Comment by Marsymars
2 hours ago
It doesn't take into account leaks, but modern NG furnaces are substantially more efficient than modern gas power generation.
2 hours ago
It doesn't take into account leaks, but modern NG furnaces are substantially more efficient than modern gas power generation.
I’m not sure that’s easily quantifiable. Yes, thermal efficiency of modern NG furnaces can be ~95% or whatever… but you can also run multi stage heat capturing NG power plants that have very high overall efficiency too. Not 95, but at 60-70%, it’d be a potential wash in terms of emissions if leaks are ~10% (especially considering how much worse unburnt NG is as a leak vs when it’s burnt).
Also, if you’re in the electric ecosystem, swapping to heat pump systems will obviously be lower overall power in basically every scenario, and it gives an easy transition path unlike NG.
> Also, if you’re in the electric ecosystem, swapping to heat pump systems will obviously be lower overall power in basically every scenario, and it gives an easy transition path unlike NG.
Maybe... I've got a NG furnace now and am looking at adding a heat pump, and even with a pretty expansive budget, I'm struggling to make the numbers work on actually removing the furnace entirely vs. doing heat pump + furnace. (And the near-impossibility of upgrading my home service past 100A makes it extra complicated if I want to electrify everything.)
I’m not making the argument for total amortized cost. I’m just talking about per energy unit cost, specifically in terms of CO2 or emissions.
If the evaluation is total lifetime cost to you, using the equipment you currently have almost always wins out. Same with purchasing more efficient hvac and such: the cheapest/lowest efficiency hvac is almost always the most cost effective. That tide could turn with sharp increases in NG or electric prices… but it hasn’t historically been true for many years.