Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumAn Industrial-Sized Generator That Runs on Waste Heat, Using No Fuel
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/531526/an-industrial-sized-generator-that-runs-on-waste-heat-using-no-fuel/[font size=4]Startup Alphabet Energy has its first product: what it says is the worlds largest thermoelectric generator.[/font]
By Kevin Bullis on October 9, 2014
[font size=3]Power plants waste huge amount of energy as heatabout 40 to 80 percent of the total in the fuel they burn. A new device could reduce that waste, cutting fuel consumption and carbon emissions by as much as 3 percent and saving companies millions of dollars. (Three percent might not seem like much, but for context, air travel accounts for 2 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.)
The generator makes use of a novel, highly efficient thermoelectric material discovered recently at the University of Michigan (see Thermoelectric Material to Hit Market Later this Year). Thermoelectric materials, which convert heat into electricity, have been around for decades, but they have always been too expensive to use outside extreme situationsin spacecraft, for example.
Matt Scullin, the CEO of Alphabet Energy, the startup that developed the new device, says connecting it to the exhaust pipe of a 1,000-kilowatt generator will yield enough electricity to save 52,500 liters of diesel fuel a year, for a reduction of about 2.5 percent. For smaller engines, the savings would be slightly higher, Scullin says.
The first customers will probably be oil, gas, and mining companies that use large generators to produce power in remote areas. The generator could save those companies millions in fuel, Scullin says. There arent many levers these companies can pull to reduce costs that much, he adds.
[/font][/font]
hunter
(38,337 posts)... this same technology will be utilized in three billion portable smart phone chargers and home power units, thus negating any reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)The key to decreasing energy usage is decreasing efficiency.
hunter
(38,337 posts)The root of the problem is simple. The "efficiency" of the physicist is not the same as the "efficiency" of the economist.
Look at the problem this way:
How efficient was the earth as a solar collector storing energy as petroleum so we could someday zip around in our stupid cars?
The actual efficiency of our fossil fueled engines is utterly dismal, a tiny, tiny, infinitesimal fraction of 1%.
Here's another question:
How important is "efficiency" in natural systems? If efficiency is so important why are tree leaves green? Shouldn't they be black?
Quitting fossil fuels is like quitting smoking. You quit smoking by quitting. The "efficiency" of your cigarettes isn't the problem. It's the damage done to your body by smoking that kills you.
If we want to quit fossil fuels we must eventually outlaw them. When you are on the road to hell, you have to turn around. Driving at 50 miles per hour instead of 100 miles per hour delays the time it takes to get there, but only prolongs the misery. It's getting hotter and hotter outside. The car is starting to overheat. We need to turn around while the car is still running. From this point, most of us wouldn't survive the walk back.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,938 posts)This is quite a different matter from Jevons paradox.
You seem to be advocating quitting cold turkey. That can produce violent reactions in the system.
hunter
(38,337 posts)I once quit a notoriously awful but very effective crazy-med cold turkey, AMA (against medical advice) and it was an extremely unpleasant experience. Fortunately my overwhelming OCD always kicks in before the suicidal ideation. If I'm dead then how am I going to follow through on my useless and not-so-useless compulsions? There's still code to write and hairs to pluck from my face.
It's a bloody miracle I didn't revert to my unmedicated dumpster diving feral human state. The social safety nets I've built for myself held, so I'm not living by the creek under a tarp with my stuff in a stolen shopping cart, or in a shack in someone's backyard pissing in the compost pile. Fixed nitrogen! Been there, done that.
I stand by my explanation of Jevons' paradox. The various religions of economic theory are not reality.
We must quit burning coal and tar sands and fracking gas however we can.
Otherwise this civilization dies.
It's a simple problem with a simple answer.
Just stop.