Plant engineers energy conservation

Action Prepare detailed designs for the chemical engineering units in the plant. Consider energy conservation measures and the process control and instrumentation required as the designs are performed. Prepare a design specification sheet for each unit. Detail the specific energy conservation schemes considered and adopted,... 

In a process plant an energy-conservation engineer estimated that there was a potential to generate 150,000 Ib/h of superheated steam at 400 psi and 750°F. The plant needs the same quantity of steam at 20 psi for process uses. (Note all pressures are absolute.) If the matching back-pressure... 

A. Thumaim, Plant Engineers andManagers Guide to Energy Conservation, Fairmont Press, LUbum, Ga., 1989. 

The present shortage of gas and the projected shortage of power has caused the chemical industry to become aware of how it can conserve the power it now has. For any new plants the process will be carefully scrutinized to see that power usage is minimized. To accomplish this, the design engineer must be aware of all the places within the plant where energy is needed and of all the sources of energy available. 

Aegerter, R., "Energy Conservation In Process Plants", Chemical Engineering, Sept. 3, 19B4, pp. 93-96. 

Let me tell you how things were in the heady days of the late 1960s, when scientists (like me) and engineers first got their hands on computers. Computers were very large beasts, and they consumed very many kilojoules (kilocalories in those days, or if you are a North American reader) per unit time. If you believe in the law of conservation of energy, you will understand why such machines had a refrigeration plant, where the three resident engineers kept the milk for their coffee. 

Our plantwide control design procedure (Fig. 3.1) satisfies the two fundamental chemical engineering principles, namely the overall conservation of energy and mass. Additionally, the procedure accounts for nonconserved entities within a plant such as chemical components (produced and consumed) and entropy (produced). In fact, five of the nine steps deal with plantwide control issues that would not be addressed by simply combining the control systems from all of the individual unit operations. 

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