Recycling "Junk Energy": How Plants Are Cutting Emissions, Making Money and Turning their Waste Steam into Useful Energy
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 04. 7.08
Image courtesy of RED
Americans fully waste 55% of the energy they consume. That, alongside a veritable slew of other eye-catching numbers, can found in a piece by Lisa Margonelli in the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine, in which she describes the operations of Recycled Energy Development, whose mission is to "profitably reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by developing and owning energy recycling facilities." The company offers to help plants recycle waste energy streams and generate useful electricity and thermal energy from a variety of sources including: exhaust heat from any industrial process, industrial tail gas (it would normally be vented, flared or incinerated) and pressure drops in any gas.
According to Tom Casten, the company's chief executive, efficiently recycling waste energy could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10-20% and provide savings of up to $70b; having all plants capture their waste heat would allow the U.S. to derive 20% of its total energy needs from "junk energy". In other words, that would eliminate the need for new coal-fired plants - and even some of the existing ones.
One of RED's typical combined heat and power (CHP) plants supplies its industrial host with a combination of natural gas- and steam-powered electricity. Such facilities roughly achieve an 85% efficiency - in large part because they waste very little energy (they lack cooling towers that would otherwise vent waste heat) - and help cut down on fuel costs and emissions. Making some extra money on the side by selling back excess energy to the grid is another plus.
The 250 or so local plants that RED has built or operated since 1977 have at least doubled the efficiency of the central grid. Countries like Denmark, which have also moved towards a local generation model, have also drastically improved their electric efficiency while substantially reducing their fuel costs.
Given that a recent McKinsey study revealed that 75% of American companies were unwilling to invest in efficiency upgrades that take 2 years to pay for themselves, however, RED still has a ways to go before it breaks into the mainstream. Couple that with a maze of regulations that actually make it harder for companies to sell recycled energy at a profit, and it's clear that only a change in government policy or new incentives will help sell the technology.
Still, while many hoped for "green" technologies have yet to materialize, RED's CHP plants are here and already have a proven track record of success. So what if it's not actually "green" power per se? As Margonelli eloquently put it in her article: "Green power may pay great dividends years from now. Gray power, if we would embrace it, is a realistic goal for today."
Living on Earth recently featured Casten on its program; you can download the whole podcast here or just listen to his segment.
Via ::They should do that: Recycled Energy Development - Turning Waste Factory Heat into Useable Energy (blog)
See also: ::Honda Looks Into Recycling Engine Waste Heat, ::The Good Energy Initiative: Good for You, Good for the Jew
"Americans fully waste 55% of the energy they consume."
-Got a source for such a ridiculous claim???
Its not ridiculous- most of the loss is inherent inefficiency. With so much of the US energy source derived from fossil fuels (notoriously ineffeciently) there energy waste would be heavier than other countries. Throw in the phantom energy waste, and general waste exhibited by the western world- and you end up with a disgraceful numbe like 55%
"Americans fully waste 55% of the energy they consume. That, alongside a veritable slew of other eye-catching numbers, can found in a piece by Lisa Margonelli in the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine"
I'm guessing the source is (as described) the piece by Lisa Maronelli in the latest issue of "The Atlantic magazine". It's a pity there isn't a hyperlink, but sources used to be referenced before the internet.
You may want to look at a company in Canada, Thermal Energy International. (Thermalenergy.com).
They capture waste heat while simultaneously scrub emissions of SO2,NO2 and particulate. They can use the waste heat to dry bio-mass to replace hydrocarbon fuel for boilers.
The steam generated by fossil burning powerplants could be used to heat homes using a process called co-generation. Basically the steam that is used to turn the turbine to create electricity could be piped to peoples homes and using a system of piping at a home a kind of radiant flooring would be created. Thus the demand upon the energy source would be lessened because home owners would not be using their heaters as much during the winter. There is a significant problem though, the steam looses its heat energy through distance so people would have to live fairly close and no one wants to live near a power plant because of the associated health and visibility problems.
I would like to see the numbers from where you are getting these claims that these new plants are doubling their effieciency. Please reference where these calculations are coming from.
Internal combustion engines are incredibly inefficient, as low as only 20%. Most of the energy is lost in heat. So I can easily see the 55% as a valid number.
These inefficiencies abound. But not only are the processes inefficient, the infrastructure that carries the power is also inefficient. We're going to need to address all these areas, in addition to developing alternative sources, in order to stem the energy crisis.
Not only is over half of our energy wasted. Over two-thirds of the energy from power plants is wasted. It literally goes up in smoke, as the heat used to turn coal/gas/whatever into electricity is vented into the atmosphere. Check the Energy Information Administration website for studies on that. The reason it's wasted is that power plants tend to be really far away from consumers, and heat doesn't travel well. So what Casten and others do is they put power plants on site at manufacturing facilities and elsewhere so the heat can be re-used. That, and they take manufacturers' own waste heat and do the same thing. Amazing stuff.