Natural Gas Heating Guide

Natural Gas is the most common heating fuel in urban areas of North America; it is the cleanest fossil fuel (50% less CO2 produced per unit of heat than coal). But is it a green way to heat?

What is Natural Gas Heating?

Natural Gas is the most common heating fuel in much of the USA and Canada; Pulse combustion high efficiency furnaces are reaching efficiencies of up to 96%. It can power forced air or hot water furnaces, like the little one shown in the picture.

Why we like it

Natural gas produces the least carbon dioxide per unit of heat of any fossil fuel and is relatively clean burning. Recent advances in production in the USA have made it relatively plentiful. High efficiency furnaces do not have a traditional flue, but a combination flue that brings in outside air and exhausts through the wall. This means that it does not use household air for combustion and does not create a negative pressure in the home, which can suck in cold air in unwanted places.

Newer systems are very small; The unit shown above, little bigger than a briefcase, is providing both heating and domestic hot water in my 2,000 square foot house.

What we worry about

It is still a fossil fuel and we are going to run out of it at some point. Unlike oil, it doesn't ramp down gradually as a field depletes; it falls off a natural gas "cliff" and just stops. It also is almost impossible to know how much of the stuff there is. Natural gas is also a critical feedstock for many different petrochemicals; some say it is too important for that function to be used for heating, where there are other options.

Another issue is the technology used to get much of the stuff these days: "fracking," a process where water and chemicals are pumped into rock formations to squeeze out the gas. According to the NRDC,

"Most companies keep their particular "recipes" for hydraulic fracturing fluids under wraps, but many fluids are known to contain toxic chemicals intended to increase the efficiency of the process. Some, for example, include the carcinogen benzene and the powerful neurotoxins toluene and xylene."

Many are blaming it for contamination: "Private and municipal water supplies are contaminated with, among other things, methane gas. Endocrine inhibitors (which cannot be filtered out of water systems) affect the human and animal central nervous systems, causing birth defects, auto-immune-like symptoms, brain lesions."

Eco-factor of Natural Gas Heating

High efficiency forced air furnaces cost as little as $ 2,000; my system, shown in the picture above, heats both water for radiators and domestic hot water, and cost about $ 7,000. Natural gas prices have actually been falling lately, as more supply comes out of the shale fields and industrial demand drops because of the recession.

More on heating:
Cut Your Gas Consumption in Half in One Day
Natural Gas Getting Boxed Out of Climate Bill
Natural Gas Has Our Back: Last Shot For A Better Climate Bill This Year