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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (68174)	8/27/2005 6:15:17 PM
From: Slagle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Elroy Re: "industrial" As financial writers endlessly remind us energy was "more expensive" in "inflation adjusted terms" in the 1970's and early 1980's than it is now. So industry had every incentive back then with regards to efficiency improvements to do all they could do, and I can tell you from experience that is exactly what industry did. Heat recovery, co-generation, logistical improvements, they used every tool in the toolbox. But this is a mature science; the school where I graduated still uses the same freshman thermodynamics text that they did nearly 40 years ago. And why not? Nothing has changed since then. You mention co-generation and I suppose you mean using gas turbines where you have a use for the low level heat in the exhaust gas. We have been doing that for decades. But there are really limited applications for you need to couple a continuous need for the waste heat with a need for the electricity along with a utility grid that is capable of absorbing the excess at any given time. There are just limited applications, and where they exist the are already in use. Now with $9 NG and $2 #2 fuel oil I bet many of the co-generation systems are sitting idle right now. Just wouldn't make sense to run them, other than for peak shaving. Slagle