Long Beach/L.A. ASNE Meeting Hears Discussion On Co-generation Of Energy

The latest monthly meeting of the Long Beach-Greater Los Angeles Section of the American Society of Naval Engineers was held at the Officers Club of the Armed Forces Reserve Center at Los Alamitos.

In the absence of Section chairman J.R.

(Bob) Malone, Capt. J.A. Gildea, USN, vice chairman, presided. He turned the meeting over to Carl E. Erickson, program chairman, for the technical program.

The speaker was Dr. Eugene Cooper from the U.S. Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory at Port Hueneme, who discussed the Navy's activities in the area of Co-generation.

Dr. Cooper began his talk by pointing out that the U.S. Energy Engineering program Write 318 46 is rapidly expanding from a current R.D.T.

&E. effort that is funded at the $7-million level to one that will more than double that amount in the next several years. It is exploring all aspects of renewable energy sources as well as development of flexible fuels with the overall aim of improving utilization and conserving both electrical and thermal energy. Since heat and work are convertible and since the cost of energy is rising faster than the conservation efforts can reduce consumption, various means are being explored to resolve the energy unbalance.

One such area is that of Co-generation, which may also be identified as "total energy" or "selective energy" systems. He pointed out that many facilities require both electrical and thermal energy and that by careful analysis and generally by a relatively small amount of modification to such exist- ing power plants, the prime energy is utilized to produce the electrical energy requirement and the "waste" heat recovered to supply the thermal energy requirements. In some cases this waste heat is sufficient to generate additional electric power as well as to supply the thermal energy needs. The process and principles are applicable to all of the generating methods: steam plants, diesel engine generating plants, gas turbine generating plants, or combinations of these plant systems where the prime conversion is to electrical energy, but where the exhaust heat is recovered in so-called "waste heat boilers" and utilized for various processes requiring thermal energy.

Dr. Cooper illustrated his presentation with numerous slides of physical installations as well as diagrams and graphs of the application of this interesting and valuable contribution to the overall effort to reduce our dependency on outside sources of fuels.

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