You're right, CHP is likely best suited to temperate climates. It is increasingly apparent that energy solutions are regional and that there is no one size fits all, though I do believe that energy efficiency needs to lie at the heart of decision making.

If policy makers would only ask at every juncture "is this an energy efficient solution?" then I think we would be in better shape.

Absorptive cooling is the principle behind the "Einstein Refrigerator" and it is an impressive design, not requiring electricity. It was worked on by Einstein and his former student Leo Szilard. It lost favor when Freon refrigerators become so big. They are redesigning it for remote locations and making it more efficient:

http://www.goodcleantech.com/2008/09/einsteins_green_refrigerator_g.php

It is certainly not unreasonable to use CHP to run cooling for industrial uses. Also, there are plenty of heating requirements even in hot climates (as has been mentioned). Municipal swimming pools come to mind (non-industrial), but hot water is one of the main requirements for bitumen extraction from oil sands...

CHP is a great idea. CCS is a bad idea (IMO), but it is a great boondoggle to get money from governments!

Ian

CHP in cool climates
There are many central energy plants in cool climates that provide chilled water. In the US there are most often found on college campuses but there are also many private and public utility providers as well.

Given the density, proximity and diversity of power and thermal loads to justify a central energy plant, there is often an off-take for heat - hospitals, assisted living,hotels, residences - in mixed use urban cores.

There is also the possibility to use life and safety generators (required for fire pumps, etc) as peakers that also drive absorption chillers to supplment standard electric chillers.

Nice idea, but some parts of the world have a summer, and may even need more cooling than heating. I know about something called absorptive cooling (?), but believe it is a good deal less efficient than the current mechanical standard. Any thoughts?

Adsorption chillers can use waste heat. Stuff you are throwing away anyway.

Absorption cooling is not necessarily less efficient than mechanical methods, but they do require a heat source. The site COP of an absorption chiller is less than that of mechanical systems. However, If you take into account plant inefficiencies and transmission losses, the amount of gas, for example, required to produce the electricity to run a mechanical system versus the amount required to run an absorption chiller is comparable. Of course, you can improve the total efficiency of mechanical systems by improving the electric grid, and mechanical systems, being driven by electricity, can use a variety of different 'fuel' source.

But with a waste heat source, or with a reliable enough renewable source, absorption cooling becomes desirable because of the ability to work with less heat than that required for conventional electricity production. There are systems in the American Southwest that use absorption chiller coupled with a parabolic solar thermal collector to provide cooling in the daytime, at a much lower installation and operating cost than can be had with solar-photovoltaics coupled with conventional direct-expansion chillers. There have also been pilot projects to test the viability of using geothermal heat sources to drive large commercial cooling systems.

So absorption cooling is really dependent on the application. If you have a cheap, clean, efficient source of electricity, modern high-efficiency refrigeration systems (particularly geo-exchange systems) will beat absorption hands down. But if you're working with a waste source of heat, or an endlessly renewable one, using absorption cooling would be more efficient than burning additional fuels to produce electricity to power a conventional refrigeration system. You also eliminate some redundancy in the system. You won't need all the extra electrical infrastructure necessary to meet the summer cooling load.

It really depends on your application. Conventionally, using absorption cooling is comparable to using mechanical refrigeration with the inefficiencies of the modern grid factored in. In this case, with a continuous source of waste heat, it can be an efficient and effective way to use the same heat source for both summer cooling and winter heating.

Also, keep in mind that systems working on the same principle are in constant development and I expect we'll see some pretty impressive efficiency gains in both conventional refrigeration and absorption cooling in the coming decade.

I hope this information was helpful.