District Energy: Now's the Time

District energy is a proven technology in which a central plant provides heating and/or cooling to multiple buildings. It conserves energy, reduces emissions, and can provide a foundation for a sustainable community energy system.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• district energy
• district heating
• renewable energy
• cogeneration
• energy efficiency
• energy security
• combined heat and power
• district cooling
• CHP
• sustainable energy
• community energy

[GenXFuturist101]

IF district energy is wise enough to implement 100% green technologies then I would more than agree that it is a near utopian logical extent to efficient managment of energy for any city.

Rural areas would be able to supply themselves in the manner I describe above.

Paradigm change at 12:00 :-)

[GenXFuturist101]

I can appreciate that district energy is a good thing in our classical market model and its time isn't NOW. It's time has come & not ever been properly implemented and has POTENTIALLY passed.

The reason is that for the cost of just a few radio shack parts in hardware, ea. building can supply itself with an unlimited amount of free electricity. Overunity technology is a very real thing & can no longer be held in the withering fist of tyrrany.

District Energy needs to upgrade to overunity.

[leonardaphillips]

Wrong. It is the scale of district energy central plants that allow the University of Iowa to burn corn husks, UCLA to burn landfill gas, and Cornell to cool its campus using lake water. The capital cost of such systems cannot be absorbed by individual buildings--only by central plants that service many buildings. District energy is only a part of the energy solution--but it's an important and proven part that is available NOW, and that's the point of the video.

[CleanEnergyFan]

This is an excellent site for giving a brief overview of District Energy (including District Cooling, District Heating & CHP). This technology can utilize a wide variety of fuels including renewable biofuels as well as conventional fossil fuels. The key differentiation of District Energy is the EFFICIENCY at which it utilizes whatever fuel source is used. It generally more than doubles the efficiency of the fuel use by recyling the waste heat from the power generation process.

[GenXFuturist101]

This is a valuable infrastructural component, but is NOT the issue. This system still does not eliminate 100% of the pollution which can be eliminated. That happens to be 100%. Fuel Costs are really an oxymoron. It is important for District Energy systems to realize that they will not be in control of any energy supplies since this centralized system of energy has now been proven to decrease energy security. Every building will have it's own redundant completely independant CLEAN systems.