> A co-generation plant uses just one fuel source and produces both electricity and steam, making it a very efficient mode of energy production. “ConEd steam service has the lowest carbon emissions intensity per unit of energy delivered compared to all other options available to the buildings of Manhattan,”
Cogen is also known as "combined heat and power": https://www.energy.gov/eere/amo/combined-heat-and-power-basi...
A lot of our modern use of energy is inefficient-by-design: the system is designed to 'use as much energy as possible'. Why don't we have more cogeneration systems, where the waste heat is used instead of released?
Earlier today I looked for information about boilers that can run on anything: wood, coal, oil, etc. I guess this was inspired by talking to my neighbor, who was waiting for his wood delivery yesterday. I don't know if he's hooked up to natural gas, but his fireplace gives him the option to not be dependent on the gas system for keeping warm. I was also looking at a hybrid boiler/heat pump systems, where the heat pump can be supplemented. The same neighbor told me his former employer's ground-source heat pump system did not work very well at all, on account of the ground loop making ice cubes out of the groundwater (or something like that).