Oil has more heat per BTU? Is Bob Vila wrong?

You aren't missing anything, a BTU is a BTU doesn't matter what you are burning, oil, gas, paper, hair. Plenty of misleading information on the web like this.

They're describing the energy density of the fuel. I believe a gallon of oil has more available BTU compared to a therm of NG but it's useful for comparing fuel costs. Your building needs what it needs for BTU, as you noted

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In the past when I worked at an oil company we used to preach that gas was less efficient than oil.........and it is and was. It has to do with the water vapor content in the gas. It took energy to "boil" the water vapor.

NOW this has all changed. It changed when boilers and furnaces were designed that became condensing. Now that the gas water vapor can be condensed the energy used to boil the water vapor is recovered and gas is more efficient than oil.......when condensed

Oil has more btus than a gallon of propane and the price in Nevada is usually about the same.

Likely a better way to look at it is compare efficiency.

BTU/hr of fuel input to
BTU/hr of furnace output ( to your hot water, hot air , or steam)

EBEBRATT-Ed said:

A BTU is not a BTU. Only at the boiler or furnace input can they be compared.

A gas condensing appliance converts it's input BTUs to output BTUs more efficiently than oil or gas non condensing units. Oil is second and gas non condensing is third.

The only heat that is 100% efficient is electric you get every BTU you pay for.

But it's more expensive in most areas

And the 100% efficiency of electric heating is, to my mind, one of the most pernicious fallacies around -- sorry @EBEBRATT-Ed . While it's quite true that at the point of use the efficiency is 100%, for some reason or other it is often forgotten that the electricity has to be made. Some ways of creating electricity have large environmental and social impacts -- one of the worst that way is hydroelectric dams. Some just have significant environmental impacts (photovoltaic, wind). Some are fuel burning, but the fuel conversion efficiency going from raw BTUs in the fuel to kilowatts out on the line is rarely over 40%, and may be quite a bit lower (we wouldn't tolerate that in a boiler!). Nuclear terrifies enough people who are not technically qualified that it is, politically, pretty much a non-starter.

There is no free lunch...

For the consumer at the pump is all that matters. Even though the inefficiencies are covered in the pump price........

@Jamie Hall.
A car running on gasoline emits 10 times more pollutants per mile than an e car running of coal fired electricity.
Also most of the coal fired emissions are generated away from Urban areas again decreasing pollution in the cities.

@Jamie Hall.
https://electrek.co/2017/11/01/electric-cars-dirty-electricicty-coal-emission-cleaner-study/
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/19/electric-car-well-to-wheel-emissions-myth/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/earth-talk-the-coal-truth/
There are lots more studies and reports than this.
Don't usually reply to insulting posts, but I really like this site, so made an exception.

@Jamie Hall
I am just talking "point of use" I know electric heat is 100%....when it gets to your house. Before it gets to your house it's produced by coal, gas, oil, hydro, nuke etc that has it's own issues

To my crude way of thinking it's what the consumer pays for the "fuel" plus the efficiency the purchase btus are used at that results in net useable btus/$$.

Boiler manufacturers talk about "fuel to steam efficiency" same thing.

ratio said:

Jamie Hall said:

And the 100% efficiency of electric heating is, to my mind, one of the most pernicious fallacies around...

Ah, yes. I love to point out to my eco-minded electric-car driving friends that their cars run on coal.

I've yet to have one get rid of it. Some are downright belligerent about it! There's invariably a lot of hand-waving, often in the literal way but always figuratively, in the explanation of exactly why it's better.

Actually, now more likely that it runs on natural gas. 😁

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Nobody wants to address the elephant in the room.
Fuel oil heats best!
Next!
And if you have children, you wont make a dent in your footprint with an E car. The damage is done.

Better yet how many are nukes.....

nibs said:

@Jamie Hall
...
Strongly held uninformed opinions are the bane of our society,

I entirely agree. Since, however, you seem to be intent on keeping this going, may I note that all three of your references for that incomplete statement are to "studies' performed by the electric car industry, or authors associated with it, may I suggest -- mildly -- that perhaps they are not entirely reliable? I have read those articles, as it happens, and while it is quite correct to say that for certain contaminants under certain conditions the initial statement is partly true, the overall short statement is, frankly, not, if one wished to view climate warming emissions as a whole.

The fundamental problem with climate change -- which I have been studying and modelling for almost 40 years now -- lies in recognizing that a) it is real; b) it is a significant threat; c) the mechanisms and causes are well understood, d) that there are available technological solutions to it and e) -- most important -- it has now become so politicized that it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion on the subject which might lead to actually doing something positive.

Indeed, I might go so far as to say that most of the reputable scientists and organisatis working on the problem have been obliged to take an extremely low profile, just to keep their jobs. This is unfortunate.

Sincerely,
James. Hall, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, [several organisations which I will not list to protect them -- and me]

Jamie Hall said:

... The fundamental problem with climate change -- which I have been studying and modelling for almost 40 years now -- lies in recognizing that a) it is real; b) it is a significant threat; c) the mechanisms and causes are well understood, d) that there are available technological solutions to it and e) -- most important -- it has now become so politicized that it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion on the subject which might lead to actually doing something positive.

Sincerely,
James. Hall, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, [several organisations which I will not list to protect them -- and me]

a) I agree climate change is real, but I disagree that it is anthropogenic.

b) I disagree that it is a significant threat.

c) I strongly disagree that the mechanisms and causes are well understood.

d) There are no technological solutions since the “problem” doesn’t exist.

e) I agree that the topic has become so politicized that rational discussion is impossible.

Most won’t invest the hour or so required, but this is one of the better presetnations I have seen by someone who has a few chops in the engineering field, at least the aerospace field. If you truly look at the long-term data and put political biases on the shelf, the science is simply neither clear nor “settled” in regards to our global climate.

https://youtu.be/jPP7P43wulg

@STEVEusaPA pretty much.

If you're running #2 oil and it burns "very.....very dirty", it's something is wrong-draft, smoke, inadequate combustion air-combustion is adjusted wrong.

Voyager said:

a) I agree climate change is real, but I disagree that it is anthropogenic.

b) I disagree that it is a significant threat.

c) I strongly disagree that the mechanisms and causes are well understood.

d) There are no technological solutions since the “problem” doesn’t exist.

e) I agree that the topic has become so politicized that rational discussion is impossible.

Most won’t invest the hour or so required, but this is one of the better presetnations I have seen by someone who has a few chops in the engineering field, at least the aerospace field. If you truly look at the long-term data and put political biases on the shelf, the science is simply neither clear nor “settled” in regards to our global climate.

All I can say about this is that Bob Vila is and always has been a bad source of technical information. He is just a TV celebrity. The Kardashians know about as much as Bob.

I watched as much as I could stand of Mr Rutan's video. He may have been a great engineer at some point in his life. It might be time to get him in for a CAT scan. He is grasping at straws.