10,551 BTU or 3.1 kW of coal or 7,732 BTU or 2.3 kW of natural gas to produce 1 kilowatt of electricity, which is equal to 3,412 BTU.
With fossil generation, it takes quite a bit more kWh of the fossil fuel burned to turn into usable electricity. It took roughly 4.65 kWh worth of coal to make the 1.5 kWh of electricity, as it fossil fuels have significant losses due to the inefficiency in converting coal or oil into electricity.
How much does your 120 volt plug-in electric heater in your house use when it’s on? It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a $12 Walmart heater fan, or a $300 radiant heater in a fancy wood cabinet. All are same energy efficiency – when you apply resistance to electricity, 100% becomes heat, including the heat produced by the fan coils or indicator lights.
All 120-volt heaters are 1.5 kW or 5,118 BTU, because 120-volt wall outlets can only supply 12.5 amp constantly. In theory, you could make a space heater smaller then 1,500 watts but nobody does because electric coils are cheap to manufacture, and when you are warm, the thermostat just shuts off.
So every hour a heater heater is operating, it’s 1.5 kWh.
I find it oddly fascinating that in the split phase electricity system used in the United States, the only power that flows on the neutral wire back to the center tap of the pole transformer is the difference in amperage between the phases.
So if you have …
20 amp draw on the Phase A
30 amp draw on Phase B
You’ll have 10 amp flowing on the neutral, which is also referenced to the ground
If you disconnect the neutral from the center tap of the transformer, the 20 amp load will work okay but the 30 amp circuit will see its voltage cut by 1/3rd.
America has three electrical grids that are not synchronized to each other, and can not move alternating current electricity between one and another.
Generally speaking, a power plant in Oklahoma can't send electricity to most of Texas or Colorado.
Each grid was built separately and are incompatible with each other, although a limited amount of electricity can be moved between the interconnections using AC to DC to AC conversion. But such conversion is complicated and expensive, and isn't as simple as stringing lines between the grids.
The split phase system in America is a bit confusing but actually it's kind of ingenious in the sense that no wire has more than a 120 volt potential to ground. But it turns out there is more than meets the eye - the nuetral line actually carries any current not equal between the two phases back to the transformer - and if it's disconnected only the lowest amperage of the two phases will work. Fascinating stuff.
Climate change action is important but let’s be cognizant of the environmental impacts of renewables
Burning fossil fuels has largely known and well documented impacts. From the much touted carbon emissions to air pollution and acid rain to acid mine discharge from coal mines and scarred landscapes from mountain top removal and strip mines to drilling cuttings, fracking chemicals and produced water to cracked casings and oil spills the impacts of fossil fuels are well documented and somewhat regulated and controlled but probably not to ideal levels as production and low cost is often emphasized over safety and environmental protection.
But what is much less discussed and documented is renewable energy impacts. It must be green so there is no environmental impacts or the impacts are de minimus. But that’s far from the truth. Renewable energy consumes enormous amounts of land, it in future years has a real possibility of urbanizing enormous parts of countryside, paving over farm land and forest, producing enormous amounts of toxic waste like wind turbine blades and discarded, broken solar panels to impacting watersheds and fisheries alike, reducing scenic beauty and take land out of other uses. Things that deserve serious consideration and environmental analysis.
To be sure we do need to build more renewable energy but we have to always thinking about the consequences of our choices, not blindly building it because renewables are good and climate change is really bad and scary. Being aware of the environmental impacts of renewables doesn’t mean you’re pro fossil fuels, it means that you are a thinking society, trying to avoid negative environmental problems down the road.
We need to take a serious look before we leap – is the solar plant or wind farm appropriate for the place we are sitting it
We need to mitigate like planting pollinators friendly or native grasses around solar farms
We need to look at building more renewables in cities – be it mandatory solar panels on buildings, over highways or in urban waste lands like old garbage dumps, highway medians, or contaminated industrial sites
Why build a solar farm over green farm fields or forests when you can build over Love Canal?
