Don't miss this profile of Tom Casten and his company, Recycled Energy Development, in the latest issue of Forbes. (Of course Tom spawn and Gristmill contributor Sean gets off some zingers, but they're about ethanol, so don't read them! I know how you people get.)
Recycled energy -- otherwise known as cogeneration, or combined heat and power, or waste heat, or simultaneous recyclo-combinatory hot-waste power re-generation -- is an odd bird in the energy debate. Not many people know about it, and the people who do know about it tend to be, um, more versed in engineering or finance than in marketing. Nobody really knows how to talk about it. In one sense, it's power generation, so analogous to (and judged against) coal plants and wind farms. (In that sense it's "dirty," since the power is usually produced, if indirectly, from fossil fuels.) In another sense, it's efficiency -- getting more use out of a unit of primary fuel. (In that sense it's "clean," since it reduces total emissions.) It's this weird third thing. Its potential is huge but people don't have a great mental model for it, so it doesn't stick in people's heads.
But you Grist readers are different. You'll remember: simultaneous recyclo-combinatory hot-waste power re-generation is the wave of the future! Watch for a line of t-shirts.
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Comments
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Jonas Posted 12:59 pm
15 Sep 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 1:13 pm
15 Sep 2008
It's an honor to blog with you.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:33 pm
15 Sep 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 1:44 pm
15 Sep 2008
We do have dissagreement about cogeneration making the wrong techologies more cost effective.
Try vacuum pumps that lower the evaporation temperature of the ethanol, and heat pumps that capture the heat from the ethanol condensation to heat the ethanol. The pumps running on electricity generated in biogas powered solid oxide fuel cells and the waste heat from the fuel cell also used to heat the ethanol.
The biogas obtained by biodigesting the fermentation and distillation waste. Several breweries use this biogas/fuel cell energy route already. They use the waste heat for process heat in the brewery.
Don't really do this, it will make ethanol cheaper. Hehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pangolin Posted 8:27 pm
15 Sep 2008
You can sometimes get beer, really good beer, cheaper than bottled water around here. Of debatable benefit to the local environment; less waste, more drunks.
Put the Carbon Back
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vakibs Posted 9:59 pm
15 Sep 2008
How depressing a future !!
The next thing you guys will be talking of is about using solar power to liquify coal, and thereby reducing emissions on the way.
Listen to Dr. Hansen. Leave the coal buried in the earth. Forever !!
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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amazingdrx Posted 10:57 pm
15 Sep 2008
It could be that americans have become too stupid to survive. A very short empire, historically speaking.
Have humans become more idiotic or is it that life has become far too complex? It is probably just complexity, humans have always been stupid.
They crave leaders as stupid as they are. The ability to bring about massive failure is magnified by technology. Electronic trading, for instance, results in financial disaster over a few years. It's that sort of effect.
Massive energy use? Rapid GHG climate disaster. Haitians burned all their trees, but it was low tech, so it only destroyed Haiti. Americans exported mining and coal technology, now the climate of the entire plant is in danger.
How do we stop the "too stupid to survive" effect? If this election goes the way of the last two? Can we stop it?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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