[alex_young]

  This article was Sponsored by WhatTheFrack Drilling Company.

Where did you see that? I don’t see the reference anywhere.

Edit: feel free to downvote. I’m not defending the content, I just thought it was interesting. Maybe we should tax fuel oil or something. I just don’t see this report as being some shadowy conspiracy with an oil company.

[LeifCarrotson]

It was written in part (I suspect in large part) by Robert Bryce [1], an oil and gas industry apologist, who has - if nothing else - been consistently arguing against renewable energy and for oil and gas interests for 30 years.

He's been funded by and a fellow with the Institute for Energy Research [2], a front group for Exxon Mobil, Enron, and Charles Koch, and with the Manhattan Institute [3], a corporate-funded conservative think tank, also funded largely by the petroleum industry.

The title of the article and main thrust is that if you use electric resistive space heaters and baseboards, it will cost more than gas. Everyone knows that. No one is seriously steel-man arguing for electric resistive heating (anymore), only heat pumps. I'm shocked it's only a mere 77% more, I would have assumed 2x or 3x.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bryce_(writer)

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Energy_Research

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy...

[alex_young]

  It was written in part (I suspect in large part) by Robert Bryce

I don't see that he's an author or indicated as helping outside of an interview. He's quoted in the story, although not with the detail you provided.

I am an adamant supporter of electrification and of sustainable energy, but I don't see why we can't read articles such as this one, which seems to cover many points about the cost of heat pumps, the expense of energy, and many other aspects of the economics of the issue without needing to be spoon fed a story 'from our side' or whatever.

[fuzzfactor]

$46.19 for electricity is a little more than 3x the $13.97 for gas.

[r00fus]

I'm not downvoting you but if you're being downvoted it's because you failed to do some due diligence and actually look up the answer to your question.

I've taken the step to do a basic lookup when replying in haste and gotten a genuine TIL moment that added to the discourse here instead of asking an easily answered question.

[repeekad]

Downvoted because people don’t like the question? I would also like to know, apparently others don’t

[Aachen]

Same question here. I can't find the reference either. The author is also not labeled as a third party or anything, the word frack doesn't occur on the page, and the word sponsored doesn't appear in the article.

I guess people upvote the top-level comment because it sounds so plausible? But in reality it was meant as a joke and people (like me) were taking it literally?