coal and charcoal are the most dense energy sources when oxygen is freely available, and charcoal is the best because it has already had the sulfur and nitrates driven out of it in teh process of producing it
i think gas has a big advantage though because especially methane is the closest to ideal for a 1:1 ratio of output CO2 and H2O so its combustion is very efficient
the main losses in these generators is waste heat, a water cooling system that heats useful hot water would probably push your ratio up a lot
you could go even further by capturing the H2O and CO2 and separating them and feeding one to your indoor garden and the other into the water supply, and the heat that is transferred out of the water condenser can be used to heat water or warm the air
and this all is based on the efficiencies of a piston driven ICE
i had a vivid experience of how much heat is wasted in electricity generation when i was in Romania some years back, being spattered with the condensed water coming out of the cooling tower of a power plant, i was like "there is so much energy going to waste here that i'm being rained on".
in bulgaria, they redirect that waste heat to distributing it to the commieblocks in nearby suburbs to run hot water systems and steam-driven heating radiators. the efficiency of bulgarian (and probably there is other places in eastern europe that do this) power generation is probably the highest in the world, and their primary fuel is coal. and they generate so much electricity that they sell it to most of their neighbours
mleku
npub1fj…mleku
2025-05-23 12:15:20
in reply to nevent1q…wta5
Author Public Key
npub1fjqqy4a93z5zsjwsfxqhc2764kvykfdyttvldkkkdera8dr78vhsmmlekuPublished at
2025-05-23 12:15:20Event JSON
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"content": "coal and charcoal are the most dense energy sources when oxygen is freely available, and charcoal is the best because it has already had the sulfur and nitrates driven out of it in teh process of producing it\n\ni think gas has a big advantage though because especially methane is the closest to ideal for a 1:1 ratio of output CO2 and H2O so its combustion is very efficient\n\nthe main losses in these generators is waste heat, a water cooling system that heats useful hot water would probably push your ratio up a lot\n\nyou could go even further by capturing the H2O and CO2 and separating them and feeding one to your indoor garden and the other into the water supply, and the heat that is transferred out of the water condenser can be used to heat water or warm the air\n\nand this all is based on the efficiencies of a piston driven ICE\n\ni had a vivid experience of how much heat is wasted in electricity generation when i was in Romania some years back, being spattered with the condensed water coming out of the cooling tower of a power plant, i was like \"there is so much energy going to waste here that i'm being rained on\".\n\nin bulgaria, they redirect that waste heat to distributing it to the commieblocks in nearby suburbs to run hot water systems and steam-driven heating radiators. the efficiency of bulgarian (and probably there is other places in eastern europe that do this) power generation is probably the highest in the world, and their primary fuel is coal. and they generate so much electricity that they sell it to most of their neighbours",
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