“Plan, do, check, act.” When it comes to caring about carbon footprint, a path forward to may seem too out-of-reach. But breaking down process heating and how to efficiently consider carbon use can be possible with industry resources.
This Sustainability Insight article was composed by Michael Stowe, PE, the senior Energy Engineer at Advanced Energy for Heat Treat Today's September 2023 People of Heat Treating print edition.
Senior Energy Engineer
Advanced Energy
Source: IHEA
Over the past several years, process heating energy markets have shifted in response to significant global pressures. The need to understand the impact of greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially carbon based emissions, on climate change is gaining more interest from organizations that have industrial process heating. Organizations that manufacture or use process heating equipment need to understand the impact their equipment can have on carbon emissions. The terms “carbon emissions” or “carbon footprints” use the word “carbon,” but these terms can include other GHGs, and the carbon refers to carbon dioxide gas (CO2).
Process heating requires energy input. The energy sources for process heating most frequently include the combustion of carbon-based fossil fuels such as natural gas, propane, fuel oil, diesel, or coal. Also, most combustion processes have a component of electricity to operate combustion air supply blowers, exhaust blowers, circulation fans, conveyors, and other items. Figure 1 shows the chemical process for the combustion of methane (i.e., natural gas).
Figure 1 demonstrates that during combustion, methane (CH4) combines with oxygen (O2) to form carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). This same process is true for any carbon-based fuel. If you try to imagine all the combustion in progress across the globe at any given time, and knowing that all this combustion is releasing CO2, then it is easy to see the problem and the need for CO2 emission reduction.
(Source: Advanced Energy)
In basic terms, if you have a combustion process on your site, then you are emitting CO2. The electricity consumed to support the combustion processes also has a carbon component and the consumption of this electricity contributes to a site’s carbon footprint. Climate change impacts due to these carbon emissions have prompted government and corporate actions that are creating unique new opportunities for more sustainable and lower carbon process heating methods.
So, combustion and electricity consumption on your site contribute to your carbon footprint. Knowing this, organizations may now want to understand the actual level of their carbon footprint and ways to reduce it. There are many methods and resources available to help organizations understand and work to improve their carbon footprint.
The Industrial Heating Equipment Association (IHEA) has recognized this need to understand carbon footprints and is in the middle of a four-part webinar series on this topic. Session three (held on July 20, 2023) covered methods and resources to help organizations determine and improve their carbon footprint.
Session 3: DOE Tools and Programs for GHG Reduction
There are many options available to help determine carbon emissions for equipment, processes, sites, and organizations. This presentation will review some of these available tools and how to apply them to different situations. Carbon emissions are directly tied to energy consumption, so it is very important to understand how all your energy is consumed on site by energy type. This presentation will provide tools and programs to help you understand your energy consumption and thereby understand your carbon emissions. Additionally, energy improvement projects are also carbon emission reduction projects. This session will help you understand how to determine the impact of energy projects on your carbon footprint.
Session 4: Ongoing Sustainability — Industry Best Practices for Continual Improvement
Carbon reduction is not a project, it is a process, and must be ongoing. Earlier sessions will help you determine your carbon footprint and understand ways to track and improve your carbon footprint. In this presentation, we will review methods and programs to ensure the continual improvement of your carbon reduction efforts. Following the “plan, do, check, act” method used in many continual improvement programs, we will review steps to take for keeping your momentum moving in the right direction. We will also plan to have industry case studies for success in ongoing and improving carbon reduction programs.
Registration for these sessions can be found on the events page of www.ihea.org. If you or your organization want to learn more about your carbon footprint and how to measure and reduce it, you will not want to miss this opportunity.
In summary, heat treating, and other process heating methods, require significant energy, much of which is fueled with carbon-based fossil fuels, and associated with support electricity consumption. Both combustion and electricity consumption contribute to an organization’s carbon footprint. One of the best ways to help manage your carbon footprint is to understand and manage your energy consumption. For more information on this topic, please check out the IHEA Sustainability & Decarbonization Initiatives.
About the author:
Michael Stowe (PE) is the senior energy engineer at Advanced Energy. Michael focuses on process heating and energy efficiency in manufacturing plants. He has significant experience in the manufacturing industry serving in various roles as design engineer, production manager, plant engineer, and facilities engineer over the past 27 years.
