Franz Heymann wrote:



I have read a report one experimental fuel cell unit installed in Holland,
where it was mentioned that "At the point of shutdown, the unit was also
sustaining a power generating efficiency of more than 46 percent, well above
a conventional combustion-based power plant that typically generates
electricity at efficiencies of 33 to 35 percent".


That is typical of an old station running coal or gas, built to 60's
standards. Noit a modern set.



That does not sit well with whoever it was who recently said something about
conventional power stations operating at 60%.



Depends on what you mean by conventional.

The key to efficiency is getting your working fluids temperature and
pressure way up, and the final exhaust way down.

Steam turbines with ultra superheated steam going through multistage
turbines with condensors on the back end to get the back end temp way
down will do better than 50%. Gas turbines with extremely high
combustion temperatures, whose exhaust then heats water to drive a steam
turbine, do even better. If the coolant water at around 40-60C is then
fed to housing next door for heating purposes...you are getting up
towards 75-80% usage of thermal energy released.

And the last little bit goes to help you farm fish in the cooling tanks :-)

So, two points

- in an overall energy and fuel conservation analysis, efficiency is not
the primary problem. If you can use waste heat to save heating oil being
burnt - example, build a bakery next door and use the heat to run the
proving process, and bake bread at the edge of the furnace, or use waste
heat to heat greenhouses to grow vegetables, or to farm fish or whatever
- then you have an *ovearall* more efficient system anyway.

- in an overall carbon neutral scenario, you want to reduce the
conversion BY ANY MEANS of fossil fuel to carbon dioxide. I am not sure
what fuel cells produce, but the carbon has to end up somewhere. If they
are running on fossil fuels they don't really solve the problem. Whereas
burning waste paper in a combined heat/power set can be extremely
inefficient, as long as the heat ends up reducing fossil fuel usage and
generateing SOME power. Because paper comes from carbon that has been
taken OUT of the air by trees.

The trouble is that neither the governments nor the power industry has
any real incentive to either do the OVERALL analsysis, nor to embark on
co-operative projects to utilise e.g. waste heat.


If someone could only come up with a plant that I simply stuffed full of
junk-mail and which heated my house, generated most of my electricity,
and allowed me to run a few pipes rund the garden to grow vegetables in
winter from....at similar cost to an oil boiler...





Franz

Franz Heymann wrote:



I have read a report one experimental fuel cell unit installed in Holland,
where it was mentioned that "At the point of shutdown, the unit was also
sustaining a power generating efficiency of more than 46 percent, well above
a conventional combustion-based power plant that typically generates
electricity at efficiencies of 33 to 35 percent".


That is typical of an old station running coal or gas, built to 60's
standards. Noit a modern set.



That does not sit well with whoever it was who recently said something about
conventional power stations operating at 60%.



Depends on what you mean by conventional.

The key to efficiency is getting your working fluids temperature and
pressure way up, and the final exhaust way down.

Steam turbines with ultra superheated steam going through multistage
turbines with condensors on the back end to get the back end temp way
down will do better than 50%. Gas turbines with extremely high
combustion temperatures, whose exhaust then heats water to drive a steam
turbine, do even better. If the coolant water at around 40-60C is then
fed to housing next door for heating purposes...you are getting up
towards 75-80% usage of thermal energy released.

And the last little bit goes to help you farm fish in the cooling tanks :-)

So, two points

- in an overall energy and fuel conservation analysis, efficiency is not
the primary problem. If you can use waste heat to save heating oil being
burnt - example, build a bakery next door and use the heat to run the
proving process, and bake bread at the edge of the furnace, or use waste
heat to heat greenhouses to grow vegetables, or to farm fish or whatever
- then you have an *ovearall* more efficient system anyway.

- in an overall carbon neutral scenario, you want to reduce the
conversion BY ANY MEANS of fossil fuel to carbon dioxide. I am not sure
what fuel cells produce, but the carbon has to end up somewhere. If they
are running on fossil fuels they don't really solve the problem. Whereas
burning waste paper in a combined heat/power set can be extremely
inefficient, as long as the heat ends up reducing fossil fuel usage and
generateing SOME power. Because paper comes from carbon that has been
taken OUT of the air by trees.

The trouble is that neither the governments nor the power industry has
any real incentive to either do the OVERALL analsysis, nor to embark on
co-operative projects to utilise e.g. waste heat.


If someone could only come up with a plant that I simply stuffed full of
junk-mail and which heated my house, generated most of my electricity,
and allowed me to run a few pipes rund the garden to grow vegetables in
winter from....at similar cost to an oil boiler...





Franz

In article , The Natural Philosopher
writes
Franz Heymann wrote:

Steam turbines with ultra superheated steam going through multistage
turbines with condensors on the back end to get the back end temp way
down will do better than 50%. Gas turbines with extremely high
combustion temperatures, whose exhaust then heats water to drive a steam
turbine, do even better. If the coolant water at around 40-60C is then
fed to housing next door for heating purposes...you are getting up
towards 75-80% usage of thermal energy released.

And the last little bit goes to help you farm fish in the cooling tanks :-)
And then you die of dioxin/pcb poisoning :-)

So, two points


--
Andrew

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:


[snip]

I've said it before in another forum: if you bothered to use a
spellchecker, your posts would be readable. It takes too long to reply
yo one of your posts point-by-point.

That is the neatest way of ducking out of a losing argument I have ever
seen.

True. On the other hand, you must admit that your typing is every bit as
bad as mine.

Franz

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:


[snip]

I've said it before in another forum: if you bothered to use a
spellchecker, your posts would be readable. It takes too long to reply
yo one of your posts point-by-point.

That is the neatest way of ducking out of a losing argument I have ever
seen.

True. On the other hand, you must admit that your typing is every bit as
bad as mine.

Franz

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:


[snip]

I've said it before in another forum: if you bothered to use a
spellchecker, your posts would be readable. It takes too long to reply
yo one of your posts point-by-point.

That is the neatest way of ducking out of a losing argument I have ever
seen.

True. On the other hand, you must admit that your typing is every bit as
bad as mine.

Franz

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:


[snip]

I've said it before in another forum: if you bothered to use a
spellchecker, your posts would be readable. It takes too long to reply
yo one of your posts point-by-point.

That is the neatest way of ducking out of a losing argument I have ever
seen.

True. On the other hand, you must admit that your typing is every bit as
bad as mine.

Franz

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Franz Heymann wrote:



I have read a report one experimental fuel cell unit installed in
Holland,
where it was mentioned that "At the point of shutdown, the unit was also
sustaining a power generating efficiency of more than 46 percent, well
above
a conventional combustion-based power plant that typically generates
electricity at efficiencies of 33 to 35 percent".


That is typical of an old station running coal or gas, built to 60's
standards. Noit a modern set.

The report was quite recent, like a couple of years old.


That does not sit well with whoever it was who recently said something
about
conventional power stations operating at 60%.

Depends on what you mean by conventional.

The key to efficiency is getting your working fluids temperature and
pressure way up, and the final exhaust way down.

Steam turbines with ultra superheated steam going through multistage
turbines with condensors on the back end to get the back end temp way
down will do better than 50%. Gas turbines with extremely high
combustion temperatures, whose exhaust then heats water to drive a steam
turbine, do even better. If the coolant water at around 40-60C is then
fed to housing next door for heating purposes...you are getting up
towards 75-80% usage of thermal energy released.

But if it is true that a conventional power station can in fact run at over
60%, why were folk so pleased with that fuel cell power source of which I
spoke, when it ran at only somewhat above 46%?



And the last little bit goes to help you farm fish in the cooling tanks
:-)

In viiew of the latest newspaper reports, that is not to be counted as being
on the side of the angels.

So, two points

- in an overall energy and fuel conservation analysis, efficiency is not
the primary problem. If you can use waste heat to save heating oil being
burnt - example, build a bakery next door and use the heat to run the
proving process, and bake bread at the edge of the furnace, or use waste
heat to heat greenhouses to grow vegetables, or to farm fish or whatever
- then you have an *ovearall* more efficient system anyway.

It would be most surprising if that could be done at more than a minority of
the power stations of the world.

- in an overall carbon neutral scenario, you want to reduce the
conversion BY ANY MEANS of fossil fuel to carbon dioxide. I am not sure
what fuel cells produce, but the carbon has to end up somewhere. If they
are running on fossil fuels they don't really solve the problem. Whereas
burning waste paper in a combined heat/power set can be extremely
inefficient, as long as the heat ends up reducing fossil fuel usage and
generateing SOME power. Because paper comes from carbon that has been
taken OUT of the air by trees.

The trouble is that neither the governments nor the power industry has
any real incentive to either do the OVERALL analsysis, nor to embark on
co-operative projects to utilise e.g. waste heat.


If someone could only come up with a plant that I simply stuffed full of
junk-mail and which heated my house, generated most of my electricity,
and allowed me to run a few pipes rund the garden to grow vegetables in
winter from....at similar cost to an oil boiler...

I am truly surprised that some such object has not yet been developed. I
wonder if anybody has reckoned the energy economics in my case, where I have
to take my newspapers and junk mail by car to the nearest collection point.

Franz

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Franz Heymann wrote:



I have read a report one experimental fuel cell unit installed in
Holland,
where it was mentioned that "At the point of shutdown, the unit was also
sustaining a power generating efficiency of more than 46 percent, well
above
a conventional combustion-based power plant that typically generates
electricity at efficiencies of 33 to 35 percent".


That is typical of an old station running coal or gas, built to 60's
standards. Noit a modern set.

The report was quite recent, like a couple of years old.


That does not sit well with whoever it was who recently said something
about
conventional power stations operating at 60%.

Depends on what you mean by conventional.

The key to efficiency is getting your working fluids temperature and
pressure way up, and the final exhaust way down.

Steam turbines with ultra superheated steam going through multistage
turbines with condensors on the back end to get the back end temp way
down will do better than 50%. Gas turbines with extremely high
combustion temperatures, whose exhaust then heats water to drive a steam
turbine, do even better. If the coolant water at around 40-60C is then
fed to housing next door for heating purposes...you are getting up
towards 75-80% usage of thermal energy released.

But if it is true that a conventional power station can in fact run at over
60%, why were folk so pleased with that fuel cell power source of which I
spoke, when it ran at only somewhat above 46%?



And the last little bit goes to help you farm fish in the cooling tanks
:-)

In viiew of the latest newspaper reports, that is not to be counted as being
on the side of the angels.

So, two points

- in an overall energy and fuel conservation analysis, efficiency is not
the primary problem. If you can use waste heat to save heating oil being
burnt - example, build a bakery next door and use the heat to run the
proving process, and bake bread at the edge of the furnace, or use waste
heat to heat greenhouses to grow vegetables, or to farm fish or whatever
- then you have an *ovearall* more efficient system anyway.

It would be most surprising if that could be done at more than a minority of
the power stations of the world.

- in an overall carbon neutral scenario, you want to reduce the
conversion BY ANY MEANS of fossil fuel to carbon dioxide. I am not sure
what fuel cells produce, but the carbon has to end up somewhere. If they
are running on fossil fuels they don't really solve the problem. Whereas
burning waste paper in a combined heat/power set can be extremely
inefficient, as long as the heat ends up reducing fossil fuel usage and
generateing SOME power. Because paper comes from carbon that has been
taken OUT of the air by trees.

The trouble is that neither the governments nor the power industry has
any real incentive to either do the OVERALL analsysis, nor to embark on
co-operative projects to utilise e.g. waste heat.


If someone could only come up with a plant that I simply stuffed full of
junk-mail and which heated my house, generated most of my electricity,
and allowed me to run a few pipes rund the garden to grow vegetables in
winter from....at similar cost to an oil boiler...

I am truly surprised that some such object has not yet been developed. I
wonder if anybody has reckoned the energy economics in my case, where I have
to take my newspapers and junk mail by car to the nearest collection point.

Franz

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:37:52 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:


"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:

The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:


[snip]

I've said it before in another forum: if you bothered to use a
spellchecker, your posts would be readable. It takes too long to reply
yo one of your posts point-by-point.

That is the neatest way of ducking out of a losing argument I have ever
seen.

True. On the other hand, you must admit that your typing is every bit as
bad as mine.

I find your typos more amusing Franz.
--
Martin

On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 21:37:53 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:


I am truly surprised that some such object has not yet been developed. I
wonder if anybody has reckoned the energy economics in my case, where I have
to take my newspapers and junk mail by car to the nearest collection point.

Why don't you compost them?
--
Martin

"Andrew" wrote in message
...
In article , The Natural Philosopher
writes
Franz Heymann wrote:

Steam turbines with ultra superheated steam going through multistage
turbines with condensors on the back end to get the back end temp way
down will do better than 50%. Gas turbines with extremely high
combustion temperatures, whose exhaust then heats water to drive a steam
turbine, do even better. If the coolant water at around 40-60C is then
fed to housing next door for heating purposes...you are getting up
towards 75-80% usage of thermal energy released.

And the last little bit goes to help you farm fish in the cooling tanks
:-)
And then you die of dioxin/pcb poisoning :-)

So, two points

Actually, I did not write any of the words above. Somebody has screwed up
the attribution marks and the headers yet again.

Franz

Franz Heymann wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:


The message
from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:



[snip]


I've said it before in another forum: if you bothered to use a
spellchecker, your posts would be readable. It takes too long to reply
yo one of your posts point-by-point.


That is the neatest way of ducking out of a losing argument I have ever
seen.


True. On the other hand, you must admit that your typing is every bit as
bad as mine.



No argument thier :-)


Franz

Franz Heymann wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

Franz Heymann wrote:



I have read a report one experimental fuel cell unit installed in

Holland,

where it was mentioned that "At the point of shutdown, the unit was also
sustaining a power generating efficiency of more than 46 percent, well

above

a conventional combustion-based power plant that typically generates
electricity at efficiencies of 33 to 35 percent".


That is typical of an old station running coal or gas, built to 60's
standards. Noit a modern set.


The report was quite recent, like a couple of years old.




*shrug* maybe people aren't too bothered about efficiency and still
build cheap gas powered sets.

In these things enegy efficiency is not the onbly cost benefit tro analyse.



That does not sit well with whoever it was who recently said something

about

conventional power stations operating at 60%.

Depends on what you mean by conventional.

The key to efficiency is getting your working fluids temperature and
pressure way up, and the final exhaust way down.

Steam turbines with ultra superheated steam going through multistage
turbines with condensors on the back end to get the back end temp way
down will do better than 50%. Gas turbines with extremely high
combustion temperatures, whose exhaust then heats water to drive a steam
turbine, do even better. If the coolant water at around 40-60C is then
fed to housing next door for heating purposes...you are getting up
towards 75-80% usage of thermal energy released.


But if it is true that a conventional power station can in fact run at over
60%, why were folk so pleased with that fuel cell power source of which I
spoke, when it ran at only somewhat above 46%?



Because fuel cells have not been able to match even a victorian steam
engine until recently?

Beacause they need more funding and that was the best thing they could
find to say?


I don't know: In all these thngs bullshit abounds.

Only when you actually try and buy something and get

quoted a price, and test it and get some figures, do you

know wherher its all BS or whether the thing actually works.


And the last little bit goes to help you farm fish in the cooling tanks

:-)

In viiew of the latest newspaper reports, that is not to be counted as being
on the side of the angels.



Guess who is ****ed off cos they have mad cow diseae, and whose trying
to export wild salmon...C'mon now. The French did it to use with mad
cow, we did it to them with listeria hysteria cheese, weve done it to
teh tyabkls with mad cow and GM crops.

They are just getting their own back.
FUD.



So, two points

- in an overall energy and fuel conservation analysis, efficiency is not
the primary problem. If you can use waste heat to save heating oil being
burnt - example, build a bakery next door and use the heat to run the
proving process, and bake bread at the edge of the furnace, or use waste
heat to heat greenhouses to grow vegetables, or to farm fish or whatever
- then you have an *ovearall* more efficient system anyway.


It would be most surprising if that could be done at more than a minority of
the power stations of the world.


Not really. Most are in or near urban areas and have excellent transport
links. Most are on large sites with spare land, or could be bult on
farmland. Most need colling water so riverside or lakeside locatns
arepreferred.




- in an overall carbon neutral scenario, you want to reduce the
conversion BY ANY MEANS of fossil fuel to carbon dioxide. I am not sure
what fuel cells produce, but the carbon has to end up somewhere. If they
are running on fossil fuels they don't really solve the problem. Whereas
burning waste paper in a combined heat/power set can be extremely
inefficient, as long as the heat ends up reducing fossil fuel usage and
generateing SOME power. Because paper comes from carbon that has been
taken OUT of the air by trees.

The trouble is that neither the governments nor the power industry has
any real incentive to either do the OVERALL analsysis, nor to embark on
co-operative projects to utilise e.g. waste heat.


If someone could only come up with a plant that I simply stuffed full of
junk-mail and which heated my house, generated most of my electricity,
and allowed me to run a few pipes rund the garden to grow vegetables in
winter from....at similar cost to an oil boiler...


I am truly surprised that some such object has not yet been developed. I
wonder if anybody has reckoned the energy economics in my case, where I have
to take my newspapers and junk mail by car to the nearest collection point.



Yes, they have, but everyone shouted them dnw. The greens felt
threatened having been in to 'recycling' for years. The power boys want
to sell you power, and the heating boys want to sell you oil...

In short no one saw any personal advantage to it at all.


I ou want to get a handle on some eco bullshit there is a book -
scpetical ecologist - or somesuch.


Big industry and teh greens are both lying hypocrites apparently.


Franz

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
IMM wrote:


Because there have been minor improvements in a flawed highly
inefficient
piston engine design over the past 30 years, you appear to think this
exonerates the internal combustion engine, or it is efficient or clean
or
something. It is NOT.

The engine it at the end of its lifespan, it should have gone 50 years
ago.

snip

As I mentioned in another post, according to MIT the fuel cell is not
viable
yet for vehicles, which are the world's worst polluters.

Far more efficient Rotary and Stirling diesel and petrol units appear
the
best options to fill the gap. The Stirling is external combustion,
which is
much a clean on the burn. Even the Rev Tec Aussie engine, a piston
engine,
improves thermal efficiency from 25% to over 50%.


What you have failed to realise, is that even these are only stopgaps too.

It is obvious that I know that, as I have already said that.

At the very best, a fuel BURNING engine delivers only 60%

efficiency - maybe a little more. The rest is waste heat.

If you had goine to a snotty uni, where
the theory is taught, you would
understand that any heat engine - and
all the above are heat engines -
has its efficiency dictated by the ratio
of the temperature of burn to
the echaust temperature.

Not quite right. The overall mechanical efficiency of the unit has to be up
to it. Also in road engine, the power to weight ratio is one of the most
important factors.

The big picture is about energy conservation, especially in terms of
waste heat, and the irreversible (in the short to medium term) problem
if taking fossilised carbon out of the ground and pumping it into the air.

To solve that you need to

- use less.
- burn plants you grew last year.
- generate power by means that don't generate waste heat OR
- use waste heat to replace the use of fuel elsewhere (CHP)

...and use less fuel cleanly.

Use of the engines described does not solve any of these apart from, in
a minor way, the first.

I did say in the short to medium term the diesel and gasoline engines will
have to do, but there are far more efficient versions around than the
abomination we all currently use.

Fuel cells can solve many of the above, but in the end. electricity is
bets because it generates very little waste heat when used to generate
mechanial motion.

It is the loses at generation and transmission losses. This can be reduced
by having smaller local power stations, the UK had, using natural, using CHP
to heat the local district. Transmission losses then are low and overall
energy efficient is very high. Sweden do this.

The issues then become how to generate electricity without using fossil
fuel and/or heat engines. Feul cells are not heat engines, but usually
use fossil fuel. Nuclear power doesn't use fossil fuel, but does use a
heat engine. windmills do neither, but are ugly, of variable power, and
woefully inefficient in terms of space used.

"woefully inefficient in terms of space used"? You see cows grazing under
them. They can be in the middle of fields and only occupy a small footprint.
There are windmill farms being built off-shore all over the UK right now,
Out of sight.

Water and wave power does
neither, but is localised as to its applicability. solar cells are even
ore woefully inneficient,

Wet solar panels generally inefficient per squ foot, but have the whole of a
south facing roof being a solar panel and the by shear size you have an
efficient collector, that will virtually provide all of the houses needs if
you can store the heat in a large thermal store

Put PV cells on every south facing roof and most of the power generation
station will not be needed. The solutions are there. It needs political
will to force it through.

but there mat be better technology coming..
burning domestc rubbish and biomass is
good as it doesn't use (much)
fossil fuel - i.,e. it's more or less carbon neutral,
but it does tend to need treatement to reduce
pollution of toxic flue gasses.

There is no easy answer. But simply slightly better heat engines
burining fossil fuils are almost the worst of all possible answers.

On the domestic and commercial build front, insulation levels to
superinsulation, passive solar design of homes, as Germany as doing with
Passiv Solar regs, south facing roofs having integrated wet solar/PV cells,
boiler with integrated CPH elec/gas Stirling boilers and soon to be
introduced. The Stirling CPH boilers cut the peaks of electricity usage.
All this is right now, and can and should be implemented. Doing so will
drastically cut fuel usage and emissions and prevent fuel poverty. And more
efficiency is on the way...

What looks promising and appear likely to be introduced is the Zeolithe heat
pump, which runs on natural gas for the provision of domestic heating and
hot water. Currently these units are floor mounted and resemble a typical
boiler in appearance. Zeolithe heating appliance's use less energy and are
more environment-friendly than electric heat pumps and gas boilers. It
provides considerably higher output levels than the current conventional and
condensing boilers. Carbon-dioxide emissions are reduced by approximately
20 to 30%.

On the vehicle side, matters are more complex. Of course, local CHP power
stations drip charging electric car overnight is very sensible, but we do
not have the infrastructure for this, as yet. Also what do you do in a
city, when you car is parked on the road? How do you charge it?

There are far more efficient diesel and gasoline engines around, and are
running. These can be developed fully and integrated into a hybrid setup.
Another method suggested is waste heat from an advanced rotary engine (not
an inefficient Wankel design) which has well over 50% efficiency, driving a
small Stirling engine from its waste heat, which drives a compressor, which
charges an air tank. The compressed air assists drive via an air motor in a
hybrid setup. This is a fine stop gap, and around town the car can run on
non-polluting air, which is generated from what would have been wasted heat.
The whole setup can be small in size as rotary engines are small and a
compressor/air motors is also small. The compressor can also be the starter
motor too.



---
--

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