On Wed, 5 Feb 2003, Marc Perdue wrote:

> One other note about heaters that David didn't mention, for those of you
> concerned about the environment and squandering of resources (oh wait, we drive
> big old gas-guzzling vehicles...), is that for every unit of electricity that
> you convert completely to heat, a seemingly 100% efficient operation, 3 units
> of some other fuel source are required to create it.  In other words, even if
> you convert all the electricity to heat, you're still only operating at 33 1/3
> % efficiency.  Electricity, a high-grade form of energy, is NOT a good way to
> produce heat, a lower-grade form of energy, efficiently.  Better to burn
> something like propane or natural gas . . .

I'd guess bottled propane isn't so great, efficiency-wise, either.
Consider the energy needed to seperate it, chill it, compress it, and
truck it to where you got your fill, plus the amount bled off during
filling.

             _ _
  __ _ _   _| | |  | David M. Brodbeck (N8SRE)              Ypsilanti, MI
 / _` | | | | | |  +-----------------------------------------------------
| (_| | |_| | | | @ cyberspace.org
 \__, |\__,_|_|_| "To the optimist, the glass is half full.  To the
 |___/             pessimist, the glass is half empty.  To the engineer,
                   the glass is twice as big as it needs to be."