Discuss: The Unsung Solution

This is a time-tested technology that is quite well-known in industry. 

It used to be called Co-Generation (Co-Gen) but lately it’s been called Combined Heat and Power (CHP).  The author states that power plants aren’t using it, but he’s wrong.  Almost every utility generating plant uses heat recovery.  On natural-gas plants they are called CCCTs (Combined Cycle Combustion Turbines).  This is basically a jet engine combined with a heat recovery unit to capture the waste heat in the exhaust.

So yes, there are lots more opportunities that need to be captured from industrial processes, but many are not quite “cost-effective” at current energy prices.  Once prices include the cost of carbon, they will become more widespread.

Another example of how we already have the (technological) answers to our big questions, and it’s a matter of changing our paradigm and infrastructure. Thanks for another great article!

Jusby the Clown asks about songs about solar panels and windmills -
try out “power” by John and Johanna Hall.  you can find it on Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Songs of Conscience and Concern”

it’s a start.

super article as well.

use the excess heat power to refine hydrogen for fuel cells, or to power your own plant

An Orion reader took of Bill’s lyrical challenge and recently sent this ode to waste heat recovery to our offices—Hal Clifford, Orion executive editor

No enviros think you’re sexy
but the smart ones know your worth
I read about you in Orion
I’d like to help you at your birth

Waste-heat recovery boiler
way up in the air
Waste-heat recovery boiler
they ignore you and that’s not fair

Recycling’s the name of the game
and you’re the top so far
low-hanging fruit they say
(although I still should shun my car)

Waste-heat recovery boiler
way up in the air
Waste-heat recovery boiler
they ignore you and that’s not fair

Your day will come, don’t worry
your future is real bright
The moon will shine down on you
on a future summer night

Waste-heat recovery boiler
way up in the air
Waste-heat recovery boiler
I want you to know I care!

Response to Steve Weiss: 

Your comment is partially right, but misleading.  At the risk of being overly facetious, it’s like saying that Idi Amin was a great father.  While it may be true, the truth misses the larger issue.  Here’s why:

1. The US electricity sector is 33% efficient, meaning that they throw away 2/3rds of all their input energy as waste heat (indeed, if you picture a power plant, your image is probably of the cooling tower).  This is the same as it was in 1957.  And lest we think that is some technical limit, it was twice as high in 1910!  Indeed, even Edison’s very first power plant was 50% efficient.  The difference in these earlier plants was that they were cogen facilities, while the present architecture is designed primarily to throw heat away.  This means that we could massively reduce our cost of energy and CO2 emissions simply by going back to 1910 technologies.  (Optimist that I am, I think we can actually do better than 1910.) When you recognize that 69% of our CO2 emissions come from heat & power generation, the scale of this opportunity - and crisis of our energy policy - becomes massively apparent.

2. You’re right about putting heat recovery cycles on gas turbines, but even those still throw away almost 50% of the energy, since much of the energy in power plant exhaust is in the heat of vaporization. (e.g., the heat to evaporate water, rather the heat to cool steam).  The difference in our approach is that we are targeting industrial facilities where the heat is being thrown away on a more continuous basis.  (Our entire gas-fired power fleet only has about a 20% annual capacity factor due to high gas costs, while an industrial plant produces heat 24/7.  This makes the potential for displacing dirtier power much larger at these industrial plants.) That said, your point is well taken that all gas turbines really ought to have “steam tails” on them, and it is a great opportunity for further deployment.  One opportunity we’re looking at is on natural gas pipelines, which install small gas turbines every ~100 miles to repressurize the gas - and with a small number of exceptions, all of them throw away the waste heat, and could readily make 4 - 6 MW per compressor station all across the country.

“Sunbathing in Siberia”

I’m sunbathing in Siberia
Surfing the waves of the Bering Sea
Sunbathing in Siberia
Scuba diving where New Orleans used to be.

If Gore had been awarded the White House
He’d chain us with Kyoto 1 2 3
There’d be solar panels on the rooftops
CoGen and Wind power, clean and almost free

I’m sunbathing in Siberia
Surfing the waves of the Bering Sea
Sunbathing in Siberia
Scuba diving where Florida used to be.

Copyleft, c, 2007, X B Coldfingers

I sure hope Casten gets with the Google guys and their money & efforts.