Rauw Energy News

Benchmarking - It's The Law

Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

All building in NY City, over 50,000 square feet, are required to benchmark their electricity and fuel consumption this coming spring for 2010 consumption. The results of these 22,000 buildings will be publicly available on-line. The law is one of a few recently established under the Greener Greater Building plan which is part of PlaNYC. PlaNYC sets out the goal of reducing NY City's CO2 output 30% by 2030.

As the saying goes, "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it". The city is clearly making information available with the hope of enabling market forces to drive a reduction in energy consumption. The performance of a building relative to its peers is a reflection of the state of its condition, and that has a direct relationship with the cost to maintain it. The lever that will expose a building's efficiency to the public will probably be landlords and real estate managers as they tout their energy management prowess. We wouldn't be surprised to see measurements become part of real estate listings.

Should market forces fail to materialize to drive reductions, all the data necessary to legislate and manage energy reductions will be in place. Energy reductions will happen one way or another. For residential buildings in particular, heating fuel is the major source of energy. Installing a Fuel Economizer would immediately get a building at least a third of the way to the 2030 goal.

Oil Gets Cleaner

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

This past summer, two pieces of legislation were passed which will ultimately make oil more expensive and cleaner burning. Starting in 2012, NY State wil require number 2 heating oil to be further refined to the point where it is as clean as automobile diesel. This transaltes into a 99% reduction of sulfur to 15 PPM from 2,000 to 12,000 PPM. In addition, NY City will require number 4 oil sulfur content to be capped at 1500 parts per million...50% below the current levels. All else being equal, prices will rise because of the additional refining necessary to achieve these levels. Also worth mentioning, although not currently a law, is the discussion of the elimination of number 6 heating oil.

Brookhaven Labs & Retrofits

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

In an article titled "Fuel Oil and the Green Future" in Fuel Oil News, June 2010, Brookhaven National Laboratory's Tom Butcher commented that, "Simply controlling system losses offers great potential for energy savings in the short term, Butcher said, and the industry has already made aggressive moves to push efficiency levels over 90 percent, he noted. In that vein, retrofitting advanced controls to existing heating systems could yield low-cost reductions in fuel use".

Brookhaven Labs conducted extensive tests on the Fuel Economizer and concluded savings were in excess of 10%.

NYC Fuel Price Update

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The most recent NYC fuel prices, as posted by the US EIA (Energy Information Administration) are available. Number 2 oil and number 6 oil have been steady over the past three months, but are all up markedly when compared to this time last year.

NYC Community Air Survey

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Number 6 fuel oil, and the lesser used number 4, have been in the news of late. The New York City Community Air Survey was released in December 2009 and revealed some powerful facts. Among them, they helped debunk the myth that trucks, buses and cars are the main source of New York's air pollution; the bulk of the pollution comes from buildings. The dirtiest buildings are those that burn number 6 and number 4 oil. The Environmental Defense Fund prepared a fantastic interactive map that shows which buildings burn these residual fuels. Does yours?

The Fuel Economizer, along with saving dollars and reducing CO2, also reduces air pollutants by over 40% for oil fired burners. Specifically, filterable particulates, hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide are reduced greater than 40% as the cycling of a boiler is reduced.

#6 Fuel Oil Facts

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Number 6 fuel oil is used primarily for heating large buildings like commercial buildings and apartment buildings, so unless you are familiar with large-scale heating, chances are you have not heard of it. Home heating oil is known as number 2 oil which is the same thing as diesel used in cars and trucks, except a little dirtier. So what is number 6? Literally, it is the bottom of the barrel. If you remember fractional distillation from high school science you can visualize what happens with crude oil when it is refined. The cleaner fuels rise to the top, and the heavy ones fall to the bottom. The only product heavier than number 6 in the distillation process is asphalt.

Number 6 is known as residual fuel oil. It is dirty, heavy, difficult to handle, and cheap. It is high in sulfur and has the highest proportion of carbon, which becomes CO2 when combusted, of any fuel type available. Number 6 is also heavy, or viscous. Handling it is like handling tar, in fact it needs to be heated to make it move. The trucks that deliver it are heated, the tanks that store it in the basements of buildings are heated, etc.

This of course begs the question of why it is used. The answer is simple...it is cheap, and it has a high BTU per gallon content. New York City has many older buildings that are trapped in the number 6 heating infrastructure. It is unfortunate. It is also literally a "dirty secret." Few tenants who are judicously recycling, watching energy consumption, and reducing their carbon footprint realize they are living in a building with technology only slightly better than a coal plant.

What to do? Seems to us if you could reduce your consumption by 15% to 20% that would be a great start.

Heating Oil Price Update

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

As crude oil prices rise, so do home heating oil prices, but not necessarily by the same percent. Lots of factors play in this strange relationship. Last week the average U.S. price per gallon for home heating oil was $2.72 per gallon which is an 8.8¢ increase from the week before.

The US Energy Information Administration publishes a weekly update called This Week in Petroleum. If you are interested in more information on the petroleum markets, this is a good source for it. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp

Ask a question - save a lot

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

There's a simple setting hidden inside many of the grey boxes attached to your boiler; it's called the Low Limit. Your oil guy is totally familiar with it. We've seen many of these controls when we install the Fuel Economizer and often scratch our heads and wonder why some are set as high as they are. It would not hurt at all to ask him why your limit is set where it is. The upside is you may be able to set it lower and save a lot.

We would love to see these set where appropriate for you. Then with the Fuel Economizer installed you'll save yet another load. The Fuel Economizer will give you savings whether you are set efficiently or not since it simply adds brains to your system.

The only one who loses out in this scenario is the oil company... the people who sell you the oil AND set up and maintain your system. Hmm.

A little more info on what we're saying. Would you accept your car idling at 4000 RPM instead of the normal 1000 or lower? Probably not, yet your boiler may be doing just this, but you just don't know it.

Energy Cost Comparison

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We decided to take a look at the cost per BTU for different fuels. We do this periodically since costs don't always move in the same direction. Following are typical retail prices today in the Northeast. We also took a look at electricity since the conversion from Kilowatt hours to BTU's is a straight forward calculation and makes the energy content comparable.

The bottom line? Natural gas is cheap... if you can get it, and electricity is at a premium. We'll be sure to take another look at this as energy prices move.

Price comparison
Fuel	Retail Price	Price Per BTU
Oil	2.65 per gallon	$18.94
Gas	1.35 per therm	$13.50
Propane	2.25 per gallon	$23.45
Electricity	0.15 per Kilowatt Hour	$46.89

RauwLetter - The Newsletter of the Rauw Energy Community

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

The July 2009 issue of RauwLetter is ready and has been emailed to the Rauw Energy community. Go to our RauwLetter section where you can subscribe to quick news and updates on subjects such as fuel prices, conservation tips, what's new at Rauw Energy and any specials we are offering.

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