# Phase out oil heat **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 14, 2015, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031 "2015-05-14T14:04:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/21 "2015-05-14T18:05:32Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > At any rate, my point was that heat pumps and electric resistance heat are just using electricity from the grid, which has to be generated somehow. That’s mostly natural gas and coal, so I guess it technically meets the requirement of getting off oil reasonably well, but it’s still heat ultimately derived from dirty fossil fuels. To some extent, nuclear power. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/22 "2015-05-14T18:22:03Z")
My thinking has long been mandating geothermal in all new (single family residential at least) construction, with subsidies for conversion to geothermal in existing structures. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/23 "2015-05-14T18:41:39Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > My thinking has long been mandating geothermal in all new (single family residential at least) construction, with subsidies for conversion to geothermal in existing structures. And what should they do in the 99% of the country where geothermal heating is unavailable? :dubious: But seriously, oil heating is by far the most expensive heating option available. For those of us who have natural gas, heat is a utility, like water. Who gives a shit if 4 feet of snow fell last night? As long as the power didn’t go out, you’ll have heat. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/24 "2015-05-14T18:55:22Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > And what should they do in the 99% of the country where geothermal heating is unavailable? :dubious: Geothermal heating is a huge misnomer. It’s more accurate to call it a ground source heat pump system. You run long runs of pipe into the ground and then use the ground as a source to pump heat from during the winter, or pump heat into during the summer. It’s using the exact same refrigeration cycle as a air source heat pump / air conditioner / refrigerator, etc, except that the ground is a much better sink than air. During the summer you’re trying to pump heat into cool 50 degree soil instead of into hot 90 degree air. In the winter you’re trying to pull heat out of relatively warm soil instead of cold 20 degree air. They’re extremely efficient aside from the high cost of putting all the piping in. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/25 "2015-05-14T19:26:43Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > And what should they do in the 99% of the country where geothermal heating is unavailable? :dubious: Where is the 99% of the country in which buildings are not constructed on the earth? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/26 "2015-05-14T19:32:02Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > Geothermal heating is a huge misnomer. It’s more accurate to call it a ground source heat pump system. > > You run long runs of pipe into the ground and then use the ground as a source to pump heat from during the winter, or pump heat into during the summer. It’s using the exact same refrigeration cycle as a air source heat pump / air conditioner / refrigerator, etc, except that the ground is a much better sink than air. > > During the summer you’re trying to pump heat into cool 50 degree soil instead of into hot 90 degree air. In the winter you’re trying to pull heat out of relatively warm soil instead of cold 20 degree air. > > They’re extremely efficient aside from the high cost of putting all the piping in. so how would you heat the home to 65 in the winter then? If the ground is 50? ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/27 "2015-05-14T19:43:22Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > so how would you heat the home to 65 in the winter then? If the ground is 50? You \*pump \*the heat out of the ground and into the house. That’s why they call it a heat pump. You can read all about refrigeration online - [Heat pump and refrigeration cycle - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump_and_refrigeration_cycle) How does a refrigerator keep your food 37 degrees when the air in your house is 69 degrees? It’s the same process thermodynamicaly. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/28 "2015-05-14T19:53:04Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > You \*pump \*the heat out of the ground and into the house. That’s why they call it a heat pump. > > You can read all about refrigeration online - [Heat pump and refrigeration cycle - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump_and_refrigeration_cycle) > > How does a refrigerator keep your food 37 degrees when the air in your house is 69 degrees? It’s the same process thermodynamicaly. I read the article and it is still all a bit beyond my knowledge level, but, my question is not does the process in general work, I understand the basic idea, my question is if the temp of the air in the ground is 50 how do you get the temp inside the house up to 65 or 70? ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/29 "2015-05-14T20:03:07Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I read the article and it is still all a but beyond my knowledge level, but, my question is not does the process in general work, I understand the basic idea, my question is if the temp of the air in the ground is 50 how do you get the temp inside the house up to 65 or 70? You are going to need supplemental heat, but far less is required to raise the temp 15-20 degrees from 50 to 65-70, than raising it from whatever the outside temp is. Say it is zero outside. The cost of circulating the fluid is FAR less than the cost for a furnace to raise the ambient temp from zero to 50. In either case, you are going to have to pay to raise it from 50 to 70. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/30 "2015-05-14T20:06:05Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > You are going to need supplemental heat, but far less is required to raise the temp 15-20 degrees from 50 to 65-70, than raising it from whatever the outside temp is. > > Say it is zero outside. The cost of circulating the fluid is FAR less than the cost for a furnace to raise the ambient temp from zero to 50. In either case, you are going to have to pay to raise it from 50 to 70. Ah, ok, thanks ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/31 "2015-05-14T20:12:40Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Heat pumps often have resistive strips inside the ductwork to add supplemental heating. Resistive heat is almost 100 % efficient, since most of the current goes into producing heat. > I have a 220v baseboard heater that is less expensive to run than the propane furnace, but of course it will not heat the entire trailer. Resistive electric heat is the last resort in my neighborhood, due to the cost of electricity vs. fuel oil or propane. In more urban areas, there is natural gas. Nowhere close to me is electric the choice for economy. In Los Angeles, I had a heat pump wall air conditioning unit for a large room. It cooled in the summer and heated in the winter (just reverse the flow, so to speak). But when the outside temp dropped below 45F, it was no longer efficient, and a resistance heater kicked in automatically. Then the electric bill really soared. This would not be practical in Wisconsin or Canada, as there would be too many winter days where the heat pump was too inefficient, unless you upgraded to a more powerful model, and that would increase the cost significantly. > [@pkbites](#): > > What were all these wars we “often” went into? I can only think of 2 that might have been construed to be for oil and those had a pretext for being for something else. > > This may be exclusive to the area I live in, but I know of nobody that still uses heating oil. When I was a kid in the 60’s & 70’s I’d estimate almost everyone did. The oil trucks were always driving around making deliveries. Sometime in the 80’s a lot of people switched to natural gas. I hardly ever see an oil truck in a neighborhood any more. There is no natural gas in my area. There is no city water line in my area. There is no sewer line in my area. Anyone who is thinking in those terms is not considering most rural areas. Heck, there are some places around here that don’t have electricity unless they generate it themselves, and didn’t have phone service until cellphones were invented. > [@Dinsdale](#): > > Where is the 99% of the country in which buildings are not constructed on the earth? :dubious: Geothermal heat is not the same as heat pump. Geothermal refers to places, like Iceland or Yellowstone where there is hot water or hot rocks close enough to the surface to be usable. A heat pump can be made from any heat source. > [@Robert163](#): > > I read the article and it is still all a bit beyond my knowledge level, but, my question is not does the process in general work, I understand the basic idea, my question is if the temp of the air in the ground is 50 how do you get the temp inside the house up to 65 or 70? As long as the temperature is above absolute zero, there is heat, and it can be extracted. The less heat there is, the more expensive it is to extract it. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/32 "2015-05-14T20:20:09Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > I read the article and it is still all a bit beyond my knowledge level, but, my question is not does the process in general work, I understand the basic idea, my question is if the temp of the air in the ground is 50 how do you get the temp inside the house up to 65 or 70? You are confusing temperature and heat. They’re related but very different things. Does it make any sense that there might be more heat in an entire swimming pool full of barely water, than there is in a small sink full of hot water? The sink water is clearly a higher temperature, but because there’s so much more water in the tub, there’s actually more heat in the tub. Another way to think of it - how much ice would it take to get the pool down to 32 vs the sink? For the same amount of water clearly the hotter water would require more, but you would have to throw a hell of a lot more ice into a swimming pool than into a little sink. So if that makes sense, then the only question is how could you possibly pump heat around like that? The answer involves boiling and condensing special fluids that boil and condense near room temperature, but I think if the pool / sink analogy makes any sense you may be able to accept that the pumping works somehow. There’s lots and lots of earth to pump heat out of and you only need to heat a relatively small house. You can do the exact same thing with your house and the outside air, it’s just much less efficient because there’s so much less heat in the air in the winter than there is in the ground. And if it sounds like some kind of magic perpetual motion machine it’s far from it. You have to use a lot of electricity to compress the refrigerant and pump it back and forth, you’re just using less energy than heat is being pumped around. Ground source heat pumps can easily deliver, say, 3.5 kwh of heat using 1 kwh of electricity. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/33 "2015-05-14T20:24:03Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Geothermal heat is not the same as heat pump. Geothermal refers to places, like Iceland or Yellowstone where there is hot water or hot rocks close enough to the surface to be usable. > > A heat pump can be made from any heat source. I’m not an energy engineer or anything, and apologize if I misused terms in a manner that caused any serious confusion. Ran a quick Google on “geothermal heating”, and nothing on the first page seems to refer to volcanoes, geysers or hotsprings. So at least some folk are misusing the term in the same manner as I. So, yeah, I guess I could/should have specified “geothermal heat pump” in my brief initial post. I apologize to everyone who thought I was advocating that new buildings only be constructed on active volcanoes! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/34 "2015-05-14T20:31:53Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Where is the 99% of the country in which buildings are not constructed on the earth? :dubious: Heat pumps are not the same as geothermal. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/35 "2015-05-14T20:38:46Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > In Los Angeles, I had a heat pump wall air conditioning unit for a large room. It cooled in the summer and heated in the winter (just reverse the flow, so to speak). But when the outside temp dropped below 45F, it was no longer efficient, and a resistance heater kicked in automatically. Modern heat pumps can reliably churn out heat as low as 5 degrees, or even -10 degrees. They deliver less heat, so there’s a crossover point where some electric resistance heat kicks on to help make up for the lost heating capacity. It’s true that the cost of the energy consumed by the electric resistance is almost certainly higher than natural gas or other fuels, but your highly efficient heat pump is still delivering most of the heat even on very cold nights. There are “dual fuel” heat pumps that switch to a natural gas furnace below a set point, which has the advantage of never using electric resistance heat. The downside to dual fuel systems is that below that set point you’re not using the highly efficient heat pump at all - it shuts off entirely for the natural gas, unlike with electric resistance strips which can operate in tandem. To make the best decision for a given house you need to figure out how much heat is likely to cost in actual dollars, not worry too much about resistance heat or efficiency (assuming you’re the homeowner and not the HVAC installer, who has no choice but to worry about the technical details) ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/36 "2015-05-14T21:07:21Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > You are going to need supplemental heat, but far less is required to raise the temp 15-20 degrees from 50 to 65-70, than raising it from whatever the outside temp is. > > Say it is zero outside. The cost of circulating the fluid is FAR less than the cost for a furnace to raise the ambient temp from zero to 50. In either case, you are going to have to pay to raise it from 50 to 70. Ok - but why would you take air from outside to heat and circulate inside? I presume you’re not coming home after a week of no heat, so the temp inside is already way above zero. Probably way above 50 as well. So heat up the inside air. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/37 "2015-05-14T21:22:52Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > You are confusing temperature and heat. They’re related but very different things… Ok, I understand the sink/pool analogy. But my question is still this, the other poster was right, you take 50 air from the ground and that is easier to heat up to 70 than trying to heat up to 70 when the outside temp is 20. Is that part of what I said correct? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/38 "2015-05-14T21:48:22Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > We use a lot of oil every winter to heat our homes and businesses here in the USA, and often we need to go to war in order to make sure we have a supply of oil. Why don’t we start requiring alternative methods? > IMO, we should only go to war for a commodity if there is no alternative. We have plenty of alternatives to oil when it comes to heat. Heat pumps and natural gas are both made in the USA, and are cheaper than oil. Electric heat has been around for over 100 years as well. _often we need to go to war in order to make sure we have a supply of oil?_ Even the Iraq war resulted in less oil exports to the USA [http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMIZ1&f=M](http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMIZ1&f=M) If the USA is going to war for oil, we sure are doing a shitty job of it, since it aint working. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/39 "2015-05-14T21:48:24Z")
Heating oil accounts for a very small percentage of US petroleum consumption. According to the [Energy Information Administration](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=41&t=6), 20% of US usage is for “Heating Oil / Diesel Fuel”. Not so helpful, since it lumps diesel in there, which obviously is a huge usage in the US, for trucks and trains (and a few autos). So, at the very most, 20% of our petroleum usage is for heating, but it’s very likely much less than that (probably a single digit percentage). [This EIA chart](http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=3690) shows that heating oil is really only significantly used in the Northeast, and even then, it looks to account for less than 1/3 of fuel usage there. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2015, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031/40 "2015-05-14T22:16:46Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Why don’t we start requiring alternative methods? I’d love to get away from dirty, expensive, forced air oil heat. Are you planning to come pay to replace my furnace? Pay the gas company to run a line down my street or a propane company to come set up a tank on my property? It’s just a few thousand dollars. Can I count on a donation from you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phase-out-oil-heat/720031.md?page=3)