Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Just got to keep your eyes out for groovy reports... like this one

Working through the ARPA-E FOE FOCUS Funding Opportunity Announcement and this turns up:

THE THERMAL SPECTRUM OF LOW-TEMPERATURE ENERGY USE IN THE UNITED STATES 

Just read the abstract. I'll wait... 

Pretty darn cool no? It was done with 2008 data but it is not terribly time sensitive information. And I think it over simplified the uses temperature vs the advantageous delivery temperatures (you'll want to  have, in most cases a higher temp on the sources to deliver energy to the "thing to warm." You can touch the hot toast (thing to be warmed) but not the toaster element.  But still, the high quality dense energy we generate at such losses (energy system losses are huge - see the report!) are misused when we drive even "efficient" low-temp loads. Solar thermal is a great (zero emissions) source for low temp heat and a good source for medium temp heat. This report shows how broad the need is for low and medium temp heat and is enticing as to how much in the way of greenhouse gas displacement it can accomplish.

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