A propane stove: the latest in “green” living
Home Hardware‘s spring Home At Home catalogue arrived in many mailboxes last week; one of the features was an article titled “The power to live off grid.”
“Few people think about alternative sources of energy until electricity and oil prices go through the roof,” Home says. “These situations remind us how dependent we are to [sic] a national grid and how we can be left feeling helpless…”
The answer? Go” off-grid” with propane appliances!!!!
More proof that, as unreliable and intermittent, expensive wind power is added to Ontario’s power system, causing the utility cost to skyrocket, people will make other choices—that includes burning more wood to heat their homes, and using fossil-fuel sources for cooking and home power generation.
As economics professor Ross McKitrick told Wind Concerns Ontario last week, the Green Energy Act in Ontario has failed on every objective. Wind power is backed up almost 50 percent by natural gas.
And now….living better with propane!
15 Comments
Greg Latiak
Sad part is its true and we are part of it. We depend upon our propane fueled standby generator to maintain habitability of our island home during the ever more frequent power outages — 3 yesterday. Without electricity life here quickly becomes impossible — no water, no heat, no light. ‘Green’ really seems to mean an increasingly 3rd world/19th century lifestyle as the ‘grid’ becomes more complicated, brittle and expensive. Not a direction I would have chosen. Glad its working for someone.
R Budd
As you remove the low cost clean electricity (largely nuclear) from public ownership, you make room for a huge host of “stakeholders”(largely fossil interests) to sell their products into the void.
Thats the evil magic the Liberals understand so well. It’s not really green, it’s not in the best interest of the public or the environment, but it buys them lots of greedy,opportunistic friends.
John Foreman
I noticed, at the same time, that you can also order a propane refrigerator! Although rather “pricey” for a large enough unit, it would appear that significant $s can be saved, over the life of the appliance, by switching from electricity to propane. Natural gas, if available, may be an even better choice! Recreational RVs have been using propane as well as 110v and 12v electricity (with all three options available) for YEARS! I’m thinking of checking into up to date R.V. fridges as a possibility.
R Budd
We’ve used a couple of propane fridges over the years. Happy to now use electric ones. Propane or NG fridges suffer from sluggish chill capability…. as in soft ice cream in summer and long freeze times for meat. Trying to cool with a heat source in summer is not a good strategy for you or the food .
Also you must vent them outside and routinely clean chimneys so you don’t kill yourself with carbon monoxide. Stick with electric unless you’re remote from the grid.
Wind Concerns Ontario
This wasn’t an ad for propane frigs or stoves, but an attempt to show how wrong-headed Ontario’s energy policy is. Instead of creating a “green” grid, Ontario has made the utility cost so expensive, people are running for other sources of power.
Joe
Check out the price of propane last winter.
John Foreman
Believe me Joe!! I know! We had to purchase propane last winter as well! Not aware of any major kitchen appliances that burn wood however! If I hear any info on that subject, I’ll let everyone know about that option as well! In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, please share with us! Hopefully we can learn from each other to our mutual benefit!
Tye Dryden
I have made a new post onto my blog about the history of TOU rates. You can check it out here:
https://tyeselectricityblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/some-history-of-tou-rates/
Let me know what you think in the comments below
Thanks,
Tye
Joe
Off peak is still the cheapest. Several news stories over the years have highlighted the shrinking gap between the prices. The gap shrinking is wrong. That said, I do like smart meters. If you work the system as it is designed you can save money. If we did laundry and run the dishwasher during the week in the daytime our bill would be even higher. Work the system to save what you can.
Barbara
Basic issue is why TOU is needed to begin with.
Parker Gallant
Joe, So you’re not really saving money, it’s just costing you less than if you did your dishes, laundry or cooked during peak hours right? Off-peak rates have increased 120% since they were introduced going from 3.5 cents per kWh to the current 7.7 cents per kWh. The “average” household is “off-peak” 67 % of the time. It is hard to squeeze much more from load shifting. That is especially true for seniors, stay at home parents, people with disabilities, people with shift work and people with electric heat. It is also true for all small retail businesses. Ikea, Loblaws, Canadian Tire and the municipalities can put solar panels on their roofs and get 70.2 cents per kWh for what they produce and cough up to pay the “on-peak” rate of 14 cents per kWh as long as the sun is shining. Sounds totally unfair.
Joe
By using off peak we save money. It costs less than using hydro during the day. It is not perfect but many, but not all people, can benefit from it. Hard to find anyone who can’t use hydro for, say laundry, at night or on the weekend. I have complained to my former MPP for years about the narrowing gap between the rates. That is a different problem.
Joe
TOU spreads out the load. Instead of building plants to cover the peak demand you switch some of the demand to other times. These times have excess power generation capacity. So you use your capacity more efficiently. Industrial wind farms do mess up this idea up due to their unpredictable generation.
Barbara
Right Joe!
And follow this into grid problems caused by wind and solar generation. Much easier to plan, program and control the grid if the load is spread out?
More information on this issue should be made available here if anyone has the time to do this?
Wind Integration Workshops
http://www.windintegrationworkshops.org
Also has the proceedings from past workshops.
Tye
I have made a new post onto my blog about my ideas to fix Ontario’s electricity system
https://tyeselectricityblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/my-ideas-to-fix-ontarios-electricity-system/
Thanks,
Tye