Oak Ridge Natnl Lab: Potential of Combined Heat and Power 60% reduction of projected CO2 increase

[JohnWxy]

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=131


December 02, 2008

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has released Combined Heat and Power: Effective Energy Solutions for a Sustainable Future, a new report highlighting Combined Heat and Power (CHP) as a realistic solution to enhance national energy efficiency, ensure environmental quality, promote economic growth, and foster a robust energy infrastructure. The report provides an in-depth discussion of current opportunities and challenges to more widespread national CHP deployment, and sets the stage for future policy dialogue aimed at promoting this clean energy solution.

The report asks "What if 20% of generating capacity came from CHP?" If the United States attained this goal by 2030, benefits would include:


A 60% reduction of the projected increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2030—the equivalent of removing 154 million cars from the road

Fuel savings of 5.3 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) annually—the equivalent of nearly half the total energy currently consumed by US households

Economically viable application throughout the nation in large and small industrial facilities, commercial buildings, multi-family and single-family housing, institutional facilities, and campuses
The creation of 1 million new highly-skilled, competitive "green-collar" jobs through 2030 and $234 billion in new investments throughout the United States.

CHP, also known as cogeneration, is the concurrent production and use of electricity or mechanical power and useful thermal energy from a single fuel source. CHP includes a suite of technologies that can use a variety of fuels to generate electricity or power at the point of use, allowing normally lost heat to be recovered to provide needed heating or cooling. Using CHP today, the United States already avoids more than 1.9 quadrillion Btu of fuel consumption and annual CO2 emissions equivalent to removing more than 45 million cars from the road.


From the full report:

"CHP, or cogeneration, has been around in one form or another for more than 100 years; it is proven, not speculative. Despite this proven track record, CHP remains underutilized and is one of the most compelling sources of energy efficiency that could, with even modest investments, move the Nation strongly toward greater energy security and a cleaner environment. Indeed, ramping up CHP to account for 20 percent of US electricity capacity—several European countries have already exceeded this level—would be equivalent to the CO2 savings of taking 154 million cars off the road."

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/industry/distributedenergy/pdfs/chp_report_12-08.pdf#page=7&zoom=92">Full Report: Executive Summary


http://www1.eere.energy.gov/industry/distributedenergy/pdfs/chp_report_12-08.pdf#page=9&zoom=95,0,780">Full Report: What is Combined Heat and Power

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/industry/distributedenergy/pdfs/chp_report_12-08.pdf#page=16&zoom=95,200,780">Full Report: Cost Effectively Reducing CO2 Emissions

[LiberalEsto]

1. Cool! This is something I've written about extensively

I've been writing case studies on cogeneration for years for the Energy Solutions Center, a nonprofit consortium of natural gas utility companies and gas technology manufacturers. This summer I also wrote a huge article on the use of cogeneration by the Ontario provincial government as a tool for reducing greenhouse emissions for a cogeneration web site.

Some people may look down on cogen because natural gas is a fossil fuel, but the fact is that natural gas creates far fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal, diesel or fuel oil when used to generate electricity. It also doesn't release arsenic, cadmium, mercury and other heavy metals that are byproducts of coal burning.

Cogeneration is the harvesting of heat energy that is created during the electricity-generating process and using it as an additional energy resource. Heat harvested from gas turbines can provide interior heating in buildings, heat water for lavatories, kitchens and swimming pools, or be transformed into air conditioning by means of an absorption cooler. This increases the amount of energy yielded by a given quantity of natural gas.

Thanks for posting. I look forward to reading the report.

[JohnWxy]

3. greater efficiencies in how we generate and use power gives the highest

return on investment. The very first thing you should look at is reducing wasted energy.

Obama is requesting input from everybody on any and all policies. You should send him yours.

[Nihil]

2. Great, that's a nice report ... now JFDI ...!

> The report asks "What if 20% of generating capacity came from CHP?"
> If the United States attained this goal by 2030, benefits would ...

So do it. Don't get bogged down with yet another round of reports to
"investigate" the "What if 15%", "What if 21% ...", etc., or the "if"
point will get pushed out to 2040, 2050, or any other "pick a year after
we're all dead" date ...

:shrug: