Green electricity

Just looking at the C02 emissions per kWh of electricity and gas.

Figure from the web tell me that
Gas produces 0.185 kg of CO2 per kWh
Electricity 0.309kg of CO2 per kWh

Does anyone know if they are correct, as it suggests that using electricity over gas produces more CO2

Reason I ask is, Im getting asked about environmental methods for water and space heating, and is electric a viable option.

These calculations can be effected by so many factors.
Also the production of electricity through renewables is on the increase as the coal stations close down. So I presume that will make electricity greener.

studentspark said:

Electricity 0.309kg of CO2 per kWh

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Is that per kWh generated or per kWh delivered to your house. Losses in the network are significant and have to be taken into account.

I would question how anyone knows? To work it out one would need to know the materials to maintain both systems, and how much of the materials used to maintain electric would still be required if we used gas for all we could, gas lights etc.

Be it cost in CO2 of laying pipes or cables, or making pipes or cables or cost to cool or compress the gas or turn electric into DC and back to AC and losses on transmission lines, transformers etc.

The point is if the cost of delivering the fuel is even considered. How long will an underground cable last, how long will a pipeline last? And of course is this UK or Globule, as not counting cost to transmit gas or electric from Russia or France would warp the figures.

Green electricity is when a poor quality plasticizer has been used in the insulations and a green grunge comes out of the wires.

studentspark said:

as it suggests that using electricity over gas produces more CO2

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A large proportion of electricity in the UK is generated by burning gas - and as generating and distributing electricity has significant energy losses, it's inevitable that using electricity will create more CO2 than using the gas directly.

studentspark said:

Also the production of electricity through renewables is on the increase as the coal stations close down.

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Coal stations have closed, mainly because the number of gas powered stations increased.


Source: https://assets.publishing.service.g..._data/file/728374/UK_Energy_in_Brief_2018.pdf

and what's the CO2 output of shipping wood chips from USA to UK, including that produced in the production, drying and transportation of the chips before they've even left the transit ports

At least wood chips contain carbon that has been recently harvested by the trees as they were growing.

Unlike oil and coal and gas that have carbon from millions of years ago.

Oh dear. When we run out of gas, where will we get electric from?

Panic.....

It's all very short sited kidology green, no one works out the true costs start to end, they look at energy production through a very narrow window - one which suits there purpose.

The cost in CO2 from the beginning to end, I would think would be very difficult, to calculate.

Just ball parks Im after really.
Client wants to stop using gas, and move over to electric.
But as pointed out electric is increasingly made from burning gas.

So an example.
The client wants to remove central heating radiators (Water heated by gas boiler) and replacing them with 800w Electric radiators.
This is purely for 'green' reasons, cost is not an issue at all.
I was very sceptical both on effectiveness, and greenness.
When you take into account, replacing perfectly fine heating system with another, and the footprint of just that.
Plus each electric radiator will require 800w
A central system that heat water and distributes it to each radiator, must be greener.

So if you had 10 800w radiators thats 8kW
Not sure how to work out 10 radiators fed by gas central heating

For that example, the only viable solution currently would be for them to have their own solar panels with battery storage, so that the electricity they use is not taken from the grid.
Heat pumps will use less electricity than direct heating, so would probably be required as well unless their solar array and battery system is massive.

Otherwise, gas heating still makes sense both from the 'green' side and economically.
Burning gas locally for heating results in most of the energy being used.
Burning gas far away to create electricity wastes somewhere between 50-70% of the energy, most of it in the conversion to electricity with about 7% lost in transmission of the electricity from generation to their home.

Green, Smart and many other key words are more about selling new products than actually being better for either us or the environment.

Still not convinced that LED bulbs save energy, I believe all energy used in a house helps to heat it, and unless it is heated to the point where we need to open windows or use air conditioning to cool the house, then only way to save energy is to reduce the heat that escapes, be it wall insulation, loft insulation, better windows and doors or heat recovery units, OK some areas of the home tend to over heat more than others, so in the kitchen using induction hobs, and LED lights is clearly going to help a lot as that room tends to get hot.

But how can one compare gas to electric? Take the induction hob as one example, in summer it keeps the kitchen much cooler, a 2 kW induction hob will cook faster than a 5 kW gas hob and auto turns off each time pan is removed, so uses around a 1/3rd of the power, so to run cost is around equal, but as you add not needing to run a cooker hood sucking heated air outside and all the safety features it must be even better both summer and winter.

If we heat the home with electric we (as long as not using off peak) have more control, it does not need to be central heated with electric it can be just as and when we use the room.

However it costs so much more, it really does not matter how energy efficient, we will use gas or oil when we can.

Some time in the future I can see an increased use of a water heat store, my brother-in-law had one, which allowed LPG, Electric, Solar, and wood burner all to run the central heating, but installation cost was silly. Running costs may have been low, but if you include interest on the outlay, it will never ever break even. Think about interest paid on £16,000 then work out how much of any of those single fuels you could buy for that, and it become clear not worth doing.

studentspark said:

The cost in CO2 from the beginning to end, I would think would be very difficult, to calculate.

Just ball parks Im after really.
Client wants to stop using gas, and move over to electric.
But as pointed out electric is increasingly made from burning gas.

So an example.
The client wants to remove central heating radiators (Water heated by gas boiler) and replacing them with 800w Electric radiators.
This is purely for 'green' reasons, cost is not an issue at all.
I was very sceptical both on effectiveness, and greenness.
When you take into account, replacing perfectly fine heating system with another, and the footprint of just that.
Plus each electric radiator will require 800w
A central system that heat water and distributes it to each radiator, must be greener.

So if you had 10 800w radiators thats 8kW
Not sure how to work out 10 radiators fed by gas central heating

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Sorry your post not seen on last answer, so with installation cost not an issue, need the water heat store, can use gas or electric at flick of a switch, so can add solar panels which will produce green energy, but if snow covered or fail for any other reason they can fall back on gas.

I'm a little confused - if the customer wants to use electricity because they want to reduce their carbon emissions, presumably they'll buy their electricity from a company like ecotricity who don't produce electricity from gas, so isn't the question of gas being used to produce electricity irrelevant to them?

Do you think who sends the bill makes a difference to the electricity used?