This time I chose cogeneration plants.  I feel that cogeneration plants are a wonderful alternative to coal or nuclear applications.  Natural gas burns much cleaner than coal and helps to use less electricity through the use of steam for heating and cooling.

How It Works

The natural gas is fed to a turbine and burned to power a generator. In this process, heat is given off as well. We can then use that heat to convert water to steam. The steam can be used to heat a building or run absorption chillers.  Absorption chillers are chillers that operate on the same principle that ammonia refrigerators do with propane. They are normally used in places where there is a surplus of heat. Now we can use heat to cool. With more and more people looking into the use of ammonia as a refrigerant, I think that we should revisit cogen plants for places that would benefit from the process. The process, usually, would only benefit large applications such as college campuses, schools, or industrial applications. 

Current Applications

There is currently a cogeneration plant, which happens to be the largest in the United States, in the city of Midland, Michigan. I believe this may have been one of the greatest trade offs or all time. The MCV, or Midland Cogeneration Venture, was undertaken after Consumers Energy failed to build a nuclear power plant to service Dow Chemical and the rest of the city. I am not the biggest fan of the byproducts of nuclear reactors or some of the processes involved. 

The plant that was going to be built was subject to new regulations after the accident at Three Mile Island. The site was built on a poor soil configuration so the buildings were starting to sink. You can see why I think this was one of the best trade-offs of all time. Just imagine a nuclear plant with all the buildings sinking and cracking. I would not have wanted to be around when that accident happened.

Instead we have the MCV, which uses natural gas to more cleanly create energy for almost 10% of the lower peninsula as well as servicing Dow Chemical. I believe this leaves a large opportunity open for other manufacturers in the state of Michigan and other places where natural gas is more readily available to clean up their act. New schools and other large campuses could also take advantage of this source of electricity.

Here is a link to a video describing NYU's new cogen plant. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m9SgsTTgiA MIT has also invested 40 million dollars in a new cogeneration plant to be built in the future.

Your house may not be coughing but it may be sick...

In this blog post I would like to discuss something that not many people realize.  Your home or office could get sick. Not literally sick, but there is something called "sick building syndrome".  Indoor air quality is most times worse than outdoor air quality. With construction of new homes and buildings becoming more and more tight, we may see that not enough infiltration and ventilation is happening.

I had done a little bit of light research in preparation for this post and found some facts that I think are worth mentioning from the EPA. In the document that I had come across it states that in 1973 there was an oil embargo and, to save energy, building specs were changed from 15 cubic feet per minute of ventilation to only 5. ASHRAE is a group that I am a student member of and they set the standards for building ventilation in our industry. ASHRAE has revised these standards recently to a minimum of 15 cfm per person (20 cfm in office environments. The amount of ventilation varies on the types of contaminants that could be found and spaces to be ventilated. I find it interesting that in 2012 a decorative fountain in the Chicago Marriot downtown caused an outbreak of legionnaires. This building was built in 1978. This was during the time of the 5 cfm mandate. Legionnaires is a bacteria and is not caused by poor ventilation, but is an indoor contaminant that may occur.

How do we get better ventilation on homes and other buildings?  We could all open our windows and vent that way or just leave an opening to the outside. Those are both options but inefficient ones. I would recommend an ERV, or Energy Recovery Ventilator. This special box that runs in your duct work brings in air from the outside, but does it differently.

ERV units bring air in from the outside and exhaust air from the inside at a given percentage. In the summer the air is dehumidified and pre-cooled and in the winter the air is humidified and pre-heated. It uses the warm or cool air being exhausted to warm or cool the incoming air to make an ventilation with the outside much more efficient. They are more common in commercial applications but residential versions are readily available. In areas where climates will have extreme cooling or heating requirements, such as Michigan for example, the ERV's would be an excellent addition.

The cases where people forget about indoor air quality such as the case in Chicago last year bother me. I have a friend who has a house near Lansing with a hole going out the wall in the lower level with some dampers in it to control the flow of air and provide an outlet to outside air. Remember our parents saying "Shut the door. You are heating the outside."?  This is the same premise.  ERV's would keep us healthy and conserve energy that we have used to heat or cool the air inside the conditioned space.

How much energy can we conserve? What are the costs? Also excellent questions. In the January 2013 issue of the ASHRAE journal a group of fellow members set out to find just that. They did an experiment with the Turtle River Montessori School located in Florida. A climate extreme, like mentioned above, that would have quite a cooling load. Since the school opened in 2009 the cost has been reduced by 70%! If you could lower your costs by 70% you would be using less energy to the point where you could downsize the equipment. In reducing the size of the equipment needed you could pay for the ERV's and still have a lower first cost than using the larger unit. Not to mention the benefits over time that you would see.  ERV's are still an up-and-coming technology. I hope to see a lot more of them used in residential and commercial applications.

Staring at a blank page...

Who reads these things? What do I do with a blog?  Great questions as I have never done this thing before. Aren't blogs for whiny people?  People who have to gripe about life and have no outlet?  I really have no complaints.

One of my friends told me

 "Yet another consideration. Blogs are typically for people who don't really have a life outside of what other people think of them. Lack of a job and a real social life tend to lead to blogging." 

I am now reluctant to start this and keep it moving because I will be working 40 hours a week and taking 18 credits this semester.  Things will be busy but at least I will have something to write about. I should be packed full of blog posts this semester. I was having trouble deciding what I would write about.  I decided to write about whatever I felt like writing about.  Some days it will be school things.  Maybe I will pose questions just to see who actually reads this. 

Today's post will be something that interests me quite a bit.  Though the idea is out there I find it pretty amazing.  I have found, and will continue to research off the grid homes.  These houses are completely self sufficient.  Water, electricity, heating, and cooling are all taken care of in one particular type of house.  This type of house was made by a company called Earthship.

Earthship homes are normally built out of old tires and other recyclable materials.  Everything in these homes for the most part is recycled if it can be.  Solar panels and battery banks provide the electricity and rain provides the water once filtered.  I first saw this on HGTV's Extreme Homes.  The woman said she used her water 4 times.  After the 3rd time it ended up as black water to be used in her garden.  I would probably have to say that these homes would not work in some climates but it is a pretty sound idea for some areas.  

The one part that I did like was the "Retrofitting" part of the website.  People could take some of the ideas and apply them to their homes no matter where they are located.  This would help reduce energy costs and help people be more self sufficient.   If a house could stand alone off the grid just think at how little electricity or natural gas you would use to heat your home if it was still connected.  I think that people could save a lot of money this way.  Maybe not going so extreme as to go off the grid, but just use some ideas to help the environment and yourselves.

Here is a link to the "Retrofitting" page.Dear God... I am turning into an environmentalist...