What are your energy costs in your area?
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tlc1976
Minister of Fire
My electric has a hefty service fee too, last I checked it was $30-$40 a month. They had to do that because of all the seasonal residents around here who barely use any electricity but expect year round service. The electric itself is like 10 or 11 cents per kWh. They have always been good, they are a co op so they give back every now and then.
I always fill the propane in the summer and for the last several years it’s been about $1.70 a gallon. Don’t know about natural gas as I don’t have access to that.
There are much more expensive places, but I paid $235 a ton for pellets and Family Farm and Home. Similar price to recent years. Only difference is they no longer run the big August and Black Friday sales where you could get them for under $200 a ton.
Don’t know about fuel oil, corn, or coal.
I’m sure the coal companies said the same when oil was really starting to take hold. Times change as does energy sources. Green new deal and Malarkey comments are pretty political; not sure f this is what this board is really about, but since you are sharing your beliefs here are mine. I believe alternatives are the future. Best to get on board before falling behind the rest of the world. The fossil fuel companies have been taking money from the government for ages. Let’s stop subsidizing them before we start dissing alternative fuels.
We burn pellets to get off oil and utilize a renewable resource, don’t like burning oil for environmental and political reasons.
At my age, I'm really not concerned much with any of it. I burn corn because it's cheap heat, no other reason. In fact it's very cheap. I don't plan on being on this side of the dirt in 10 years anyway. I'm not at all concerned with the environment, Mother Nature has done just fine for thousands of years and will long after I'm gone. We seem to have a pre occupation in this country today concerning the environment but yet China is making up for all our curtailment in pollution and then some.
Where do you think all the low grade soft coal goes today, you only get one guess. What country has no pollution controls on their stack emissions, one guess again and what country is surpassing this country in economic productivity, only one guess again.
Think about it, You want to learn Chinese and eat raw fish with chopsticks? I don't, maybe you do. It's all about equaling the playing field. Problem is, the equalization for us is downward to equal them. They aren't rising to our living standards we are sinking to theirs.
Think about it long and hard. Me, I won't be here to enjoy it. Maybe you will be, I don't know. All I know is I won't be and candidly I don't want to be.
Enough on that subject.
I don't like discussing political opinions anyway. I have my own and I'm not about to deviate from them.
Where do you think all the low grade soft coal goes today, you only get one guess. What country has no pollution controls on their stack emissions, one guess again and what country is surpassing this country in economic productivity, only one guess again.
Think about it, You want to learn Chinese and eat raw fish with chopsticks? I don't, maybe you do. It's all about equaling the playing field. Problem is, the equalization for us is downward to equal them. They aren't rising to our living standards we are sinking to theirs.
Think about it long and hard. Me, I won't be here to enjoy it. Maybe you will be, I don't know. All I know is I won't be and candidly I don't want to be.
Enough on that subject.
I don't like discussing political opinions anyway. I have my own and I'm not about to deviate from them.
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Adjusted to USD:
Electricity: $0.14/kwh + $42.33/month
Natural Gas: $4.79/Gj + $28.28/month ($0.505/therm) Includes carbon tax
Wood Pellets: $251/ton
Not sure on Propane or Fuel oil, propane is only used in remote areas with no natural gas, fuel oil isn't really used anymore.
Electricity: $0.14/kwh + $42.33/month
Natural Gas: $4.79/Gj + $28.28/month ($0.505/therm) Includes carbon tax
Wood Pellets: $251/ton
Not sure on Propane or Fuel oil, propane is only used in remote areas with no natural gas, fuel oil isn't really used anymore.
bogieb
Minister of Fire
Here is what the NH government says is the average price for heating fuel . Be aware, those prices are for customers that use at least 1,000 gallons of fuel (propane or oil). The electric costs do not include some of the customer charges (and I don't beleive that is residential either). Business get better prices than the average Joe.
![[Hearth.com] What are your energy costs in your area?](https://www.hearth.com/talk/attachments/heating-fuel-prices-1-1-2021-webp.270897/ "[Hearth.com] What are your energy costs in your area?")
My house has a propane FHW boiler that heats the main floor only. Since I moved here in 2013, I have never paid less than $3.50/gal for propane and have paid as much as $5.55/gal. Add to that the fact the pellets I buy are not $291/ton. I would average more like $250/ton if I bought full price pellets at TSC (without coupons, nor getting good pellets scores off CL). I think that give you a good idea why I have used pellets as my main heating source since 2014.
My house has a propane FHW boiler that heats the main floor only. Since I moved here in 2013, I have never paid less than $3.50/gal for propane and have paid as much as $5.55/gal. Add to that the fact the pellets I buy are not $291/ton. I would average more like $250/ton if I bought full price pellets at TSC (without coupons, nor getting good pellets scores off CL). I think that give you a good idea why I have used pellets as my main heating source since 2014.
minux
Member
I throw the caution flag anytime someone talks about renewables. With enough sunk costs, renewables can be had today. Without opening the check book far and wide...
Sawing wood, pressing pellets, putting them in plastic bags, and delivering with diesel trucks is renewable?
How is the plastic bag harvest this year? Coming in strong in South America
I throw the caution flag anytime someone talks about renewables. With enough sunk costs, renewables can be had today. Without opening the check book far and wide...
Sawing wood, pressing pellets, putting them in plastic bags, and delivering with diesel trucks is renewable?
How is the plastic bag harvest this year? Coming in strong in South America
So if wood pellets aren't renewable what is? You can't claim that there are cheap renewable options for heat and then debunk one of the cheapest sources.
I guess buying locally grown corn would be the most efficient renewable heat source. minimal trucking and supposedly corn growing absorbs as much co2 or whatever it is that burning it produces. Just what I heard. If pellets are made from scrap wood that would be renewable and recycled in my book.
tlc1976
Minister of Fire
I suppose if you harvested corn or wood off your own property by hand, that would probably be the most renewable and clean resource. But not everyone has that option or even wants to do that.
Any other source requires harvesting energy and transport energy in some form.
I think pellets made from scrap wood could be considered fairly clean and renewable. Even the bags are recyclable.
minux
Member
Not in Maryland - plastic bags are not recyclable.
In Hill Country, a lot of folks use the wood falling down from their existing trees. They cut and stack this wood, requiring minimal energy for harvesting. You could do this with non-power tools if you wish to reduce your carbon footprint. Good folks in the Hills take the aged wood and throw into a variety of furnaces. Been done this way, since the farms were built, while everyone else was using coal and oil.
Not saying pellets are the worst. You do have the issue of requiring current to run a pellet stove...
A lot of sunk energy costs are required to make, for example, a home off-grid solar powered. Destroying areas around Mount Holland for the lithium, for example. Any of you ever see the TN Mountains from SW VA and notice the mountain tops are gone?
I will echo what another poster said - doing something in North America to reduce emissions requires full-global cooperation. Let us not make a hurting family in America suffer with rising-high energy costs while Rivers in SE Asia are cesspools and we pretend this is "doing our part."
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One small step!!
One step at a time It is not a big job just a whole lot of little ones
do one at a time and you will get there.
One step at a time It is not a big job just a whole lot of little ones
do one at a time and you will get there.
minux
Member
I am ***ALL*** for going green, if we actually do it.
I am not for, as Mario would say, - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limousine_liberal
Well I sure don't fit in either of those categories
Just a poor old furniture maker/dirt farmer
bogieb
Minister of Fire
The pellets I get are from "locally" sourced wood (NH, ME, VT, just over the Canadian boarder). Some of what I obtain is from wood chips from furniture plants too. Heck, even that which comes straight from trees may use the parts that aren't being used for lumber or firewood, so using the whole tree (I'm not sure on that, just putting it out as a thought).
That is certainly better than using oil or propane - every bit of it which is shipped/trucked here from PA or further.
Not much corn growth around here - and most of that is for human consumption. The wood pellets don't come from crops grown with pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers etc.
Not saying wood pellets are totally green - just not the worst of the worst for where I live.
That is certainly better than using oil or propane - every bit of it which is shipped/trucked here from PA or further.
Not much corn growth around here - and most of that is for human consumption. The wood pellets don't come from crops grown with pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers etc.
Not saying wood pellets are totally green - just not the worst of the worst for where I live.
I guess the point we are all trying to make is that wood pellets and corn are more green than oil and propane. Can we agree on that? Nothing is 100% emission free or green unless you want to find a climate that requires no heating or cooling and you live off the land like the prehistoric people did.
minux
Member
The need for lumber will always be present, but let us know forget the electrical costs to mill lumber - (broken link removed)
Good we are using biomass residue for pellets, but a lot of electricity went into turning trees into pellets.
Good we are using biomass residue for pellets, but a lot of electricity went into turning trees into pellets.
BTW many sawmills produce a portion or all of their power by burning their waste wood. The kilns need steam so the incremental extra fuel required to generate higher pressure steam is minimal compared to the 1000 btus per pound it takes to convert liquid water to steam. The higher pressure steam is then run through a back pressure turbine to generate electric power.
Maine Woods Pellets use a relatively new method of electric power generation that is integrated with their dryer. https://www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca/maine-woods-pellet-co-producing-power-with-orc-system-6245/
Maine Woods Pellets use a relatively new method of electric power generation that is integrated with their dryer. https://www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca/maine-woods-pellet-co-producing-power-with-orc-system-6245/
minux
Member
This one is very interesting from that same site.
Vancouver plans to build sewage biofuel plant - Canadian Biomass Magazine
Nov. 9, 2016 - Metro Vancouver is looking to be the first wastewater treatment utility in North America that creates biofuel from sewage at its treatment plants.
www.canadianbiomassmagazine.ca
It takes energy to make energy, always has always will.
Forestry operations are typically as efficient as it gets for industry, very rarely are there "waste" products, everything is often sold, or turned into something else. Our local pulp mill really only has one waste, and that's ash, everything else is sold; electricity, steam, pulp, turpentines, etc.
The oil and gas industry isn't any better, the biggest engines I have ever seen have been in gas plants turning compressors, 1400hp is a small compressor, lots are 4000hp, but I've been around a few 25,000hp gas turbines. Lots of plants are running in excess of 50,000hp of compression power, think of the energy that takes. Never mind the fuel gas burnt for heating to regenerate mole sieves, desiccant towers, and amine scrubbers.
Forestry operations are typically as efficient as it gets for industry, very rarely are there "waste" products, everything is often sold, or turned into something else. Our local pulp mill really only has one waste, and that's ash, everything else is sold; electricity, steam, pulp, turpentines, etc.
The oil and gas industry isn't any better, the biggest engines I have ever seen have been in gas plants turning compressors, 1400hp is a small compressor, lots are 4000hp, but I've been around a few 25,000hp gas turbines. Lots of plants are running in excess of 50,000hp of compression power, think of the energy that takes. Never mind the fuel gas burnt for heating to regenerate mole sieves, desiccant towers, and amine scrubbers.
minux
Member
This is 13 years old and about as green as you can get
minux
Member
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