4 ms·
An example of pointing to the one big measurable thing "Hey, no big ugly power plant in the countryside" and missing the sum effects of 100,000 real actual peop
by ekanes 17y ago
An example of pointing to the one big measurable thing "Hey, no big ugly power plant in the countryside" and missing the sum effects of 100,000 real actual people having these in their basements.
It will "save" money, but actually each of these 100,000 people pays $7,000 to get started (and then saves some on their bills).
It's innovative and the best-case scenario looks good, but the many unknowns and places it could go wrong make it likely a mistake down the road.
- jws 17y agoThe unstressed win here is the cogeneration. The waste heat is captured and used for building heat and hot water. That gets them the 92% efficiency number. On a CO2/(kwhr at the house) basis you can't beat that with centralized power plants.
- stcredzero 17y agoAlso, if they provision these households with something like the WhisperGen, then there's also a gain in efficiency from the use of a Stirling engine. There would also be a benefit from economies of scale. Right now Stirling engines are expensive because they are uncommon. Increasing demand for them would make their high efficiency cheaper, and therefore more widely available.