By the end of the weekend, Bemidji isn’t likely to see 50° again until well into 2024. The same is true for Caribou. Ditto for Green Bay. And Coeur d’Alene. And Saginaw. And Minot.
Winter’s chill is coming for you, too, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Boston, Indianapolis, Omaha, and Buffalo. Just wait.
Twenty-eight states are located in the Northeast, the Rust Belt, the Northern Plains, and the Northern Rockies. Toss in Alaska, and 147.8 million — 44.6 percent — of our countrymen live in the Frost Belt. Annually, a greater number of Americans die from ice than from fire, and as the nation enters the second half of November, there’s no better time to be thankful for artificial heat.
Hate to break it to you, Sierra Club check-writers, but wind and solar don’t keep us toasty during the shortest, coldest days of the year. “Dirty” fuels do. U.S. Census Bureau data show that utility-supplied natural gas claimed nearly half the market for household heating in 2022. Electricity landed in the second slot, at 41.3 percent. (Breezes and sunshine generated a mere 13.7 percent of power.) No. 3 was bottled, tank, or liquified petroleum gas (primarily propane), at 6.5 percent. Fuel oil/kerosene (3.9 percent) followed, then wood (1.4 percent). The contribution of direct solar? A niggling 0.3 percent.
Funny — the sixth-place source of household heating didn’t fare much better than coal. Within the lifetimes of people now in their early eighties, more than half of Americans endured the frigid months thanks to “the rock that burns.” By 1960, coal’s market share had plummeted to 12.2 percent, and it’s been beneath 1 percent for several decades. (Yet where it’s used, it’s downright essential. Most professional eco-alarmists, who gleefully exploit the citizens of tribal lands to attack capitalism and technology, are probably unaware that coal is made available, free, “to all members of the Navajo Nation all winter, provided they can haul it away themselves.” A community engagement specialist for the largest tribal entity in the United States recently told the Navajo Times: “I don’t think a lot of people realize how important coal still is for a lot of our … families.”)
Natural gas, little more than an also-ran in the 1940s, today heats 46.2 percent of American homes. The industry’s commanding position won’t be surrendered soon, given the fracking revolution. The dazzling duo of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has yield a natural-gas bonanza of staggering proportions. Domestic production doubled between 2005 and 2022. Abundance usually means affordability. This winter, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts lower “bills for … consumers that heat their homes primarily with natural gas,” while “the 4% of U.S. households that heat primarily with heating oil will spend an average of $1,851 … up 8%.”
Ironically, the effort to slake the planet’s unquestionably unquenchable thirst for petroleum is having a delightful ancillary effect for American homeowners. Last week, the EIA noted that soaring “crude oil production in the Permian region, which spans parts of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico,” is significantly growing the supply of associated natural gas. “[D]issolved in crude oil under the pressure of a geologic formation” and “then released when the pressure on the crude oil is relieved,” associated natural gas not only keeps Americans comfy when temperatures plunge, it creates jobs and boosts exports. In the first half of 2023, LNG shipments to customers in South America, Europe, and Asia averaged 11.6 billion cubic feet per day, “making the United States the world’s top … exporting country.”
Electricity, close to a nothingburger until the 1960s, currently heats four in ten American homes, but once again, natural gas can take a bow. Its 39.9 percent contribution to utility-scale power generation in 2022 crushed coal (19.7 percent), nuclear (18.2 percent), wind (10.3 percent), hydro (6.0 percent), solar (3.4 percent), biomass (1.2 percent), and geothermal (0.4 percent). Is there anything CH4 can’t do?
In the postwar era, household heating experienced a sweeping “energy transition.” Coal, wood (nearly a quarter share in 1940), and fuel oil/kerosene stepped aside, replaced by natural gas and electricity. The switch increased efficiency, heightened safety, and improved air quality. It’s a phenomenal success story, and one brought about, almost entirely, by the smart use of “fossil fuels.” Tell that to the next Greta-worshipping tween screeching about your home’s “carbon footprint.”
This winter, crank the thermostat. Make the ol’ domicile as warm as you want. There’s no reason to feel guilty — and ample statistics to demonstrate why Jimmy Carter’s energy declinism was specious and silly.
One only has to look to Germany to see the folly of shutting down dependable energy sources (coal & nuclear) and replacing them with wind & solar. Germany is now so short of dependable power that it is reopening some of its shuttered coal plants.
My dad worked for the gas company in western Pennsylvania. When I was young, we had a gas refrigerator, gas stove, gas heating, and a gas incinerator. Gas refrigerators were discontinued, so our next one was electric. When my parents finally splurged on air conditioning, it was gas, of course. I love cooking with gas, and don't want anyone to take that option away from me!
When I visited Bavaria last year, I couldn't believe all the solar farms there with such overcast weather!