OCR Text |
Show Analysis of the information in Table 1 reveals several interesting features. First, over 60% of the fuels bum~d by industry are gaseous. with natural gas and refinery fuel gas accounting for the largest portion. About one-quarter of the fuels bumed are solid fuels. Somewhat over 10% are liquid fuels. Viewed from a different perspective, over one third 'of the fuels used by industry are waste fuels. Despite its widespread industrial use, coal is not included in OIT's industrial combustion a<?ti~ities. Coal combustion has been and will continue to be handled by the Fossil Energy activity within DOE. Trendwise, industry has tended to increase the use of waste fuels and natural gas and to decrease ~e use of oil, especially residual fuel oil, an~ coal. COMBUSTION AND THE INDUSTRIES OF THE FUTURE The seven focus industries obtain most of their energy through combustion. Industry com busts fuels in boilers for indirect heating and electrical generation and in heaters and furnaces for process heating. Table 2 shows that the combustion of fuels provides about 90% of the energy used by both the forest products and steel industries, the highest values, to about 20% in the aluminum industry, the lowest. On average, 75% of the energy used by industry is derived through on-site combustion, with most of the remainder being purchased electriCity. CURRENT AND FUTURE PROJECTS On-going combustion projects have been reoriented to one of the seven focus industries. A limited number apply to multiple industries. All now receive funding from congressional appropriations deSignated for industry-specific RD&D activities. These projects range from fundamental to·those that are end-use oriented. A listing of current projects, the performing organization and the project focus industry is shown in Table 3. Nearty one-third of the projects are included in presentations at this AFRC symposium. The projects listed in Table 3 reflect: The combustion comerstones of emissions reduction, energy efficiency. and reasonable cost The focus on fuels most used by industry The concentration on the seven Industries of the Future. Two projects which have not yet begun are in this list: Steel By-product Fuels Combustion and Oscillating Combustion. Both were recent awardees in the Industrial Technology Partnership which investigates the fundamental issues which underpin the conversion of energy and pollution intensive industrial processes to more environmentally sound and energy efficient processes. Budget cuts have constrained the spectrum of combustion projects undertaken by OIT. Combustion budget cuts are not unique to OIT. Unfortunately, budget cuts at the Gas Research Institute have forced GRI to drop out as a major cost sharing partner on several of the projects shown in Table 3. The project participants will either find new cost sharing partners, which has already occurred in one case, or the projects will be ended. 4 |