[deconstructionist]

It's about $1.90 per gallon this year? So that's like $400 to fill my tank I'm guessing. I lived in NYC the past 3 years and had gas heat in one place and my heat was paid for by the landlord in the other place. I can't find a listing of historical prices for commodities. A lot of futures, but no "pasts." Who knows how much it's gone up since this time last year?

[Jaymax]

Try here

Weekly spot market prioces for nymex heating oil going back over two years. You'll have to add whatever the retail margin is I guess $1.88/gallon currently.

This time last year was about $1.20/gallon.

Cheers
--J

ED: Wrong commodity figures used - now revised.

[deconstructionist]

retail for heating oil in new england is currently averaging $2.217

[canis_lupus]

Newbie question:

We keep hearing about the impending heating oil in the North East.

Does the NE use more heating oil than natural gas? If so, why? Geography? History?

Only the farmers here in the Midwest use heating oil, the rest of us use gas...

...can't figure this one out on my own.

[Cynus]

The houses are older and were built with oil heat in mind.

[Grimnir]

What precisely is "heating oil"? Is it a catch-all for kerosene, propane, etc.? When I see a house in the country with a big cylindrical tank next to it, is that for heating oil?

[jockc]

When I was a kid I lived in Connecticut for a few years in a big house. In the full basement was a huge old looking furnace. It seemed about as big as a car to me, maybe 5 feet tall too. The furnace powered radiators that were in each room.

The oil tank was underground in the back yard. An oil truck would arrive sometimes and a guy would bring a hose around to fill up the tank. Above the tank was a pipe that stuck out of the ground about two feet, with something on top to keep water out. The pipe was to ventilate the tank, I figured. When the guy filling the tank let it go too long oil would spray out of that pipe onto the ground. So there was about a 2 foot radius circle of dead earth around the pipe.

Anyway that is my experience with heating oil. I believe the big cylinders you see in the country are for propane. I saw those all the time growing up in Tennessee.

[strider3700]

My parents had oil and switched to gas about 10 years ago. Around here above ground tanks are the norm and they are about 4-5 feet tall 2 feet wide ovalish things. Tall pipe out the top to vent.

The furnace was about 5 feet tall, square about 3 feet on each side. I liked it better then the gas furnace because the gas one turns on and off too quickly. the oil one would overheat the house and then take an hour before coming on again. The gas one comes on and off every 15 minutes. (this is probably a thermostat thing not a furnace thing)

Around here almost everyone switched to gas in the 90's because it was the big push with discounts and all. It was also cheaper then oil at the time. Most people I know complain about the minimum fee they are forced to pay on it at this point.

[richardmmm]

it's a heavier grade of refined product. it looks and smells a bit like lubricant oil for the car. it burns slower so it's good for heating and not so good for locomotion.

when they refine crude you get about 2/3 gasoline higher type product and 1/3 heating oil.

diesel, jet fuel and kerosene are somewhere in between.

there there is a lower grade, thicker heavier oil they use on ships, called bunker fuel, i guess that is similar to heating oil.

then you have some tars, bitumens, waxes etc, that are practically solid at room temp.

they use more in the NE because it is colder there and also because the first oil was drilled in PA so it was originally a handy source. it's portble and durable and a truck load can last the winter.

gas needs pipelines and infrastructure. where they have gas nearby then they use that, for example in the UK they mainly use gas.

i don't think there are many gas fields in the NE so the infrastructure was not put in.

they use a lot of heating oil in places like greece, france and italy where there are not huge gas fields either.

i think one reason it became popular is because a lot of the original gas was made from coal, which is not an oil company product. so getting people to use heating oil, kept them on oil company products.

[Kingcoal]

The home heating oil industry in the Northeastern US grew out of the coal heating business. Pennsylvania is home to a lot of anthracite coal A.K.A. "smokeless coal." It was used almost universally for home heating throughout the Northeast. Most all of these coal delivery companies switched over to oil over the years. Since they already had coal customers, they installed oil heaters for them. Oil actually became cheaper than coal in the first half of the 1900's with prices around 7 cents per gallon. Furnace companies began to manufacture heaters burning "fuel oil."

Number 2 fuel oil these days is usually highway diesel fuel stained pink. The pink pigment is added because the highway diesel is taxed and home heating fuels are not. Fuel oil contains more BTUs per unit volume than coal or NG. Until the last couple of years, heating with oil was usually cheaper than NG or electric. In 1996 I paid about 75 cents per gallon to fill my 275 gallon tank. Today it is about $2.10 per gallon. NG is now cheaper, but not by much. Welcome to Peak oil.

Some diehards still use coal. You can even buy modern automatic coal fired furnaces. Here in eastern Pennsylvania, rice sized coal is about $45 per ton with a $120 delivery charge. This is a grade of anthracite designed for automated home heaters. 8 tons will last the whole year. You do the math. Coal is dusty and needs attention everyday to empty the ashes. However, I'm thinking it might be worth the inconvenience. My Grandmother heated with coal and so might I in the future.

[MD]

Right, #2 fule oil and diesel are essentialy the same, except for the dye. Truckers caught with red dye stains or red fuel face pretty heavy fines. Around here farmers run heating oil in their diesel equipment. I believe they are exempt from the highway fuel tax.

[BabyPeanut]

Heating oil is used in cold locations since it has a very low freezing point.

[lawnchair]

Inertia, mostly.

My grandmother in New Jersey heats with oil/steam. The oil burner replaced a coal furnace 30+ years back. At the time, gas wasn't a popular option and oil was cheap. The house now has gas (stove and hot water), but she didn't change the working furnace.

The interesting thing is, the oil delivery company takes very good care of her furnace. They do cleanings for free (well, in the price of oil) and maintain the system far better than the monopoly gas company might. It's still running well after 30 years. That's due to the strong competition... she could choose a new oil provider any day, so service is a key selling point. And, if they didn't keep the system in top shape, the replacement would be gas fired.

[aahala]

Here's a breakdown of the fuel used in the US as a whole:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ ... ab2-5.html

I think the use of fuel oil in the NE has to do with the history of the natural
gas pipelines. They probably originated largely from Texas, LA and OK and over time fanned out -- the NE was near the end of the expansion and
switching to another fuel had mostly already taken place by the time the
lines reached NE.

[KevO]

peak? what peak?

The cost of heating and lighting our homes could fall following a 50% drop in the wholesale price of gas in 2006.

One expert is predicting a 10% cut in the spring followed by further cuts to slash bills by up to a third.

But savings of that size could take until 2008/09 to feed through to customers.

Energy suppliers buy fuel in advance so the price they charge reflects the cost in the past.

Joe Malinowski founder of TheEnergyShop.com told Radio 4's Money Box programme

"The wholesale price of gas has tumbled. It is 55% below its peak of June 2006 and more than 50% lower than at the beginning of year. Electricity is over 35% lower than the start of 2006."

BBC News

[Karl]

I saw this and cancelled all my worry for 2007.

Yeah for sure!

When the temerature in this part of the UK has been warm enough to be outside in a teeshirt on some days between Christmas and New Year I'm not suprised the price of gas is currently low. On some days I have found no need for any kind of heating and this is the middle of the Winter!

With some trees only finally having lost their leaves finally in December if you are not worried about the cost of gas the evidence of change in the physical world should be enough to spook.

[chris-h]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KevO', 'p')eak? what peak?

The cost of heating and lighting our homes could fall following a 50% drop in the wholesale price of gas in 2006.

One expert is predicting a 10% cut in the spring followed by further cuts to slash bills by up to a third.

But savings of that size could take until 2008/09 to feed through to customers.

Energy suppliers buy fuel in advance so the price they charge reflects the cost in the past.

Joe Malinowski founder of TheEnergyShop.com told Radio 4's Money Box programme

"The wholesale price of gas has tumbled. It is 55% below its peak of June 2006 and more than 50% lower than at the beginning of year. Electricity is over 35% lower than the start of 2006."

BBC News

[EnergyHog]

This is wonderful news, now we can all afford to burn more fossil fuels! Up with the thermostat!

[Stratovarius]

They mentioned a lessening of geopolitical risks.

It seems like geopolitics is as scary as it's been in decades and I don't expect it to get much better anytime soon.

[Bleep]

It's not just the price of fuel, the increase in costs are moving through the system driving up the cost of electricity which feeds back into the system.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')url=http://www.pepco.com/welcome/news/releases/archives/2006/article.aspx?cid=760]Pepco Seeks Change in D. C. Delivery Rates (link)[/url]
Tuesday, December 12, 2006

WASHINGTON - Pepco today asked the D.C. Public Service Commission (PSC) to authorize an increase in electricity distribution rates in the District of Columbia, the first delivery rate increase in more than a decade. If approved, the change would add about 7.79 percent to monthly residential electric bills. The typical bill for a Standard Offer Service residential customer using 750 kilowatt-hours a month would increase $5.97, from $76.64 to $82.61.

The proposed increase, a total of $50.5 million, reflects ever increasing costs since the mid-1990s to maintain the poles, wires and critical high-tech equipment of the electric distribution system. In just the last three years, for example, the cost of transformers has more than doubled, and the cost of electric cable jumped 85 percent. The proposed increase also would be used to improve reliability and support investment in new technology to keep pace with growth and increasing customer demand for power.