Another Step Forward In Small Scale Electrical Generators 137
NicknamesAreStupid writes "Product Design & Development reports another breakthrough in small scale solid oxide fuel cells. This methane-fueled cell achieves about 50% efficiency at around 2kW, enough to power an average home. It does so by efficiently recycling its heat to perpetuate the process. Of course, this is not practical for most homes, which only have natural gas that contains nearly one fifth impurities. However, that could change if gas suppliers refined their product."
Re:2 kW enough? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does not fit with the image (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:2 kW enough? (Score:4, Insightful)
You may "need" air conditioning, but there are ways and ways. With decent insulation, you need a lot less air conditioning. I don't know what your understory is like, but in many places you can store heat there in summer, and withdraw it in winter (using some sort of heat pump). That's not enough on it's own, but combined with decent insulation, it get's you quite close to reasonable. Then you need only a quite small amount of either air conditioning or heating.
That said, I'd expect that in Houston the most reasonable alternative would be solar. (And since you're in town, it's not reasonable to even try to get off the grid.)
But the first step is GOOD insulation. With good enough insulation, you could overheat a house just by living in it, even during a blizzard, but that much is unreasonable. It does, however, imply that you'll need some air condition, and air circulation, too, but the air circulation system could go via a heat exchanger, so not too much heat transferred via that pathway.
OTOH ... you won't see me investing in that kind of system. Yes, it would work, but it's too complex, and would probably require lots of maintenance. But with proper design, 2 KW should be plenty. It's just that proper design is quite rare. (FWIW, my wife thinks that we have good insulation. It is to laugh. The wind blows through the house, even with the doors closed. But it suffices for our environment [SF Bay]. Elsewhere I'd be much more interested in better insulation.)