are ultimately increasing our carbon footprint. ” 6 From this author ’ s perspective, I was birthed into the HVAC industry as a geothermal geek. Believed in it then and still do; however, I do not understand the move to ban or significantly limit the use of natural gas. It is an efficient, reliable source of Btus. It is also safe when we treat it correctly which the gas companies champion. We have gone too far in our group think at best and mob mentality at worst. Surely, Arkansas will continue to give Arkansans the choice of gas or electric for heating and cooking. My goodness, it just makes sense. References: 1 https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/ 2021/07/californias-cities-lead-way- gas-free-future 2 https://www.opb.org/article/2021/1 2/15/natural-gas-furnaces-water- heaters-in-crosshairs-of-some- northwest-policymakers/ 3 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/ 16/climate/gas-stoves-climate- change.html