Thread: Coal furnace
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Old 12-24-17, 06:20 PM   #8
Mikesolar
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Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4 View Post
Obviously use the coal for home heating. Also since I now now how difficult it is to get coal around these parts I am going to sell the bags of coal on Craigslist for up to 4x what I am going to pay for it.
Nearly half of all power generated comes from coal, boiler fired power plants are no more than 40% efficient.
Burning coal at the point of use for heat should be at least 70% efficient on a bad day.
How is that not eco friendly?
All I'm doing is cutting out the power company and not feeling guilty about it.
Everyone except for the guys generating all their power off grid with solar, wind, hydro are using coal. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean you aren't using it.
Use natural gas for heat? that's real environmentally friendly. Then you support fracking, doesn't matter what you think or say on the subject, actions speak louder....
Plus natural gas generates a good size portion of our electricity.

From an economics standpoint bagged coal per BTU is about double cost of natural gas. If all I did was take a years worth of natural gas surcharges alone I could buy 3000lb of coal. Or 36 million BTU, which is around $200 worth of actual gas consumption.
Bulk coal from what little I can find on the subject should cost around the same or less than natural gas per BTU.

I'm mostly buring unwanted and dead trees trees for fire wood, new construction lumber scraps, renovation waste wood, stuff that normally goes to a land fill. I'm not just buring coal all the time. I mainly bought a coal furnace because they are more heavily constructed and can take more heat. The fact that it can burn coal is secondary, plus the coal furnace was cheaper than the wood furnaces by a lot since it was a steeply discounted clearance item.
The whole London Fog was coal smog, not fog. Whether locally burned or in a big plant, it emits by far, the most CO2 of all the fuels and it doesn't matter what the efficiency is. If there is a way to scrub the particulate out, it's better but everyone wants to reduce coal burning in power plants which is why more and more are being switched over to gas. I think it is fine to burn the wood, I've done it too, in a 96% masonry stove. Besides, anytime I can kick the Koch bros in the gonads, I will, lol
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