World's First 24-Cylinder Gas Engine
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 05. 6.08
This monster 24-cylinder engine, powered by natural gas, will achieve a total efficiency level of more than 85% when it goes into service growing tomatoes. GE Energy will deliver two 4-MW Jenbacher J624 GS engines delivered to Royal Pride Holland's Middenmeer greenhouse operations 50 km north of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
The installation is a "pilot project" to demonstrate the viability of the new engine. The 24-cylinder engine endured nearly a year of bench testing at GE Energy's gas engine manufacturing center in Jenbach, Austria.
The engine will be utilized in GE's special cogeneration-CO2 fertilization technology, which was developed at GE's Jenbacher horticultural applications center of excellence in The Netherlands. The cogeneration-CO2 fertilzation system boosts the total efficiency of the engine to 85% by using the thermal power as well as the electrial power, and by pumping the engine's own CO2 emissions back into the greenhouse to promote plant growth. The electricity generated in excess of Royal Pride Holland's lighting and heating needs will be fed back into the local grid.
Jenbacher engines can operate on a variety of specialty fuels, including flare gas and coal mine gas or alternative fuels like biogas, landfill gas, wood gas, sewage gas and industrial waste gas.
Via ::GE Energy
That loud sound wasn't a backfire from the 24 cylinders, it was my head exploding. Hooray for 85% efficiency growing tomatoes out of season!! Hooray for promoting growth with CO2-exhaust enriched air!!
I can hardly wait until we can all just come to grips with the fact that if we wish to survive we cannot fly, drive very much, burn fossil fuels to heat greenhouses, cover the planet with streetlights or continue on in any of the million other really stupid things we do on a daily basis.
Live close to your work; walk there. Eat local and seasonal. Insulate your home.
I like the paint job.
I guess a turbine would put to much natural gas into the green house. Thats a high maintenance engine.
How do they keep "more than just CO2" from getting into the green house?
rueben I don't understand what wont survive people as a species or just our current way of life.
iether way does it trully matter in the long run.
Right on, Ruben!
Thank's, GE, for investing money to improve the efficiency of existing technologies, and to reduce their impact on the environment.
It's a good thing to implement engines and other generators that can run on a variety of fossil, bio, and waste fuels. As Ruben and many other eco-survivalists seem to forget, infrastructure doesn't automatically switch to being sustainable. I'd like to see this technology further applied.
JC:
The exhaust from a natural gas burning engine would only consist of carbon dioxide and water vapor. Unlike gasoline and diesel, natural gas does not result in soot when it burns unless starved of oxygen. Nitrogen oxides might result if the burn is extremely hot; these can be broken down with catalysts. Presuming there is no contamination with sulfurous gasses such as hydrogen sulfide (the "rotten egg" smell) there shouldn't be any sulfur dioxide in the exhaust.
Rueben,
Unless you have a solution to the population growth issue, you should open your mind to more, not fewer, greenhouses. Look at some of the articles here on vertical farming and other advanced methods for taking the load off the land and using technology to solve problems. Sure natural gas is only a stepping-stone, but the future lies in technology not in neo-luddism.