An engine that could run off a wood-burning fire and was built to last a couple decades would strike me as really neat - this not so much. I suppose other places have more issues with the power grid reliability, but it's presumably more efficient to maintain the current infrastructure than to get one of these into every house.
Natural gas is also going to get much more expensive if they ever push fracking regulations through - the current pollution from gas leaks is actually worse than burning an equivalent amount of petroleum.
> Natural gas is also going to get much more expensive if they ever push fracking regulations through - the current pollution from gas leaks is actually worse than burning an equivalent amount of petroleum.
Interesting. Do you have links to further reading?
> shale gas wells were six times more likely to leak, compared with conventional wells.
There is also the pie in the sky reason that it is low-infrastructure.
Something you can stick in a cabin to power odd appliances or a computer and not have to worry about carrying fuel in (not very practical I admit).
Simple thermoelectric generators are tricky because you have to maintain the temperature difference - generally only good for brief use or with a battery.
> Interesting. Do you have links to further reading?
To be honest, it's information I got second hand from some climate researchers I used to work with. I wasn't planning to weigh in with google results, but this blog does a very impressive job of documenting the back and forth with links to papers - http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/08/shale-gas-more-or-le...
However in quite a few places the practicality of prepaid metal gas cylinders beats installing electric utility lines & meters, ensuring efficient transformers, preventing pilfering/meter tampering, etc.