Recycling Energy

Energy recycling is a relatively new process that recovers energy from heat that previously has just drifted away into the air such as the steam that escapes from the cooling towers at a generating station.

According to Tom Casten, who is chairman of Recycled Energy Development, a company that works to capture waste heat from industrial clients and uses it to produce electricity, two-thirds of the fuel burned to generate electricity is lost in the process, mostly as waste heat.

"Recent EPA and DOE studies suggest U.S. industries waste enough heat to generate an estimated 200,000 megawatts of power — nearly 20 percent of what this nation uses. That's enough electricity to replace up to 400 coal-fired power plants." (1)

At the big European-owned ArcelorMittal steel mill in East Chicago, IN, energy recycling creates about half of the electricity it uses each day.

In northern Europe energy recycling is much more common than it is here in the US with some countries generating 35% or more of their electricity this way. The US generates about 8% of it's power this way according to the DOE.

The EPA established the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Partnership in 2001 to encourage cost-effective CHP projects in the United States. In the years since, the CHP Partnership has helped install more than 335 CHP projects, representing 4,450 megawatts (MW) of capacity resulting in emissions reductions equivalent to removing 2 million cars from the highways. (2)

Image details: Electrical Wires Stretching In Front Of Polluting Smoke Towers served by picapp.com
Sources:
(1) NPR: 'Recycling' Energy Seen Saving Companies Money
(2) EPA Combined Heat and Power Partnership
(3) US Department of Energy