In a new report, entitled Combined Heat and Power: Effective Energy Solutions for a Sustainable Future, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) looks at how cogeneration (CHP) might alleviate a significant portion of U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The report quantifies the benefits from U.S. companies and institutions that currently produce both heat and electricity from a single fuel source:
- They have reduced total use of fuel by 1.9 quadrillion Btu.
- They have reduced CO2 emissions by the equivalent of removing 45 million cars from the road.
The ORNL’s choice to focus on CHP follows their own decision to install a wood-based boiler to heat and power their facilities. The efficiency of the process, which has been around for 100 years and is wide spread in the forest products industry, is the key: “By capturing and utilizing waste heat, CHP requires less fuel than equivalent separate heat and power systems to produce the same amount of energy services. Because CHP is located at or near the point of use, it also eliminates the losses that normally occur in the transmission and distribution of electricity from a power plant to the user.” Because of the cost-effectiveness and near-term viability of CHP technology, ORNL believes it has great potential for being a more local solution to a national problem.
The report suggests that CHP could contribute 20 percent of U.S. generating capacity by 2030. If this goal were reached, ORNL estimates the benefits would include :
- Saving an estimated 5.3 quadrillion Btu of fuel annually, the equivalent of nearly half the total energy consumed by US households
- Generating $234 billion in new investments
- Creating nearly one million new highly-skilled, technical jobs
- Reducing CO2 emissions by 800 million metric tons (MMT) per year, the equivalent of taking more than half the current passenger vehicles in the United States off the road (over 60 percent of the projected increase in CO2 emissions between now and 2030 could be avoided)
The Lab also believes that this goal would support multiple policy initiatives, including increasing U.S. energy security, diversifying U.S. energy supply, improving energy efficiency, reducing the risk of overloading the energy infrastructure, helping businesses avoid energy price volatility and supply disruptions, and improving business competitiveness by making it easier to manage costs.
Suz-Anne Kinney
Forest2Market: July 14, 2023
