Posted on 09/17/2009 11:02:20 AM PDT by dynachrome
BERLIN - An ambitious project was unveiled in Germany on Wednesday to install mini gas-fired power plants in people’s basements and produce as much electricity as two nuclear reactors within a year.
The Hamburg-based renewable energy group Lichtblick and its automaker partner Volkswagen say the plants would produce not only heating and hot water but also electricity, with any excess power fed into the local grid.
The two firms said the concept of “SchwarmStrom” (literally, “swarm power”) would allow Germany to abandon nuclear and coal power stations sooner and help compensate for the volatility of renewables like wind and solar power.
The plants also reduce harmful carbon dioxide emissions by up to 60 percent compared to conventional heat and electricity generation, they added in a joint statement.
In the coming year the program will install 100,000 of the mini plants, producing between them 2,000 megawatts of electricity, the same as two nuclear plants, Lichtblick and VW said.
“SchwarmStrom is revolutionizing power production in Germany. It clears the way for more renewable energy and an exit from power from nuclear and coal,” the statement added. “The home power plants together form a huge, invisible power station that doesn’t make the countryside ugly or require additional infrastructure.”
The project “is thoroughly feasible if the project reaches the forecast size,” Claudia Kemfert of the DIW research institute told AFP.
She added by way of comparison that “just getting rid of incandescent light bulbs would be the same as shutting down one nuclear reactor.”
Gas plants have an advantage over nuclear power stations in that the heat produced by the latter is wasted, the DIW energy expert said.
But “the most ecological would be to feed these mini-plants with biogas” rather than natural gas, Kemfert noted.
Lichtblick said another advantage of its plan was that tens of thousands of generators could be mobilized to meet a surge in demand or if drought made it hard to cool nuclear plants or a calm spell idled wind turbines.
VW will contribute to the project by providing a gas-powered engine similar to one used in its popular Golf model.
But LBBW auto analyst Stefan Sigrist told AFP: “This is mainly a marketing offensive. It is chic for VW to bask in a greener light.”
Although the generators are not a new concept, the project is novel in that Lichtblick would retain control over the plants after their installation.
Households would pay around $7,250 to have the generators set up along with an appropriate heating system.
But individuals would then pay a lower price for heating and receive a modest “rent” for hosting the generator, as well as a bonus at the end of the year calculated on electricity revenues that resulted from Lichtblick’s sales.
I don’t see how this can be more green.
What am I missing? Can I see a show of hands? How many want a 2 megawatt power plant underneath where they live and sleep at night? Me! Me!
Oh yeah this is going to be perfect. Have that mini GAS fired generator in your basement and then have the GOVERNMENT tell you when you need to fire it. WHAT COULD GO WRONG????
I’ll bet they employ a boatload of technicians running from house to house servicing all those mini plants.
It's not. it's just spreading emissions out so no one sees a smoke stack.
It saves infrastructure costs though, and the need for giant electric companies and all those employees.
I wonder where they are going to get all the cheap NG from though, or are they planning on some sort of Ballard fuel cell thing?
So why not convert their coal fired plants to NG?
What you are missing is the heat recovery currently absent from the centralized model. Small amounts of heat from small generators can still keep a house warm enough to reduce demand for heating.
Doesn't have to be. High temp steam can be used to make clean diesel out of coal. Hitler used to do that.
Fine, right up to the last statement.
Get your own generators and other 'off the grid' power suppliers and control your own energy supply...
The biggest problem across this globe has been, in the past 60 years, people have become totally dependent on that power wire from the house to the street. The other side of dependency is control.
Well, Volkswagen already has the experience...they used to produce a smaller version called the Eurovan...
Thomas Edison makes a comeback.
Shale fracture technology will help finding new fields and renewing old ones. It has the Russians really worried. I’d be interested to see what some of our resident FR engineers have to say about this system.
So what happens when Putin threatens to shut off gas to Germany in order to get what he wants at any time (such as incorporating East Germany back into the steel curtain?)
I think the question is, how is this more green than building a real NG fired turbine power station? Since they both burn NG, and would presumably have similar efficiency, there should be no "green" difference.
That is, unless you count the gasoline spent driving all over creation to maintain all of these distributed generators. I think then the "green" difference leans in favor of a larger centralized NG power generator. So does the other green.....money for maintenance and operation.
NG fired conversions of coal boiler plants are much less efficient.
The German government is butting in but the idea came from private business, which is where 95% of new ideas arise.
Absolutely. These are excellent. I have a single cylinder 8 hp one that makes all the electricity I need when my windmills aren't keeping up, or I need to do laundry or some welding. Cost you about $1800 and will last a lifetime, burning about a gallon a days running. (I burn about 2 gallons a month on average with my setup)
Mao Tse Tung tried this in China. Didn’t work.
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