July 3, 2006—The US Department of Energy (DOE) launched industrial Energy Saving Assessments in May at four plants in Alabama, as well as plants in Kansas, Maine, and Utah. DOE’s free three-day energy assessments are helping major manufacturing facilities to identify energy-saving opportunities, primarily by focusing on steam and process heating systems used at the plants.
- The Dixie Group facility in Atmore, AL, tufts, dyes, and coats carpet for residential, contract, and custom markets.
- Wise Alloys in Muscle Shoals, AL, produces 950 million pounds per year of aluminum sheet products used in the beverage and food industries, and melts and prepares 500 million pounds of scrap cans for recycling per year.
- The Wolverine Tube facility in Decatur, AL, manufactures copper tube for the plumbing, air conditioning, and heat transfer industries.
- UOP, a Honeywell company in Mobile, AL, delivers cutting-edge technology to the petroleum refining, gas processing, petrochemical production, and major manufacturing industries. The Mobile plant has 15 different product lines for the refining, petrochemical, and consumer products manufacturing industries.
- The CertainTeed Corporation’s Kansas City, KS, fiberglass insulation manufacturing facility produces fiberglass insulation products for customers throughout North America and is reportedly the largest insulation production plant in the world.
- Sappi Fine Paper’s Somerset Mill in Skowhegan, ME, has three paper machines that annually produce 760,000 tons of high-gloss, coated papers used in high-end catalogs and magazines. The plant also produces its own bleached chemical pulp.
- The Holcim US facility in Morgan, UT, is reportedly one of the largest manufacturers of cement and mineral components in the US.
DOE’s Energy Saving Teams have completed visits to 33 large federal facilities and are in the process of visiting 200 energy-intensive manufacturing facilities as part of a national campaign launched in October 2005. The first 44 industrial Energy Saving Assessments have identified a total of $149.3 million per year in potential energy-cost savings. If implemented, these energy-saving measures could reduce natural gas consumption by more than 14.8 trillion Btu per year.
See the results of many of these industrial Energy Saving Assessments on the “Save Energy Now” Web site, provided by DOE’s Industrial Technologies Program.
