"Some Guy" wrote in message ...
When all taxes and other charges are factored in, I pay:

10.62 cents per kWh for electricity

50.46 cents per cubic meter (1.43 cents per cubic foot) for natural
gas.

These are in CDN dollars (which is irrelevant since I am quoting both
forms of energy with the same currency but in case you're interested
the conversion between USA/CAN is about 1.16 CDN per 1 USD).

Given the above costs, what will be a more economical hot water heater
- electric or gas? (This is assuming I buy a tank, not rent it from
my local utility, and this also is just looking at the monthly energy
consumption of the tank - not the initial cost to purchase and
install).

I assume that both types will be equal when it comes to insulation (or
rate of heat loss) but perhaps not identical when it comes to
potential for problems (since a gas heater needs a void or space
running through the center, which means it has a more complex
contruction, as a pressure-vessel there are more seams that can
ruputure or leak).

I notice that new electric hot water tanks are almost half the cost of
a similar-sized NG tank (ie advantage=electric on initial purchase
price). An electric tank is also more "controllable" - I can more
easily control it in terms of powering it for time-of-day and
day-of-week operation.

So I think conceptually that electric hot water tanks are a better way
to go. But for long-term energy usage assuming the costs quoted above
(or more importantly their ratio) holds into the future - which type
will be cheaper to run?

Everyone has posted some good information for you so far (save one).

I'll just add that there are a couple of more factors to think about.

A natural draft gas heater (one that uses a chimney) can operate just fine
even without electricity in case the power goes out.

A forced draft gas heater (one that vents thru the wall and has a blower)
needs electricity to run at all. But you can plug them into a cheap 120V
'lamp timer' to 'program' it to run only when you want.

But programming won't really cut down on your losses unless you're gone for
several days, in which case you could just shut it off (or turn to 'pilot'
only to save having to relight the pilot when you return). The one
exception is if you have TOU (time of use) electric like John from Minnesota
has, where the cost of running it at night is a great savings.

Because gas heaters have a fire tube that runs up through the middle, they
have more standby losses than electric.

Insulate the vertical piping right above the heater (both the hot and cold)
to help reduce losses by convection when no water is being drawn off.

Consider getting a waste-water heat recovery heat exchanger to avoid sending
all the energy 'down the drain' after use. (google 'GFX heat exchanger' for
an example)

daestrom