"Pete C." wrote:

John wrote:

"Pete C." wrote:

George wrote:

Pete C. wrote:


The problems with gas is you get locked into a monopoly that charges you
even when you aren't using the product,

Explain how big oil isn't a monopopy. They are all in lock step with
each other.

First there is no such thing as "big oil", those are big *energy*
companies that are involved in nat. gas as well. The producers all have
similar costs so logically the products they produce have similar costs.
It is not some sort of collusion.

Energy prices are also high at the moment due not only to the middle
east nonsense, but also due to the significant losses and costs
associated with rebuilding the offshore oil rigs and the refineries
severely damaged by Katrina. These are real costs that have to be
recovered.

Too bad gas service doesn't involve refineries.

You don't think it does? You think you just stick a pipe in the ground
and run it to your furnace?

I wish.



Think again, nat. gas does indeed get refined to remove a bunch of nasty
impurities in the gas.

What you are referring to as "refining" is removing impurities, or even separating off
propane etc. I have heard of people with natural gas wells on their property (if I
could be so lucky) piping it right to their house, with the right safety equipment.

If it didn't need refining to be useable offshore
oil platforms would use the nat. gas they separate to power their
generators instead of just flaring it off.

That's because that is waste gas and junk, not the natural gas you'll find in a
pipeline. Everything that comes out of the ground is not equal.






Most people who use gas tend to use it for hot water,
cooking and clothes drying so you tend to use it year round.

I think many is more accurate, not "most". I know quite a few people who
only use gas for heating.


is subject to outages and is far
more dangerous than oil.

With oil you have multiple suppliers in competition that you can choose
from,

Who all have to buy from the same source yielding little difference in
price.

I've found price differences of better than $0.20/gal during record cold
winters when the overall price was around $0.85/gal. I consider that to
be a significant difference. You nat. gas suppliers also have to buy
from the same source.


you have an on-site fuel supply that is not subject to outages

No outage here in 35 years.

You're lucky. I've had no oil outage in 36 years and others within about
a 10 mile radius have had to go to shelters during a multi day gas
outage in the winter.


from a back hoe miles away, and I think you'll find the ratio of peoples
houses that have been destroyed by gas leaks compared to those destroyed
by oil leaks astonishing.

Also if you want to be "green" you can burn biodiesel and/or waste veg.
oil in your oil furnace as well, something you can't do with a gas
furnace.


A natural gas furnace is already "green" since it isn't a petroleum product.

Good grief! You actually believe that?

Why do you think that so much electric production is being shifted from OIL to
GAS? Hint: Price, Cleanliness, Reliability.

The points are that you think natural gas is not a petroleum related
product

What makes you think I think that? Natural gas is not petroleum, but it is certainly
related to petroleum at several junctures.

and that there was a significant amount of oil based electric
production in this country.

Well in 1973, as I quoted earlier, seventeen (17%) percent of electricity in the United
States was produced from oil. Apparently you don't think it's significant. If 17% of
the power in the USA just disappeared, I would call that significant.

You also said that nuclear electric production was lessening in favor of natural gas.
In fact nuclear power generation in the United States has been increasing, with record
power levels from 1997 on. This is in spite of the fact that there are less reactors in
service today than there were in
1990. zp6a2



Electricity production has been shifting from coal (not oil) to nat. gas
due to price (until they built all those generating plants and drove up
the price) and political issues making it easier to build small nat. gas
generating plants.

Yeah "political issues" like clean air.




Nat. gas is indeed a petroleum
related product. Those gas flares you see off the side of oil rigs are
nat. gas that has been separated from the oil.

No, that is waste gas from oil production and is not the same cleanliness that you
will find in a natural gas system plumbed to a house.

Um, it's the same gas, before the refining done to clean it up enough to
be plumbed to your house.

Natural gas is not refined. If it was the same gas, it *would* be piped to houses.