Quote:
Originally Posted by IamBatman
does anyone know how much weight in hydrocarbons (oil, coal, natural gas) the world pump from the ground annually? How much of that is burned and released into the atmosphere? How much is that compared to the total mass of the atmosphere? how much of an increase in "green house gas" will it take to increase the average temperature to say.. 1F degrees? 
I don't want to get into another global warming thread... but I'm interested in the numbers. |
Have a browse through the wikipedia energy portal
Portal:Energy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for an idea of some number
- you need to think BIG!
Quote:
Originally Posted by IamBatman
as far as electric power, I think the wave of the future is decentralized power generation. Smaller natural gas power plants, supplemented by rooftop solar and wind generation. Less transmission losses, smaller initial investment, less chance of catastrophic failures and energy price fluctuation.
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You are describing "distributed generation" (DG) which is the fastest growing sector of the energy market
Quote:
Originally Posted by MyFutureSelfnMe
For anything but solar, the big plants seem to be more efficient IIRC
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DG is analogous to personal computers vs mainframes. Once everyone used mainframes because they were so much more powerful than personal computers. As personal computers have become more powerful (even though mainframes are still better) more computing is done locally than centrally. You are right in that to move power generation away from the centralised system requires efficiency in small generation - which is where mCHP comes in - micro Combined Heat and Power. There are a number of small scale (single household size) mCHP units in early production and in R&D - these systems are actually significantly more efficient than the grid and centralised power (but are not mass market... yet!) - I'm looking forward to having control of my own powerstation