What is best high or low sulfur heating oil and why?

Answer 1

Lower amounts of sulfur in heating oil results in a cleaner, more efficient fuel with less emissions. Currently, the heating oil industry is working with various state environmental groups to try and cut the sulfur content of heating oil from 1,500 parts per million to 15 parts per million by 2018. In addition to sulfur reductions, the heating oil industry is moving toward zero emissions with new fuel blends called Bioheat which can contain anywhere between 2 and 20 percent renewable fuel.

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This question isn't as easy to answer as just one is better for X reason, they both have advantages and disadvantages.

For home heating, high and low sulfur #2 heating oil is a misnomer, as the amount of sulfur in the oil is negligible (from 0.15% maximum, to less than 0.001% [a 150% difference from each other but a 0.1499% difference overall]).

Sulfur compounds are heavy fuel residuals and not typically found in light distillates, thus are not normally found in high quantity in kerosene (#1 fuel oil, or JP5). but more often found in much greater quantity in Residual fuel oils (bunker B & C, #4 and #6) which typically have contents between 0.5% and 3.5% sulfur compounds (much higher than distillate fuels). Efficiency (combustion efficiency) of different fuels is less a function of the fuel than the method of burning the fuel, just as the heat contents of fuels are determined differently. Distillate fuels have more heat per pound (19, 000 btu/lb for #2) than residual fuels (18,500 btu/lb.), but because they are much lighter have less heat per gallon (146,000 per gallon compared to 153,000 btu/gal for #6-2.2). Biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel have zero or effectively zero sulfur compounds in them, thus by mixing them with mineral oils (petroleum) can reduce the sulfur content of a given volume or weight of oil, without changing the original content of the original volume. {0.85 gallons of #2 oil can have 68 grains of sulfur compounds (1500ppm), while 1 gallon of 85/15 off-road biodiesel made with that same oil will have the same 68 grains of sulfur compounds. Even though a gallon of the original fuel has 80 grains of sulfur compounds}

For environmental concerns low sulfur fuels are more advantageous, as less pollutants are admitted to the atmosphere. For economic concerns in industrial settings though, because of the cost of desulfuring fuel oils, it is much less costly to purchase and burn high sulfur fuels, and to remove the sulfur compounds from the exhaust gasses after combustion, where catalyzers or, dry and wet scrubbers can more cheaply and more efficiently remove more than 99% of the sulfur content from the flue gasses.

High sulfur fuels typically cost between 15 and 30% of the low sulfur fuels used in industry. Desulfuring fuel oils becomes more expensive the more sulfur is removed from the oil, and at the present requirement for on road use diesel fuel desulfuring costs nearly 1/4 of the overall cost of the fuel and future requirements will increase that cost by as much as if not more than 50%, though fuel blending as described above (even with higher cost biofuels) can decrease that overall cost if the present blending regulations are relaxed to allow a higher percentage of non-petroleum components.

Countries like Brazil, which because of economic reasons, uses more renewable fuels, are ahead of most of the world in that respect (petroleum is more expensive than alcohol there), and have converted to an economically and environmentally sound fuel source.

Answer 2

Low sulfur heating oil is considered better than high sulfur heating oil because it produces lower levels of sulfur dioxide emissions when burned, which helps reduce air pollution and its negative impact on human health and the environment. Additionally, low sulfur heating oil tends to be more efficient and cleaner burning, resulting in better overall performance and less maintenance for heating systems.