CHP

We think we could make about 19 to 20 percent of U.S. electricity with heat that is currently thrown away by industry.

Tom Casten, chairman, Recycled Energy Development

There are different types of co-generation, but the concept is simply this: take energy that is being wasted on an industrial scale and find a way to put it to use. Do that, and co-generation could provide up to 20% of the nation's electrical generation, replacing a large number of our coal plants at a lower cost and with roughly the same reliability.

Another name for co-generation is combined heat and power (CHP). We have enough potential CHP to replace 40% of coal-fired generation. Producing 20% of our electricity from CHP would put it on par with our fleet of nuclear reactors, which also produce about 20%. CHP is also as clean as wind power, reliable enough to use as base-load power and has the lowest construction cost of any power source.

The DOE and EPA in 2001 put together a road map to double the amount of CHP. It said,