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Local, combined heat-and-power is the only sensible choice!

Would you turn on the heating system in your house and then open all of the doors and windows? Obviously not, that would be very silly. So why isn't it equally questionable when many power-stations do something almost identical?

Most power-stations boil water to produce steam to feed into turbines to drive generators that make electricity. Electricity production has therefore sometimes been described as '100 ways to boil water'! I'm sorry to spoil the myth but nuclear power-stations don't have any fancy way of turning nuclear radiation into electricity, they boil water too! The big problem of feeding steam into a turbine is that it still possesses a lot of heat when it comes out the other side and can't just be released into the atmosphere. The usual solution is to remove some of that heat so that the steam turns back to water, then the water can easily be squirted back into the boiler to be turned into steam once more. However, the heat removed in turning steam back into water must go somewhere so what's the solution? Well, usually power-stations are built near rivers or the sea so either can be used to dump some heat, otherwise it disappears upwards through rows of cooling towers next to the power-station usually with man-made clouds above! Either way, a colossal amount of heat is just wasted causing obvious environmental damage that is routinely ignored.

We are told that it is more efficient to generate electricity in large power-stations but, more efficient for whom? Maybe they mean it is easier to extract large profits? Power-stations claim to have efficiencies of somewhere between 40%-70%. That means at best, at least 30% of the fuel is just being wasted! To me there appears to be no logic in this at all and it seems completely stupid! My reasoning is this: If we accept that we can't make as much electricity from the same amount of fuel at a smaller scale surely that would only be significant if we couldn't also use the heat. The only sensible analysis is to take both electricity and heat into account then, local electricity production is by far the most attractive option. Look at the figures, suppose a small-scale, local generator is just 30% efficient (30% of the fuel is turned into electricity and 70% ends up as heat), because the generator is local to residences it's obvious that all of the heat can easily be used which means we would have an overall effective efficiency of 100%. Now compare that with the claimed 40%-70% efficiencies of the large power-stations, which is better?

Small, local power-stations offer us another big pay-off too because local resources that would be too expensive to transport to large power-stations can now be used instead of expensive and environmentally damaging oil, coal and gas. Local wood can be harvested and scrap wood from industrial process all can be burnt to produce electricity and heat. Apart from creating additional environmentally pleasant jobs in the community, farmers can also take advantage of producing short-rotation crops such as willow on land that is resting or not required for food production. Everyone wins!

Many companies and community projects are now taking advantage of combined heat and power so, as larger, old coal-fired power-stations are closed down, why aren't the decision-makers giving maximum support to the most sensible replacements? Modern small-scale power stations are quiet, clean, efficient, reliable and easily maintained, if also owned and run by the local community then all of the savings can be shared.

One last advantage: More small-scale, local power-stations would mean less electricity pylons, now wouldn't that be a great step forward too?

These websites may also be of interest (click on Web addresses):-

See more information about micro combined heat-and-power here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_combined_heat_and_power