Tag Archives: greenhouse gas

Promoting cogeneration at EGSA in San Antonio

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On Monday, March 16th, I’ll be speaking about A Fresh Approach for Developing New Cogeneration Markets in a Carbon-Constrained World to the members of The Electrical Generating Systems Association (EGSA) at their Annual Spring Convention in San Antonio, Texas.

Their website (www.egsa.org) tells us that:

“The Electrical Generating Systems Association (EGSA) is the world’s largest organization exclusively dedicated to On-Site Power Generation. The Association is comprised of over 500 companies—Manufacturers, Distributor/Dealers, Contractors/Integrators, Manufacturer’s Representatives, Consulting & Specifying Engineers, Service firms, End-Users and others—throughout the U.S. and around the world that make, sell, distribute and use On-Site Power generation technology and equipment, including generators, engines, switchgear, controls, voltage regulators, governors and much more”.

I’ve been familiar with the work of EGSA members for over 35 years, since I first arrived in Canada from the UK and as a cogeneration sales engineer in the United States’ engine industry. They are my peers and I’m honored by the opportunity to speak to them on what I consider to be a crucial topic in these challenging climate change and power generation times.

Speaking from personal experience and an in-depth knowledge of the greenhouse gas threat, there’s no doubt in my mind that cogeneration (aka CHP or combined heat and power) is the most important near-term baseload power application we can deploy today. But we must begin seeing applications as part of a much bigger greenhouse gas management picture — beyond individual technologies and the limiting industrial and campus applications we hear so much about.

Why must we do this, what is the bigger picture, what are the applications, and how might we grow this new market given the regulatory environment that’s taking shape? I have some ideas on the subject and I’m looking forward to hearing what my peers have to say about them.

More later …

New biofuels studies raise serious questions

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Originally published September 2007, in Third Planet’s newsletter.

As if long-term energy planning and climate change mitigation were not difficult enough, along come two startling biofuel research reports from Europe in the past two weeks that serve to remind us of the need for constant vigilance and rational decision-making by government, especially with regard to the scientific process, long-term energy planning, and capital investments in a very uncertain future.

Worse than CO2 emissions?

In the first study (PDF), a team of research scientists from Britain, the U.S. and Germany led by acclaimed atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen re-examined the amount of nitrous-oxide (N2O) emissions from biofuel production. They found that when the emissions are calculated in “CO2-equivalent” global warming terms, many biofuels contribute as much or more to global warming through N2O emissions than by using fossil fuels alone.

There can’t be that much N2O emissions compared to CO2, you say. But N2O is a greenhouse gas with a 100-year average global warming potential (GWP) 296 times larger than an equal mass of CO2. That reason alone validates the study.

The team has published its findings for open review in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and, just like the science of climate change, their findings promise to be a hotbed of scientific debate in the months to come.

What makes the study resonate in particular is that Prof. Crutzen is no stranger to success in environmental science. In 1995 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone”. It was their Nobel Prize work that became the underlying basis for the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer. Continue reading →