CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Recently we discussed how It's the efficiency, stupid!- how 56% of the energy created is wasted. Electratherm goes after low-grade heat that is usually wasted with its Green Machine- making electricity from water that is only 200 Degrees F. (96 C) at a cost of under 4 cents a kilowatt-hour. (3 cents per horsepower-hour for those who don't use the metric system).

It is based on the organic Rankine cycle, where a high molecular mass organic fluid (in this case an EPA/Kyoto approved chemical) is vaporized, runs a turbine and then condensed in a closed loop, creating no emissions. How much waste heat is there that could run these things? Probably thousands of industrial and commercial sites. Hook them up to warm water coming from geothermal sites across America and you have both power and heat. Perhaps a bank of solar hot water heaters.

The smallest unit at 30 kW costs $ 81,500, but produces $25,500 of electricity per year at 10 cents per kWh, so it pays for itself pretty fast. This is the kind of thing we talk about when we say go for efficiency and go for the low-hanging fruit- we are just throwing energy away when we could be making it into electricity for next to nothing.