A Simple Calculation
(arithmetic)

to Convert

World NATURAL GAS Energy Use
(in watt-hours per year) to

'Room-Space-Heater-Equivalents'

(to express huge numbers
in a more meaningful way)

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This NaturalGas-to-Room-Space-Heaters Conversion Page

! Note !
Some text and links and images on this page
may be changed (or augmented) --- if/when
I re-visit this page.

INTRODUCTION :

Near the bottom of the home page of this site, there is a simple calculation that shows that the heat-generating 'potential' of the 2-billion-plus gasoline-and-diesel-burning internal combustion engines (ICE's) on planet Earth is roughly the equivalent of about 2 billion times 300 horses = 600 billion horses.

So, in the past 120 years or so (about 1900 to 2020), humans have effectively added about HALF A TRILLION potentially-heat-generating horses to planet Earth --- almost 100 times more 'horse-equivalents' than the 7 billion humans on Earth (100 for every human) --- and about 10,000 times more than the 60 million actual horses in the world.

    (Luckily, nowhere near all of those 'horse-equivalents' are working 24 hours a day, every day.)

That bottom section of the home page also points out that --- in addition to internal combustion engines --- burning LIQUID petroleum fuels --- generating enormous amounts of heat into the atmosphere --- there are millions of industrial and residential NATURAL-GAS ovens, kilns, furnaces, heaters, smelters, foundries, gas turbines for electricity generation, etc. --- running 24/7 --- or 3/7 --- or 16/5 --- or thereabout.

Those millions of furnaces-ovens-kilns-etc are generating (every day) billions of 'hot-horse-equivalents' of heat by the consumption of the world's NATURAL GAS.

    (By 'hot-horse-equivalent' is meant the heat generated by a hard-working, untiring horse --- all day, every day --- without the horse-poop. In other words, a 'super horse'.)

Besides LIQUID-petroleum fuels and Natural GAS, there is a third major category of HEAT-GENERATION --- from SOLID fossil fuel (coal).

Fossil fuels can be categorized into THREE major types:

  • LIQUID petroleum
    (including gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel --- distilled from oil)

  • Natural GAS

  • SOLID coal

Here is a link to a page on this site which provides a calculation of the approximately 8 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' generated by the burning of Petroleum LIQUIDS, all over planet Earth.

Here is a link to a page on this site which provides a calculation of the approximately 6 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' generated by the burning of Natural GAS, all over planet Earth.

Here is a link to a page on this site which provides a calculation of the approximately 10 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' generated by the burning of COAL, all over planet Earth.

The intent of this page is to provide a simple arithmetic calculation (using only multiplication and division of a few quantities) to convert the world consumption of NATURAL GAS (on the order of terawatts --- that is, trillions of watts) to 'Room Space Heater Equivalents' --- where the typical room-space-heater is rated at about 1500 watts (1.5 kilowatts).

    We can provide a more precise definition of 'hot horse equivalent' than the rather-vague 'hard-working-horse' description above.

    A 'hot horse equivalent' is the heat energy being generated constantly at the same energy generation rate as a horse lifting 550 pounds one foot in each second, every second of every day.

    This is based on the definition of a unit of 'horsepower'.

    In other words, a 'hot horse equivalent' is the constant heat generation from a hard-working 'super horse' that never gets tired and works 24 hours a day, day after day --- lifting a 550 pound weight at a rate of one foot each second.

    HOWEVER, it still may be difficult to 'grasp' the heat generated by a 'super horse'.

    So this page is meant to put the heat geneated by the NATURAL GAS USAGE on Earth into an alternate unit of measure --- namely, 'room-space-heater-equivalents' --- instead of 'super-horse-equivalents'.

Note that power is a measure of the amount of energy created or expended per unit of time.

Also note that 'watts' are a unit-of-measure of power.

And 'kilowatt-hours' are a unit-of-measure of energy --- typically used by electric utility companies.

    Power-units (watts) multiplied by time-units (hours) gives energy-units (watt-hours).

THE CALCULATION :

There are several ways that the annual world-wide consumption of NATURAL GAS could be converted to 'room-space-heater-equivalents' --- using various units of measure and various conversion factors.

First of all, we note that the typical POWER rating of a room space heater is about 1500 watts (1.5 kilowatts).

Then we could use the annual world-wide consumption of NATURAL GAS --- in CUBIC-FEET, say.

We could convert those cubic-feet into ENERGY units (kilowatt-hours).

We could divide those kilowatt-hours by the number of hours in a year to get the POWER (rate of energy consumption & generation) in the natural-gas being used world-wide at any moment in recent time.

Then dividing that figure by 1500 watts (the max-power rating of the typical space heater) would give us the world's natural-gas heat-generation rate in 'room-space-heater-equivalents'.

Here are details of calculation steps using that method:

  1. Find the annual consumption of natural gas --- in cubic feet, say.

    For example, at eia.gov one can find a report that between 1980 and 2010, global consumption of dry natural gas rose FROM 53 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) --- TO 113 Tcf.

    In 2020, consumption is probably higher than 113,000,000,000,000 = 113,000 billion cubic feet, but we will use that conservative figure in our calculations --- although there were probably about 30 trillion more cubic feet per year consumed in 2020.

  2. Find a conversion factor for the energy in a CUBIC-FOOT of natural gas to energy units of KILOWATT-HOURS.

    For example, kylesconverter.com shows that 1 Cubic Foot Of Natural Gas is equal to 0.29 kilowatt-hours.

  3. There are about 365 x 24 = 8,760 hours in a year.

  4. We can divide the annual consumption of natural gas --- 133,000 billion cubic feet --- by 8,760 hours to get a consumption rate of 15.18 billion cubic feet per hour.

  5. We can multiply

    15.18 BILLION cubic-feet per hour

    by the conversion factor

    0.29 kilowatt-hours per cubic-foot

    to give

    4.40 BILLION kilowatts
    of POWER (rate of ENERGY usage)
    being consumed & generated world-wide by burning of natural-gas

      A units-of-measure check:

      cubic-feet / hour   times   kilowatt-hours / cubic-foot

      gives

      kilowatts

      because the cubic-feet and hours units cancel leaving kilowatts.

  6. We divide 1.5 Kilowatts into 4.40 BILLION kilowatts to get

    2.93 BILLION 'room-space-heater-equivalents'

    of heat-generation in the current (circa 2020) burning of natural-gas all over precious planet Earth.

The bottom-line :

Due to annual world-wide consumption of NATURAL GAS, humans have added the equivalent of about 6 BILLION heat-generating, 24-hours-a-day, non-tiring, hard-working horses to the planet --- about 100 times more than the 60 million actual horses in the world.

OR --- viewed in different (non-horse) units-of-measure --- due to annual world-wide consumption of NATURAL GAS, humans have added the equivalent of about 3 BILLION room-space-heaters --- running 'full-blast' 24-hours-a-day --- to the planet.

    NOTE:
    Since 6 billion 'super-horses' equal 2.93 billion 'room-space-heaters' (by somewhat rough calculations), this implies that one 'super-horse' is roughly equal to 2.93 / 6 = 0.49 'room-space-heaters'.

    So a 'hot super horse' is roughly equal to half a 'room-space-heater'.

This 6 billion 'natural-gas-horses' --- 2.93 billion room-space-heaters --- is in addition to the 7 billion-plus humans --- with their COAL-burning which adds another 10 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' to planet Earth --- and their machines burning Petroleum LIQUIDS, all over planet Earth, which add another 8 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' to planet Earth.

Here is a condensation of what was mentioned at the bottom of the home page of this site --- using our world natural-gas-AND-coal-AND-petro-liquids consumption figures, in 'super-horse' units:

In the 1600's, the "Father of Microbiology" Antonie van Leeuwenhoek predicted that the Earth could support no more than 13.4 billion people, due to the land-area limitation.

BUT ... Leeuwenhoek had not counted on

  • the gasoline-and-diesel-burning 'internal combustion engine' and 'oil-and-gas fossil fuels' and 'faster transportation' and 'labor saving machines'

  • nor did he take into account the proliferation of natural-gas-burning furnaces and ovens and kilns and gas-turbines etc.

  • nor did he take into account the proliferation in the burning of coal, especially by huge electricity generation plants, which did not exist in his time.

In other words, humans are facing not only a land-limitation threat to a high-quality existence, but also a heat-generation threat to a high-quality existence.

At this time (around the year 2020):

About 7.5 billion humans are responsible for about 6 + 10 + 8 = 24 BILLION hot-super-horse-equivalents of heat generation every day on planet Earth --- due to burning natural-gas AND coal AND oil distillates --- about 400 times more horse-equivalents than the 60 million actual horses in the world(which are NOT working-all-day 'super-horses').

Another way of looking at this:
Each human has, on average, about

24-billion hot-super-horses   /   7.5-billion humans
=
3.2 heat-generating-super-horses

working for them --- 24 hours a day --- every day.

CONCLUSION:

Humans have some work to do, if they want to stop over-heating their world and avoid wiping themselves out.

Note that the neutralizing effect of glaciers-and-snow-and-ice is fast disappearing. When they are gone, the Earth temperatures will REALLY start rising fast.

For further facts on NATURAL GAS heat-generation and atmospheric heating, here are some web searches to try (and to modify).

You could try changing some of these 'keywords' to look for information of interest to you.

Bottom of this
NaturalGas-to-RoomSpaceHeaters Conversion page.

To return to a previously visited web page location, click on the Back button of your web browser, a sufficient number of times. OR, use the History-list option of your web browser.
OR ...

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Page history:

Page was created 2020 Nov 25.


NOTE: The circles represent relative consumption in 2010.


NOTE: This is consumption per day.
Multiply by 365 to get annual consumption.


This graph suggests that world natural gas
production will peak around 2035.


NOTE:
China's natgas consumption started
exceeding her production around 2007.


NOTE:
China's need to start importing natgas
started around 2007.


NOTE:
India's natgas consumption started
exceeding her production around 2003.


NOTE:
Asia-Pacific natgas consumption was
approaching U.S. consumption around 2010.


NOTE:
From about 1987 to 2015 U.S. natgas consumption was
exceeding U.S. production --- requiring imports ---
as shown in this graph and the following two graphs.


NOTE:
If the U.S. could replace 'NatGas Electricity Generation'
with renewables, a major reduction in natgas 'addiction'
could be achieved.


Consider it 'a blessing' that renewables
are becoming cost-effective, circa 2020.
(And the technical issues are being addressed
by innovative scientists and engineers.)


WHAT A WASTE!


You can do a WEB SEARCH on keywords
such as
'fracking earthquakes'
and
'natural gas flaring'


Cooking by elephant.


Becoming self-sufficient.