Imagine that you bought an ice cream cone — say, two scoops of Rocky Road with sprinkles on a vanilla cone, costing you $2.70 — and you then decided to walk the mile to your home and eat your ice cream cone there. So you put the ice cream cone in your backpack, trek home and pull it out to eat, only to discover that two-thirds of it has melted. In essence, you paid $2.70 for about 90 cents worth of ice cream.
Not a smart decision, but it illustrates a point with respect to energy use. Using electric appliances in your home, be it an electric water heater, heat pump or stove, is a lot like that ice cream cone. From the point of origin, whether it’s a coal mine or a natural gas well, to the place where either of them is generated into electricity — usually a central station power plant — to the electric outlet in your home, electricity loses about two-thirds of its useable energy. Most of that energy loss occurs in the generation process.
By contrast, natural gas’ journey from the wellhead through transmission and distribution pipelines directly to the natural gas furnace, boiler, fireplace or stove in the home loses only about 10 percent of its usable energy. Thus natural gas is far more efficient than electricity.
