Rising cost of fuel worldwide and growing demand for energy is forcing many users to reconsider energy generation efficiency and model. The cost of energy without subsidy has more than doubled within the last 12 months. This trend is unfortunately a predicament of demand growth exceeding that of supply, and is set to plague our lives in the foreseeable future.

The environmental neglect of our yesteryears is catching up with us, manifesting as hurricanes, typhoons, floods, tornadoes, famine, depletion of ozone layer, excessively hot summers, forest fires, rising sea levels, etc. The environmental scorn, yields to none, not even the might of the entire world. However, the repercussions of the environmental scorn is felt and affects the lives of all.

"Every year the world consumes about three billion barrels of oil, three thousand billion cubic meters of natural gas and five thousand million tones of coal. The share of energy market consists of 40 percent oil, 26 percent coal, 24 percent natural gas and 10 percent others. About 90 percent of world transportation is dependent on oil. The current global energy infrastructure is estimated to be worth 15 trillion US dollars. However it can supply quality energy to only one billion people, mostly in the OECD countries. Around the world more than one and a half billion people mostly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity or fossil fuels." (Khondaker Muzammel Huq)

The price of oil isn't the only issue of concern here, to wit the environmental concern, which is a multi-dimensional one. The earth is being stressed by large amounts of pollutants being introduced into the atmosphere. At the urban level, photochemical oxidants are causing smog. The increase in carbon dioxide together with deforestation has detrimentally and irreversibly changed the atmosphere.

Human activities are intensifying the natural greenhouse effect. Every year we release billions of tons of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. In doing so, we are setting the stage for a warmer Earth.

While all of the mechanisms of global warming are not clearly understood or worked out, this is a real issue, with very real future negative repercussions; indeed, it's entirely possible that for some people and parts of the world that future is now.

When you burn fuel you create chemicals that increase acid rain, add particulate pollutants to the air we breathe, introduce heavy metals into the environment from oil burning power plants and then there's the issue of pollution induced smog. Unlike global warming, where specific mechanisms for what we see and can predict are still being worked out, these other deleterious effects of fossil fuel consumption are pretty well established, we just don't tend to think about them.

Is there a panacea for the human thirst for fossil fuel, which is destroying our habitat? It took the world 125 years to consume the first 1 trillion barrels of oil, however the next trillion barrels will be consumed in 30 years!

As emissions standards have tightened in response to environmental damage and related public health costs, the demand for clean, renewable energy has increased. Interest in the market for Combined Heat & Power solutions is growing. A number of factors, including the restructuring of the energy industry and the introduction of new technologies, are driving this interest.

The demand for electricity in China is expected to more than triple by 2025, growing on average by 7.8 percent per year through 2015 and 5.6 percent per year through 2025. More rapid growth in electricity demand is projected for India's residential sector, but electricity consumption and total delivered energy consumption are projected to remain at about one-half those for China through 2025. China and India together accounted for 37 percent of delivered residential energy consumption in the emerging economies in 2002 and are projected to account for more than 43 percent in 2025. The Middle East, Africa, and Central and South America all are projected to see substantial increases in residential energy consumption as well, accounting for 42 percent of the 13.6 quadrillion Btu increase in residential sector delivered energy consumption in the emerging economies through 2025. (EIA)

Household energy use is anticipated to increase most rapidly in the coming decades in the nations with emerging economies, relative to other nations. Population growth and urbanisation in China and India will create large increases in demand for residential energy services. As a result, the emerging economies in 2025 are projected to nearly equal the mature market economies in residential energy use.

Heating and cooling loads are the major end uses of residential energy consumption. The most prominent fuels used for space and water heating today are natural gas, oil, propane and electricity, while electricity is the main fuel for air-conditioning. Some homes have natural gas pipelines leading to them to power their furnaces and boilers for space and water heating and cooking. Alternatively, households may have storage tanks outside for heating oil and propane to fuel their heating appliances.

Conventional thermoelectric stations convert only 1/3rd of the fuel energy in electricity. The rest is losses in the form of heat. The adverse effect to the environment from this waste is obvious. The need to increase the efficiency of the electricity generation process is therefore imperative.

One method for more rational use in the production of electricity is the Cogeneration of Heat (or Refrigeration) and Power, where more than 4/5th of the fuels energy is converted to usable energy, resulting in both financial and environmental benefits.

Agni introduces its Navitas range of hydrogen powered micro trigeneration technology, ranging from 5kW to 50kW, using bio-fuel. Navitas is environmentally friendly with zero pollution, easy to use, sleek and compact; designed for continuous duty and can enjoy a fuel cost that is a fraction of comparable fossil fuel cost today, by using Agni's Bio fuel! Navitas is designed to generate electricity, heat for space heating during the winter season and air conditioning for the summer seasons. Additionally, Navitas will also generate hot water for domestic use for e.g., in the kitchen, bathroom, shower, etc., and distilled water. Navitas offers pollution free energy generation option by capturing the CO2 generated in the fuel reforming process, which is then made available for greenhouse and other use.

The main benefit of cogeneration/ trigeneration is the more efficient use of fossil fuels used, for the generation of electricity. By using heat that would otherwise be wasted, cogeneration / trigeneration eliminates the need to burn fuels for the sole purpose of heating and cooling. This reduces the overall costs of producing electricity and heat, because less fuel is consumed.

By using the same fuel twice to produce electricity and other energy products and maximizing the use of almost all the possible energy from the fuel, we are able to achieve fuel conversion efficiencies of 95%. Emissions per unit energy of atmospheric pollutants associated with the combustion of fossil fuels such as carbon dioxide, sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides which results in acid rain are reduced, and with CO2 sequestration option, not emitted into the atmosphere

The use of trigeneration systems reduces the consumption of fossil fuels, per unit of energy required for a typical building, by about 40% compared to that used by conventional air-conditioning systems.

Achieving a truly sustainable energy system will call for technological breakthroughs that would alter radically how we produce and use energy.