micro cogen vs solar

[mobile_bob]

an interesting article

http://www.claverton-energy.com/what-is-microgeneration.html

looks like cogen can be more "green" than solar/pv

bob g

[mobile_bob]

a very interesting position report from the epa on efficiencies and 2025
as it relates to removing barriers to cogeneration

http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/documents/vision.pdf

bob g

[Henry W]

There is a lot in there I will have to sit down and take the time to go through it.

Henry

[mobile_bob]

and here is another position paper from the DOE

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/industry/distributedenergy/pdfs/chp_accomplishments_booklet.pdf

bob g

[Henry W]

To me it looks like Microcogeneration  will have a bright future for generating heat and power in residental off grid applications.

Henry

[mobile_bob]

Henry:

i would agree totally, and it is my firm belief that if this recession/depression continues much longer, or goes into a double dip
later this year and into next there will be a paradigm shift in our culture.

it is a reality most folks might still not want to buy into, but here is my reasoning

you can only knock a guy down so many times over the course of his lifetime before he makes a radical change in how he interrelates
to the world around him.

a young man might pick himself up, dust himself off, and give it the old heave ho' one more time, but once he has done so a few times
or once his area of expertise has been threatened by a change in the market, he will come to a day of reckoning where he will decide not
to keep banging his head against the wall, and make a dramatic change in how he lives.

we only have to look at how previous generations handled this sort of stress on their systems, and what they did about it.

when the great depression hit, and there was no work, a butt load of folks gathered everything they had left into an old car or truck
and headed west to california to find work outside the cities and out on the farms. Many folks made it all the way there, but the majority
stopped and put down roots anywhere they could find work, mainly it was out on farms across the midwest.

in the dust bowl years, folks starved out, and migrated back toward the cities where they might find a factory job or anything to feed themselves.

we saw all sorts of migrations both before and after ww2, and we saw some very interesting things happen especially with returning soldiers after
WW2, korea, and especially viet nam, many of those guys came back dramatically changed, and you could find many of them setting down roots
in very remote area's.

there are many hundreds of thousands of remote locations, abandoned home sites and small farms places all over the country, where there
is not nearly as much intrusion on ones life, where property taxes are near nothing and that can be purchased for incredibly low cost (relatively speaking)

its not going to take long before we see a mass migration back out into the country, just as it has happened before. why on earth would a reasonable thinking guy want to restart after losing his job, and his home, and after seeing his credit being damaged beyond repair, and all the while see that the banks have tightened credit to the point that he might never get a leg up again where he is at?

a house that sold for 500k a couple years ago, might now be worth 300k today, one might say "wow what a bagain" but is it really a bargain
if you have no job or no credit good enough to qualify, or no banks wanting to make homeloans? and is it a bargain if we go into a double dip recession?  i think maybe not?

is it a bargain if one has good credit and a bank willing to loan, you still have a job for now, and you have 20% down payment?
20% of 300k is what 60 grand?

one might start to think, hey what else can i do with my 60 grand?  can i find a small plot out in bumfugaloobie idaho for maybe 10grand?
could i then build a small cabin for maybe 20grand and never have to make a house payment again? could i set up my power generation
for 5 or 10 grand and not have to worry about utility bills?  would i really have about 20grand left over to provide a grubstake to keep me
in beans until i got my garden to produce, my chickens laying eggs, and a pig or goat fed out for slaughter?

and once that was all done, would i be happy?  would i be happier with a simple life?  would i be happy not having to fight the corporate world?
would i be happy not having to sit in traffic for 2 or more hours per day? would i then have time to stop and smell the roses? become a part
of a community rather than be too tired to be a part of anything?

and how would i feel not having a mortgage? or huge tax bills?  and how would i feel about having some say as to what my utility bills will be this
winter or next?

personally i think the solution is obvious, there will be a mass movement of folks that have put back some money and want out.

and i truly believe that cogeneration is a small part of what it is going to take to make the process a reality, land off the grid is but a fraction of what it would be if there are utilities on it.

it also seems pretty obvious that the DOE, and EPA are or have been very positive about cogeneration, there is probably more to the story behind the scenes with both those organizations as well, somebody up the food chain has figured out that the current direction we are going is not sustainable. folks will want to move out to offgrid locations and cogen makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

bob g

[Lloyd]

The only problem in hoping that something will come..is the the EPA is a Rouge Agency...It's run by a head of the the then current administration(appointment)...that uses it to effect a bypass of the congress.

It's been empowered by a rouge High court..bc we the people continue to elect congress/senate members that are to busy doing their job of growing their theifdoms and not enough time doing the job they were elected to do..so they delegate to an the agency gone rouge.

And of course the EPA is choked full of people that are concerned with their liberal idealism's, that they learned in school. A sample make it harder for people to drive, and afford fuel to do so ...in an attempt to get em out of cars and into mass transit...big problem...nobody has spent the time/money/resources/built infrastructure, developing a working mass transit system. So we end up paying higher costs and sitting in traffic longer.

I'm just cynical right now.

Lloyd

[billswan]

Lloyd

I agree totally with your View of the EPA!!

We are like frogs in the frying pan and it is getting hotter by the day!

Billswan

[mobile_bob]

Don't get me wrong fella's,  i am no fan of the epa most especially its ability to write law's that congress should be responsible
for, and their over reaching/politically motivated/lack of real science based/knee jerk reactionary view of the world and how it should
be according to them.

what i am trying to say, and maybe not clearly enough is this...

the epa owns the ball, the bat and the playfield, so in order for us to play we have to follow their rules even if we don't like them.

much like how large corporations exploit loopholes in the tax code to their benefit, we should be doing the same thing, that being
looking for the loop hole or redirecting our attention toward a common goal.

it would appear that the epa is anti diesel engine, most especially anti imported water cooled diesel engine's that have no aftertreatment
at all. from that it would appear that there is no way to ever again be able to import legally a slow speed diesel or medium speed diesel
such as the listeroid or changfa diesel engines to be used as prime movers for gensets.

however,, the epa and the doe are both really interested in cogeneration, so we quit building gensets (and be responsible citizens) and build cogenerators!

the same prime mover that is not epa compliant can have its emissions cut perhaps as much as 85% simply by not running it full time 24/7
or even 16/7 as a genset, but rather through careful design and matching to the load requirement of the home (both electrically and thermally)
what once needed to run 16 or 24 hours a day might well get the job done running 2-4 hours per day depending on time of year and other inputs.

that represents a huge reduction in emissions which should get the epa's attention in a good way, and will provide an incredibly more efficient source of power to fill the offgrid needs of society, which should get the doe and the users attention in also a good way.

in my opinion it is not responsible for any number of reasons to run a generator as a prime source of electrical power only, except in situations
where it is used as an emergency standby solution to a problem brought on by something completely out of ones control. its just not responsible to run an engine of any type for 16 or more hours per day, running a part load so that we can have electrical power (only) at the drop of a hat
so that we can have it available to power a light, tv or other appliance without regard to any form of scheduling. its just inefficient as hell and costly in both fuel and maintenance, along with being a source of unnecessary pollution.

we all either know of, or have heard of, installation where an offgridder has a small genset running unattended from sun up to sun down
7days a week, in a poor state of tune, neglected proper service, and likely polluting like hell,, is it any wonder why the epa doesn't like gensets?

on the other hand there are those that have the cogen thing worked out, where the engine's are not running full time, but nevertheless the power needs or the installation are met along with either all or a significant part of the thermal loads as well. is it any wonder why the epa might be
more supportive of that sort of installation?

i remember a few short years ago over on the LEF forum, 99.9% of folks were just happy to have a listeroid genset, and there was really no interest in cogeneration, moving forward to today  i suspect that the percentage has shifted  to where we either have more actively using their
systems in cogeneration application or are working to do so, and at the very least thinking about it.

i don't yet know what the percentage is of our membership that is into cogen or planning such, perhaps it is 20%? more or less,

it is my firm belief we as a group should be doing more to promote this mode of operation, especially for that applications where the prime mover
is now the primary source of power for the installation. it makes sense not to worry about those installations that are for emergency backup power, makes no sense to not plan on some form of cogen capability for any planned system where it would be the primary source of power.

my opinion only

what do you guys think, i really would like to know how folks think about this topic

bob g

[Lloyd]

With out discounting my view of the EPA..I think you are right.

People are the problem...but gov. should give us leadership.

The EPA is suppose to develop the information and pass it to congress for action.... but if you can't even expect em(congress) to read the 2100 pages of the Obamacare...how in the world do we expect them to read anything from the EPA.

If we elected responsible leadership...then we might be able to all live under the behemoth.

I guess with near 47 % of the population not paying much in taxes... we can expect them to continue to elect those that tell them what they want to hear, as long as they get free obamacare, and pay little in taxes.

They worry not about gov. taking 50cent from their right pocket, and getting back 50cent in entitlement in the left pocket....they are only involved in half the equation...the left pocket-entitlement

Remember the fish story....feed a man a fish and his family will starve...teach a man to fish, and he'll feed a village.

It's all about leadership

Lloyd

[Crumpite]

Ok,

Why is this posting here and not in the octagon !

Let's keep the politics in it's place, ok ?

Or I predict we'll lose even more members...

Crumpite

[Lloyd]

Ok,

Why is this posting here and not in the octagon !

Let's keep the politics in it's place, ok ?

Or I predict we'll lose even more members...

Crumpite

bc...it's inter related...I serious doubt the we are losing members do to fall over of politics into  real life.


lloyd

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[bschwartz]

I'm with Crumpite on this one.

I don't mind reading the political rants when I'm in the mood, but when I turn to the 'real' sections of this forum, I'd like to avoid the bashing.  It gets tiring reading all the hate (weather justified or not) of the politics.

Thanks.

-Brett

[mobile_bob]

ok guys, the political discussion has been moved to the "octagon"

back on topic,

actually i am quite surprised at the seeming lack of interest in this thread and the links provided
kind of thought maybe we could get some dialog going on the subject, given that the DOE and EPA
seem to be supportive of cogeneration.

i guess not?

bob g