A carbon-neutral way to power your home
November 27, 2008(PhysOrg.com) -- A super-efficient system that has the potential to power, heat and cool homes across the UK is being developed at Newcastle University.
It works by burning vegetable oil to power a generator and provide electricity for the home.
The waste heat from this process is then used to provide heating and hot water and is also converted to cool a fridge.
At each step, the waste heat that is produced from engine gases and cooling is used elsewhere to recover the maximum amount of energy from the system.
In addition to this, the plant producing the fuel absorbs carbon whilst growing – resulting in near zero overall carbon emissions.
Using these three forms of energy for home use is known as micro-trigeneration and this new design will take the concept of combined heat and power to the next level.
Led by experts at the Sir Joseph Swan Institute for Energy Research at Newcastle University and drawing on expertise from across the UK and China, the design also includes a unique energy storage system.
This allows home owners to store the extra electrical energy during ‘off-peak’ times – for example during the night – and efficiently releases it when it is needed most.
Project leader Professor Tony Roskilly, of Newcastle University, explained: 'The supply of electricity, heating and cooling can be optimized by this one, efficient and sustainable system.
'The combination of the generator and energy storage provides new ways to respond to changing energy demand in the home.'
One of the potential oils to be used in the system comes from the seeds of the Croton Megalocarpus plant which grows in East Africa.
Croton Megalocarpus oil brings with it the advantage of being able to grow on land that is not suitable for traditional farming or food production – providing a fuel without sacrificing land for food crops.
Drawing on the modelling expertise of scientists at Ulster University, the team will build a full-scale prototype of the system.
The energy storage system, being developed with Leeds University, will supply electricity and cooling - helping to ensure that the correct form of energy is available at the right time and that the engine operates at its optimum efficiency.
Newcastle University’s Dr Yaodong Wang, said that this form of energy system for the home would be highly efficient.
'In the past, a significant barrier to the take-up of domestic scale micro-trigeneration systems has been the availability of the right energy at the right time,' he explained.
'A household has varying energy demands depending on the time of day and the time of year.
'By integrating new energy storage technology with the micro-trigeneration system we have the potential to overcome this barrier and make an impact on future domestic energy supply.'
Provided by Newcastle University
Oct 12, 2009 |
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That's just bloody pathetic.
Vegetable oil(or more properly methyl or ethyl esters of fatty acids derived from vegetable oil) is a terrible enough idea as a vehicle fuel; but at least that's a high value, portable fuel application; now you're just burning food for light and heat.
You're far better off burning natural gas and oil directly instead of green-washing it through farming. Carbon-neutral it ain't.
Because more natural gas and oil is consumed in planting, fertilizing, harvesting, extracting the vegetable oil and transporting it to markets than you can ever hope to regain from burning it.
Yet the only thing we are told about this in the article is that it is designed by "experts" and is "unique". How likely is that? Why not an article claiming that "experts" have a "unique" solution to allow humans to explore the stars next year, but not say even a single word about what that "solution" is about? Is it some kind of secret? This doesn't even pass the sniff test.
And battery-electric storage is a stupid way to store energy. Use thermal storage, (hot water/rock or ice) and generate the electricity when required, at the rate required.
The system is multi staged to get maximum efficiency from the fuel used.
The system employs energy storage to make enrgy available at peak times.
Croton Megalocarpus grows on marginal land and so does not compete with food crops.
And prior to that it was cycling happily through the atmosphere and being taken up by plants in the exact same cycle which you use to justify this idea.
There's a reason why they're called "fossil" fuels.
don't diesel engines burn veggie oil? i thought that was the idea behind "biodiesel".
This in itself is an excellent reason for pursuing this project.
My point? Stop making priorities like you live in Africa. Sure, in Africa food is a problem number 1. But in northern countries, this simply isn't true. You have to balance priorities in the right for the current environment way. Sure, food may be eaten by starving people, but every euro cent you pay for electricity or oil, cent that you didn't save, can be turned into food for someone.
Saying this, I still find this "new way" to be somewhat useless. Burning vegetable oil is not better than burning fossil oil or fossils, probably it is simply cleaner. For me, the answer is not in burning, but in utilising what we already have-solar and wind energy. Even water-if you consider the amount of water that washes your roof, for example, during a rainy day. It's all energy, we just have to harness it. And of course, to be as energy efficient as humanly possible.
I wonder how well he'd survive if he had no food.
Secondly, this method is not carbon neutral.