Why don't more plants and foundries convert their waste heat into electricity? Lisa Margonelli argues that the regulatory environment for electric power usage is a major impediment toward reuse of waste heat.
Much more problematic are the regulations surrounding utilities. Several waves of deregulation have resulted in a hodgepodge of rules without providing full competition among power generators. Though it’s cheaper and cleaner to produce power at Casten’s projects than to build new coal-fired capacity, many industrial plants cannot themselves use all the electricity they could produce: they can’t profit from aggressive energy recycling unless they can sell the electricity to other consumers. Yet byzantine regulations make that difficult, stifling many independent energy recyclers. Some of these competitive disadvantages have been addressed in the latest energy bill, but many remain.
Ultimately, making better use of energy will require revamping our operation of the electrical grid itself, an undertaking considerably more complicated than, say, creating a carbon tax. For the better part of a century, we’ve gotten electricity from large, central generators, which waste nearly 70 percent of the energy they burn. They face little competition and are allowed to simply pass energy costs on to their customers. Distributing generators across the grid would reduce waste, improve reliability, and provide at least some competition.
Small quibble: Those large central electric generators can achieve efficiencies far above 30%. A combined cycle plant that only generates electricity can achieve 60% efficiency. However, that is not a reason to waste heat generated in industrial processes. So her main point remains.
Also, regards the point about competition: In some (though not all) US states the various electric power generator plants compete with each other. The companies that operate the power plants compete to sell electric power to the companies which deliver it to residential and business customers. Since this migration to a more competitive environment of electric suppliers is incomplete more regulatory changes could increase the amount of competition and allow more sources of electricity onto the grid.
An increased use of waste heat for electric power generation would reduce pollution from burning fossil fuels, cut electric power costs, and lower costs in industries that currently waste a lot of heat.
Margonelli also argues tax policy discourages energy efficiency (PDF format).
Promoting efficiency, however, has been an underutilized policy option. In fact, many current government policies do not reward conservation or, worse, encourage waste. The Internal Revenue Service, for example, creates a perverse incentive to waste energy by allowing commercial landlords to write off their energy costs every year. At the same time, it requires building costs to be depreciated on a 30-year schedule, effectively devaluing investments in energy efficiency. Removing such perverse incentives would help encourage greater efficiency but alone would not be enough to spur the efficiency gains we need.
30 years might be too long a write-off period, especially since many pieces of equipment do not last 30 years. But instant total deduction of energy saving investments seems too short a period of time.
We need greater energy efficiency. The costs of new coal and nuclear power plants have soared and natural gas which is widely used for electric power generation has gone up in price as well. So new conventional power plant capacity isn't going to come cheap. We would benefit from greater use of waste heat for electric power generation since it would reduce the demand for expensive new electric power plants and keep electric rates down on our monthly bills.
By Randall Parker at 2008 April 27 07:48 PM Policy Energy | TrackBackI don't see the problem with accelerated depreciation of energy investments. If as you've said many times, peak oil is here, then we should be doing much more to encourage energy frugality. This is an easy change for Congress to make. Hey, maybe they could combine it with an end to ethanol tariffs and subsidies.
Political peak oil is here. Thank you to the idiots in government for that. California leads the way in governmental stupidity, but the current US Congress is catching up very quickly. While Americans are likely to vote for "change" this year, they're likely to get the kind of change they won't like. Politicians tell you anything you want to hear. Behind closed doors, they only make your lives harder.
We could also be better about using the heat as heat, rather that power. You should read about "District Heating", where Denmark sets the standard. Central power plants pump both the electricity and the heat (usually through water pipes heated to 125 C) out to the community for hot water and space heating.
ConEd of New York City actually is the largest and oldest district heating scheme in the world, but its the rare counter-example in the USA. Notably, ConEd was established in the 1800s before the current surplus of regulation.
Regulation is the bane of electric utilities trying to improve matters. Nearly every state (I think a couple have changed) has a political agency or commission to watch the utilities. Some have several in various guises.
The reasons are historical. The utility generally has no competitors so some limit on rates makes sense. And our democratic outlook says rural areas and the poor should be served. More recently environmentalists have convinced the politicans that nothing can be emitted and nuclear is no good either.
Then we have community activists who convince the agencies that no one should ever be inconvenienced by new developments. And the fundamental statutes guiding the agencies often dictate that construction costs must be recovered w/o rate increases; you might as well repeal gravity.
The courts step in to decide whether new plant endangers obscure or non-existing species of life. The environmental impact reports are redone several times because the process is so complex that almost any report will have a deficiency in content or format or process.
And politicans almost never abolish agencies or fire political appointees.
Despite all these difficulties the need for new electrical capacity is so urgent that the industry lurches forward and things get built. The federal government, or regional state consortiums, can and should take over regulation simply because the state methods are not well suited to present conditions. Individual states did a decent job for the first century of electrical utilities but that function is now better served by a national policy.
Individual states did a decent job for the first century of electrical utilities but that function is now better served by a national policy.
Not that I have an opinion of my own but I believe Bucky Fuller would disagree with all parts of the above sentence.
I'm having some computer oddities. Hope this doesn't post twice.
Bob: I wasn't aware that Fuller was much concerned with regulatory policies. His views wouldn't worry me all that much anyway.
The sentence has two parts. Is the problem with the assertion about states for the first century? Or about a national policy from here on? Or both?
I favor mandating regional regulation. Just require all states in the Eastern Time Zone to devise and a common regulatory agency. And the same for other regions.
My main opinion is that regulation should be simple, firm. and react with reasonable speed. Utilities should be able to deal with one authority to build plant and powerlines, try innovations, and set rates. No fussing around for years without decisions and no infinite appeals.
K, many regulatory regimes are "single point of entrance." If the Feds want to preempt local/state level regulation, they can and with a waive of a pen. Federal preemption is a well established Constitutional authority. The problem is political. We (as a nation) have been unwilling to use eminent domain or some other legal principle to cut through bonds the forces of Greenpeace & NIMBY have tied down the Courts with. We have allowed ourselves to fall face first into this problem as of consequence of recognizing certain personal rights as non-exchangeable with money. "You have a RIGHT to live on your land right where it is."
We (as a nation) don't fall for this when it comes to roads, but I guess power plants just don't have the same pull. We'd all be much better off if Courts would have a single hearing where all grievances are aired and a decision is made one way or the other, but (and again, this is political) we're more interested in seeing to it that every possible stakeholder has had every possible chance to get their day in court, regardless of the costs to anyone else. Efficiency be damned.
Of course, you can take "efficiency" too far. In their rush to develop the nation the Chinese have skipped right past efficiency, blown past expediency, and went right to extravagant wastefulness in many cases. They'll be paying the price for that too, in the year ahead. You can't displace hundreds of millions of people using unfair means and expect to get away with it in the long run.
I think that our system of using Courts to make sure everyone gets a fair hearing is a good one, but it needs to be treated more like a class action lawsuit. All Partyies can be grouped by interest, make their case en masses, and then a judge or jury decides (and make damned sure there's always someone to represent the 20 MM voters who will be indirectly effected by changes to the power grid - the common interest is often overlooked). Then you move on.
K,
Fuller advocated a truly international power grid for the first century and didn't think nations did a very good job of running things. He observed that nations were unlikely to bomb each other if doing so would disrupt their own power grid. I don't see why he would reverse that stance now.
Bob: this is certainly off topic but other reasons war would never occur include: the workers of the world would not participate; the world economy is so linked by trade that business would not permit it; and the weapons are now too horrible.
The workers promptly forgot internationalist ideas in 1914, the world economy argument was often made about 1900, and the weapons idea came up with cannons and machine guns and bombers and .......
The weapons argument seems to have worked at times. I think it is partly why we now see more 'asymetrical warfare' in which the enemy is not visible, may be unknown, and acts mostly by terror.
So, then, should we conclude you continue to disagree with Fuller?
Someone I know in the power generation business tells me that usually waste heat is too dilute and unsuitable for electricity generation. However, as waste heat for various projects that require heat only such as desalination, greenhouses, or district heating it is great.
Industrial waste heat is certainly NOT too dilute and unsuitable for electricity generation. The waste heat from a glass oven, for example, enters a 4 foot diameter flue at around 2000 degrees, flowing at a rapid rate. That can amount to several megawatts of power available. "Someone I know in the power generation business" ought to learn a little more about his customers.