Pellet Stove vs
Natural Gas
Since a wood pellet stove
needs only 125 lbs (1/16 of a ton) of pellets to generate 1,000,000
BTUs, divide the cost per ton by 16. At $198 a ton for wood pellets it
costs $12.38 to produce 1,000,000 BTUs.
Cost To Burn Natural Gas
The price per therm (look at your gas bill) of natural gas in Boston
is $1.1813. When you multiply that by 10.30 (10.30 cubic feet) it
costs $12.17 to produce 1,000,000 BTUs.
It’s easy to see that natural gas heat now costs about $0.21 less per
1,000,000 BTUs than wood pellets.
Here are the quick fuel cost comparison formulas for wood pellets and
natural gas:
Price per ton of wood pellets divided by 16 = Cost to produce
1,000,000 BTUs.
Price per therm of natural gas x 10.30 = Cost to produce 1,000,000
BTUs.
The quick formulas are useful only for comparing natural gas to wood
pellets since their fuel efficiencies are similar.
If you are comparing fuels with different efficiencies, all you have
to do is find the coefficient of the fuel efficiency percentage
rating. Please don’t run screaming out the door because I said
coefficient. Just divide 1 by the percentage’s decimal equivalent to
obtain the coefficient.
For example: The fuel efficiency rating for natural gas and wood
pellets is 85%. If you divide 1 by .85 you get a coefficient of 1.18.
Now plug this into the quick formula to obtain the effective, or true
cost, of the fuel you are burning.
Wood Pellets: $198 divided by 16 x 1.18 = $14.60
Natural Gas: $1.1813 x 10.30 x 1.18 = $14.36
By expanding the quick formula to include the effective cost
calculation, the spread between the two fuels has now widened to
$0.24.
Assuming fuel prices don’t go crazy, you could save as much as $75
during the remainder of this heating season by switching from wood
pellets back to natural gas.
When prices do change, you have armed yourself with two simple, yet
powerful tools to help you quickly and confidently determine when one
fuel is more cost effective than the other.
Here are the formulas to help you determine the true cost to produce
1mil BTUs of heat content for six more fuels:
Electricity: Price per kilowatt hour x 293 x 1 =
Corn Pellets: Price per ton divided by 16 x 1.18 =
Fuel Oil: Price per gallon x 7.1 x 1.25 =
LP Gas: Price per gallon x 11 x 1.25 =
Wood: Price per cord x .0607 x 1.67 =
Kerosene: Price per gallon x 7.41 x 1.25 =
Alternative-Heating-Info.com is your guide to wood and
wood pellet stoves, corn stoves, solar heating systems,
radiant heating, portable space heaters, geothermal heat
pumps, and landscaping for shade and windbreaks. Copyright
2006 by Sam Streubel all rights reserved.
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