Efficiency

[happyeater]

I don't understand how it can be more efficient to generate power from gas in my home rather than at the power station.
Am I missing something obvious here?
Wondered what you think

[john23]

A lot of older coal fired power stations are pretty inefficient, but the real problem is the huge transmission losses when electricity is fed through the cables from the power station (which could be hundreds of miles away from you) to your home. The electrical resistance of the cables consumes power and turns it into heat, the combined result of these inefficiencies being that up to 70% of the fuel fed into the power station is wasted. So, generating the power where it is used can make sense (but it's pretty expensive to set up at present!).

[happyeater]

Wow, that's a lot of wastage - point well made! The gas being pumped around must waste some energy also right?

[dormouseheating]

The gas being pumped around must waste some energy also right?

How?
House gas is actually;
90% Methane
5.3% Ethane
2.7% Nitrogen (this doesn't actually burn, it just passess through the combustion process)
1% Propane
0.6% Carbon Dioxide
0.4% Butane

Gas burns at your appliance and produces heat energy. The heat from the exhaust (flue) is then recycled on the newer condensing boilers meaning you get about 55 deg.c instead of around 150 deg.c out of the flue.
The only way that gas itself can lose energy is if it burns.
The pumps however that transport the gas use electricity and I think that's been covered.

In efficiency terms OVERALL in the supply chain it's cheaper to produce power from gas.
Electricity may be cheaper for you as an end user but by the time it gets to you it's lost a lot of watts and don't forget that coal or gas is used (burnt) to produce electricity to start with

[freddyarsner]

Exactly, most of the energy wastage are not in production rather they are in transmission of energy, which effects a lot in the manners of energy production. There are some researches continually being made for avoiding this transmission of energy and conserving it.