Technology applied to Home Heating

Biodiesel has been in the news recently when people were dealing with $3 a gallon for fuel. Now that winter is around the bend it is again in the news as a replacement for home heating oil.

Paul Nazzaro, president of Massachusetts energy-consulting company Advanced Fuel Solutions, spearheaded the effort to win over the failing heating-oil industry to biodiesel. Adopting the alternative fuel was a way for the oil industry to change its image and win back market share from natural gas, explains Nazzaro.

"Consumer perception of oil heat was very low; they related it to prehistoric fossil fuels -- dinosaurville," he says. By convincing the heating oil industry to carry biodiesel, he figured the heating-oil market would get a much-needed boost, and biodiesel would become accepted into a mainstream commercial market.

In related news the surging cost of natural gas and coal has turned the tables on another renewable energy source. Around the nation people who used to pay more to have green electricity are now paying less than the regular customers. This article is a copy from the LA Times.

But starting next month, DeMoulin's conscience-driven decision will save him money. Because of skyrocketing natural gas and coal prices, Colorado's 29,000 wind-energy customers for the first time will pay less than Xcel Energy's 1.3 million customers who use conventionally generated power.

After the savings was announced Wednesday, Xcel signed up as many customers for its Windsource program in one day as it normally does in two months. The surge in interest is the latest example of rising energy costs making wind power increasingly attractive to consumers.

In Edmond, Okla., wind-power users now pay less than other customers. The wind program in Austin, Texas, known as GreenChoice, will cost less than conventional power beginning in January. Makers of wind turbines report being sold out until 2008.