# Tell me what you think about this



## painterswife (Jun 7, 2004)

http://www.marathonengine.com/Cogeneration.html


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/b...japanfuel.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=business


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## ET1 SS (Oct 22, 2005)

Rather like a shipboard unit, that we have been using at sea.

Provide mechanical power to the screw, make electricity, distill fresh water, make hot water.


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## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

can someone translate those numbers in to layman's term for me...please, lol.


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## georgec (Jul 9, 2007)

It is a Natural Gas Generator that uses the waste heat to heat the building, and provide hot water.


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## georgec (Jul 9, 2007)

It is a cool concept if you have to run a generator. You are maximizing the energy output by harnessing the head given off by the engine. With most engines this energy is wasted.


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,

It seems like an interesting idea, and less polluting than grid generated electricity.

There are some links to more info on these things here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Experimental/experimental.htm
search down for "Honda Micro CHP"

One of the links estimated the price at 13K to 20K dollars installed -- so not cheap.

It seems like it might generate more heat than you can make effective use of in the summer? About 70% of the NG energy is coming out as heat and 30% as electricity. If you use 20KWH a day of electricity, you are going to get 47KWH or 160KBTU of heat whether you need it or not. This is several times what you would need just to heat water for the house.

I wonder what the long term maintenance would be like?

Gary


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

I work in a plant with a cogen system. We us quite a bit of steam for heating, cooling, and to provide steam for a hospital. For the last 3 years we have been taking a loss because of the cost of natural gas. We will be getting rid of the cogen unit in about 2 years at the most. 
Even with the use of the steam we can buy power from the electric company cheaper than we can make it.


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## annabella1 (Feb 11, 2003)

Lately I've been thinking about Methane. I recently read that anything that burns natural gas will also burn methane. Methane can be economically produced in anaerobic containers on the farm from farm wastes. This might make for a less expensive way of generating electricity and heat.bbbb


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## Wanderer0101 (Jul 18, 2007)

annabella1 said:


> Lately I've been thinking about Methane. I recently read that anything that burns natural gas will also burn methane. Methane can be economically produced in anaerobic containers on the farm from farm wastes. This might make for a less expensive way of generating electricity and heat.bbbb


The question is going to be how much methane can you produce. Unlikely that the quantity is going to be sufficient for power generation or even heating though cooking might be a possibility.


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

Natural gas is primarily methane. 

Problems with using biogas are storage, compression and the fact that the energy content for biogas is about as low as your can get. 

Difficult/expensive to compress and low energy content means you'll have to store alot of it - as a gas.

Some third world countries use those "biogas bags" in small setups to fuel their cooking stoves, which is probably as practical as biogas gets on a small scale.



annabella1 said:


> Lately I've been thinking about Methane. I recently read that anything that burns natural gas will also burn methane. Methane can be economically produced in anaerobic containers on the farm from farm wastes. This might make for a less expensive way of generating electricity and heat.bbbb


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## artificer (Feb 26, 2007)

There are quite a few farmers that used digesters to produce methane. They run it through a filter to get rid of most of the sulfur, then run a generator. Its somewhat a wash as far as costs are concerned, at least the last time I checked. What is good about the system, is that the resulting output is less smelly. For farmers near town or subdivisions, it allows them to spread the stuff without having to worry about the new neighbors complaining about the farm smells. Swine production facilities could really use this...

I've seen turbine generators that were specifically made to burn low grade bio-gas.

Michael


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## Metcalf (Feb 15, 2007)

Cogeneration is a great idea. It decentralizes power production so we can use the heat in a useful manor instead of wasting it. 

The fuel for these systems have to come from somewhere though. Depending on where you are at, and how easy it is to obtain said fuel it can be more or less expensive. Think simple....generally in one way or another every form of energy comes from the sun. Some have just been stored up for a long time, some for shorter times. If your somewhere sunny use sun, if your somewhere woody use wood, if you have a stream use gravity, there are a lot of options....


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