They’re not the coldest states. Does it have to do with infrastructure? Thanks. [http://nhenergy.blogspot.com/2014_01_01_archive.html?m=1](http://nhenergy.blogspot.com/2014_01_01_archive.html?m=1)
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Today, we use mostly natural gas, which is delivered by tanker to coastal terminal facilities and distributed from regional hubs. Home heating oil is second place these days, but it wasn’t long ago that it was king (we converted our house from oil to gas about 18 years ago).
At one time, coal and wood were the most common – up until about the 1930’s or so. Around that time, kerosene (home heating oil) became widely available and it had lots of advantages: you didn’t need to keep tending your furnace all day, it wasn’t as dirty (ash and soot everywhere), it produced quite a bit of heat, and it became really cheap. So, lots of people converted. The house I grew up in had an old coal furnace that was converted to oil. A tank-full could last months.
In the 1960’s we started building nuclear power stations in the New England, so it looked like electricity was going to be the way to go; it made last-mile distribution so much easier. Around that time, lots of new construction used electric heat, which was cheap and easy to install compared to hot-water baseboard or radiators that were popular before). The price of electricity went up with demand and we’ve even decommissioned the older nuclear plants without building new ones, so now electricity is an expensive option again (though it’s still favored in parts of New England).
Today, natural gas is the most widely used because, until recently, it was cheap. Natural gas lines were underground, so you don’t (necessarily) lose heat during storms like electric. It’s also distributed by pipes rather than fuel trucks, eliminating deliveries (though, rural areas of ME and NH often use liquid propane). The problem with natural gas really has been that it’s not available to everyone because lines don’t cover the entire region (and they can be expensive to install, it’s a very rocky region). My neighborhood was built in 1954 and didn’t get gas lines installed until 2004.
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