THE FEW THAT SPEW: Just 1 percent of New York City's buildings burn heating oil, but those structures create more soot than all of the city's motor vehicles. A new program there will switch out those fuels with cleaner burning oil, biodiesel or natural gas.
Image: iStockPhoto
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
Dear EarthTalk: What’s the deal with New York City buildings switching over from heating oil to natural gas? Is this a trend in other U.S. cities as well?— Mitchell Branecke, Yonkers, N.Y.
Anyone who has lived in New York City knows that particulate matter is omnipresent there. Commonly referred to as soot, such particulate pollution is comprised of fine black particles derived of carbon from coal, oil, wood or other fuels that have not combusted completely.
Due to this preponderance of soot in the air, asthma rates in some parts of the Big Apple (like Harlem and parts of the Bronx) are sky high. Environmentalists have been pointing the finger for years at the dirty residential heating oil used by so many New York City buildings, many of which were built before natural gas was widely available. According to the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), just one percent of the buildings across the five boroughs of New York City burn noxious heating oils, but those structures send more particulate matter airborne than all of the city’s cars and trucks combined.
That’s why mayor Michael Bloomberg announced this past June that an innovative public-private partnership (known as NYC Clean Heat) between the city’s government and leading banks, energy providers and environmental groups would be putting up $100 million in financing and other new resources to help buildings there make the switch to cleaner fuels. NYC Clean Heat kicked off last year when the city ordered the phase-out of the dirtiest home heating fuels: No. 4 and No. 6 oils that are still used in some 10,000 New York City buildings and which create a significant air pollution hazard. Switching out those fuels with cleaner burning oil (such as No. 2), biodiesel or natural gas will go a long way toward meeting Bloomberg’s aggressive new “PlaNYC” goal of reducing soot pollution some 50 percent by 2013. The mayor’s office reports that the new restrictions will save 120 lives and prevent 300 asthma-related hospital visits a year, while generating some $300 million in construction activity in the short term.
Property owners interested in a clean heat conversion can access the funding, which is coming from a combination of city coffers and financial institutions including Chase, Deutsche Bank, Hudson Valley Bank, Citi and the Community Preservation Corporation. On the environmental side, EDF is offering technical assistance and outreach to buildings that are undergoing fuel conversions by making available a team of trained energy professional to help evaluate conversion options, coordinate with utilities and beef up energy efficiency measures. As for the utilities, Con Edison and National Grid, the two primary providers for the New York City metro area, have agreed to upgrade their natural gas infrastructure to make it easier and cheaper for buildings to make the switch. And Hess Corporation, the city’s largest residential heating oil provider, has begun to offer customers new incentives to switch to natural gas, ultra-low sulfur No. 2 heating oil and biodiesel.
Large numbers of buildings in several other older U.S. cities, mostly in the Northeast, still rely on dirty heating oil, mostly because they were built before natural gas was widely available. Whether some of these locales will follow New York City’s lead in marshalling resources to facilitate a wholesale switchover remains to be seen and may hinge upon the success of New York City’s program. But no doubt individual property owners who can make the switch are doing it of their own accord due to the low price of natural gas versus oil.
CONTACTS: NYC Clean Heat, www.nyccleanheat.org; EDF, www.edf.org.
EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E - The Environmental Magazine ( www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.
See what we're tweeting about
19 Comments
Add CommentSeems like Bloomberg is a warming Denier replacing one source of GHG's with another just a bad - air pollution benefits aside.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFar cleaner far cheaper to use nuke power for the heat.
Nuclear is far more expensive than natural gas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCheaper still is building renovation that with a 5-10 yr payback would cut it's energy needs by 50-75%.
Changing from the most dirty oil fuels to NG is environmentally good especially when part of a whole building upgrade. This kind of fuel oil is as bad or worse than coal.
Sethdiyal nukes are not coming anytime soon and even if they did they can't be more than 30% of grid supply as too much would be wasted above that.
The real low cost, best future is very eff homes/buildings that not only use less but make their own power/energy. That way not only do you save fuel costs but utility markups of 2-4x's!!!! So even utility nukes could be made for lower cost/$11kw, retail cost will be high. They are paying $.03/kwhr in Fl by Progress/Duke for nuke power they won't even be able to buy for 10 yrs if ever puts the lie to those who say nuke is low cost.
I'm presently building a 36'x20' trimaran sailboat I'll be moving onboard that with just a 1kw PV array will supply A/C, cooking, heat and everything else. It's costing me $2k for them, the 3kw inverter, 48hr battery bank that will supply the energy I'll need for the rest of my life. But I'll also have tidal and wind just because I need to test them for production.
RE are really simple machines that last 25-50 yrs and less complicated than a moped. Now once these are in real mass production nukes, coal, NG won't stand a chance of being the low cash cost, lowest environmental cost by a good margin. If no one else will build them I'll be glad to have the market to myself.
sethdiyal would have us power our cell phones with small nuclear power plants if he could. Glad he's offered to store the US's nuclear waste in his back yard. Of course safer and cheaper only apply on paper. In reality safety requirements are what make nuclear expensive. Nuclear plants don't last as long in reality as on paper and the safeguards drive costs up. They are also similar to oil in that when there is an accident the costs go way up but it is the people and the communities that are hit that pay the price. Of course this does not say oil is good by extension (sethdiyal tends to use false dichotomy whenever anyone challenges his claims about nucs) but to me, the risks are too great.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat being said, I have been impressed by the prospect of thorium floride reactors and think they could go a long way to solving a number of issues in that waste heat from these reactors can be used in desalination plants and waste gasification. Perhaps they could even be used in locomotive engines. Keep the options open but don't rush into a bad solution just because it is slightly better than the current solution.
@jerryd, how are you using tidal on your boat? I would be interested to know your thoughts on combining wind and current turbines in a single floating rig, like the POC floating wind rig they featured here a few weeks ago. I agree with you that the solutions will be varied and it will be innovation and the mass market that will bring renewable down to market prices. People who disparage wind and tide power because of current costs always seem to me to be apologists for some legacy tech as everyone knows that new tech is always more expensive in the near term.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUh, nope it ain't. Bargain basement Gas price in North America ain't gonna last. World prices put gas close to Oil, and Europe is going Coal & Nuclear rather than NG, because it is way too expensive - and unreliable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRS, I just anchor in a tidal stream. With more batteries one could travel the intercoastal charging from the tides.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't believe in big wind, solar as they really are just investment vehicles for Wall Street mostly. Plus because they are so concentrated in one area they can all come on or go offline causing some problem plus many have transmission lines that double their cost again!!
Better just have small home, building size units using their own land and not needing transmission lines, tock holders, CEO's, workers, lawyers, etc give small units a large 2-4x's advantage.
Tidal/river units though mostly unless living on or near moving water would be utility size. These are great base load units. They are powerful so any windgen you put on their platform would only be 10% of the T/R unit if floating. Each site can demand different approaches.
Most people against them are biased for some reason as when done well, and few are now, RE can't help but be the low cost energy source.
In the next couple yrs I'll bring out 1-4kw versions of biomass steam, CHP, CSP, wind generators for fun and amazingly high profits at $1k-3k/kw. All use rather old tech except some material and electronic improvements.
What I don't understand is why these are not available now at reasonable prices. I've cost them out at well under $1k/kw for parts/labor so plenty of profit.
PV now at $1k/kw retail, sunelec.com among others is already cost effective when done right in many areas.
Currently first of a kind nukes built by public power in the US and gas are tied as electricity generators at 4 cents a kwh, almost double what it costs to build the same reactors using much more modern construction techniques in China. However Forbes is predicting gas will almost triple in cost this winter rising to its cost of production - making gas more costly than nukes even as a heat source. Of course nuke steam could easily be used to heat those buildings as well. Soon gas will rise to the current international cost of $18/mcf as LNG export plants now planned go online.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJerry is of course is the original greenie with his family living on stilt huts in the everglades living off the land and producing lotsa ethanol biofuels for local consumption. He loves to inform Sciam readers of all his wonderful ideas, like 100% efficient windmills hidden in the glades, solar panels that work at night, electric Harleys, and now this catamaran thing. Jerry needs to cut back on his efforts at biofuel quality control through extensive sampling.
Outside of caulking the least expensive building reno is window replacement which costs 20 cents a kwh.
Modern nukes can cycle from 100% to 50% and back through the day and off peak nuke can be used for heat/ice storing HVAC systems - nothing wasted at all.
Everything is twice the cost in Florida Jerry because of rampart corruption and inability to count. We use real costs of real project not hypothetical way in the future ones.
Actually I'd put my lifetime hockey puck sized piece of nuclear waste in by backyard, if we can bury Schmidt's house a hundred feet deep in the toxic radioactive coal dust that he is responsible for. Modern nukes with all the safety gizmos cost 4 cents a kwh - cheapest and by far safest energy there is. Even with the worst case imaginable accident with a nuke at FUKU nobody was injured and all damage is confined to site itself.
'If'...'might'...'could'
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeantime NYC will be using what is practical, available and cost effective...natural gas
Of course insulating, sealing and generally upgrading existing buildings, including homes, is a sensible thing to do. It helps our pocketbooks, the environment and national security. Conservation can't do it all though. I like gas instead of fuel oil for several reasons. We have the gas. Gas produces energy with about half the CO2 of coal and three fourths that of oil. Gas burns cleaner than either oil or coal. Further, oil products, diesel and gasoline provide concentrated portable power sources. We are not short of fuels, just those that are liquid, concentrated and portable. Also, some climates are easier to be efficient in than others. I live where heat and humidity team up make A/C very desirable, if not essential.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@dwdb -It also seems unlikely to me that very cheap NG will persist for long. The demand will increase, as in the NYC case and I read that NG powered vehicles have overtaken hybrids in total number in just a couple of years. It won't take long for demand to catch up and when it does, electricity prices will increase as well as that for motor fuel. It's all economics which isn't called the "dismal science" without cause. And in this case the environmental effect has to be factored in, deservedly or not, so the most 'economical' solutions may not be acceptable. It is a really hard problem that has to deal with a lot of uncertainty.
Actually Doug NG produces as many GHG's as coal because of production to delivery methane leaks - 75 times the GHG forcing factor of CO2.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@sethdiyal - I am always amazed when someone tracks down the emissions of methane, ethylene, and even some chlorocarbons like methylchloride from swamps, bogs and oceans. Man-made methane leaks can be detected and minimized pretty easily. I've used methane as a tracer gas to detect leaks using an FID detector and it is incredibly sensitive. Not much excuse for not finding methane leaks and fixing them if they exist. It is much harder to quantitate emissions from natural sources and they are more interesting to me. Like the fate(s) of all that methane loosed by the BP spill. It didn't behave as predicted as some microbes came out of nowhere and ate most of it. I love the natural world and all its surprises!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSethdiyal,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou really hate it when someone proves you so wrong with actual data, prices. I don't carte what others pay for nukes. I only know what the present ones cost and you can build 3-5x's the cap in RE, NG for the price of US nukes now being proposed or built.
You can tell just how much you hate being proved wrong by your personal attacks which those who can't win on facts use to make themselves look better and distract people. Sadly it just shows what you are about.
You can wax on all you want about nukes but even if nuke energy was free the utility markup makes it more expensive than well done RE.
There is no one energy source for the future, it'll take everything we have except coal, oil. Nuke has it's place but not for at least 10 yrs before new generations of smaller nukes that cost much less than the even present ones.
But as I said, just what are you going to do with the extra power nukes produce off peak which is 50% of the time of any nuke over 30% of peak loads would make? Storage of any useful amount, say 10% of output, costs way too much so any nuke above the off peak low is just wasted. No?
We have had enough of one trick ponies trying to make nukes as about the only future energy source according to your posts, just shows your thinking process isn't very good as it can't take in new info and use it judging from your posts/rants.
The future is not utility, it'll be homes/building making their own power, saving fuel, generation and corporate/shareholder costs, profits which are 2/3's/3/4's of most electric bills. Do you understand this detail?
If you want your utilities hand in your pocket taking your money go right ahead. But those making their own power in well done RE, cogen, etc along with eff buildings will just laugh at you all the way to the bank.
And you diss my EV's yet my fuel bill for them is a few % of similar ICE's so again I and other laugh at you all the way to the bank. Actually the saving grace of nukes is EV's charging at night on excess nuke power that they can't turn off. No?
France has to give away nuke power at light because they built too many nukes. No?
Sethdiyal you need to take a look at yourself and your posting as you are not doing nukes any good by them or yourself as most everyone on this list write you off as a troll or worse, which I have.
Direct measurement of methane emissions over NG fields have shown much higher emissions than previously reported. And methane leakage in wells and home water sources caused by Shale Gas production, have not and are not stopped - they are told keep your windows open and your wells uncovered.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=air-sampling-reveals-high-meth
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fracking-would-emit-methane&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_ENGYSUS_20120126
So indeed Methane emissions from NG make it just as bad for GHG emissions as Coal:
www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf
truth-out.org/news/item/8021-about-that-dimock-fracking-study-results-did-show-methane-and-hazardous-chemicals
And to claim the methane leakage from BP oil disaster or Elgin blowout catastrophe was "eaten by microbes" is bogus. Virtually all of it went into the atmosphere. You have Zero credibility making such a ridiculous statement.
@dwbd - It's hard to know who to believe - -and always has been.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.alternet.org/story/149443/new_study_shows_methane_from_bp_oil_spill_has_been_eaten_by_microbes
That would be methane that was dissolved in the ocean, most methane - since it is a gas - will bubble to the surface and be released into the atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFuel oil must be stored in tanks. Many of those tanks are coming to the end of their useful lives and must be replaced. Digging them up, replacing them with the new double hulled ones that meet all EPA regulations, and installing and maintaining the monitoring equipment for oil tanks that meet all regulations is extremely expensive. Digging up the old tanks, filling the holes with dirt, and going over to natural gas costs far less. It's the economics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYep the big problem with fuel oil for heat. Along with being 6X the cost of NG right now. Fuel Oil spills must be dug up, even if they spread right under the foundation of the owner's house and neighbor's houses. One homeowner leak, near my residence, cost several $million in cleanup costs. Just ridiculous. Criminal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut what do people do who don't have access to NG. In China they use Methanol which is about 40% of the heating cost of fuel oil. And easy to store. You don't need to spend $5,000 to put in a double wall fuel tank. A cheapo plastic fuel tank will work just fine. Spills of methanol are trivial. Most of it evaporates, and what doesn't is quickly consumed by bacteria already present in the soil.
Unfortunately, Big Oil knows Methanol is a threat to their Energy Hegemony, they are especially afraid of Coal to Methanol, and partnered up with Big Agro - pushing their NUTTY Corn Ethanol scam, they are blockading Methanol Energy use in Western countries.
Methanol conversion kit for home furnaces:
emsh-ngtech.com/products/conversion-kit-for-oil-burners
I've been thinking about getting a natural-gas powered <a href="http://www.aaaeinc.com">air conditioning</a> system. I know that my switch over won't make a huge difference to the environment, but I like to think I'm doing my part. Thanks for the post!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this