Energy Saving and Automation

In an era where energy costs have become a focus of attention, many people have authored articles with reducing energy as their theme.  Saving money is always a good thing.   Perhaps we can gain a little clarity on where the real savings are.

Start with the big loads.  Plant air handling, building HVAC and lighting are generally a lot more significant in total Watts or equivalent horsepower.  1 Horsepower is equal to 746 Watts.  If you are located in the northern states, winter heating uses a lot more energy than summer air conditioning.  In the southern states, it’s the opposite.  There is one study that puts the northern thermal cycle at a much higher overall cost, so everybody needs to move their manufacturing to the south.

Check all the integral horsepower motors in the plant.  A recent DOE study shows that over time, many motors get replaced with whatever is readily available in the next larger frame size.  This is in reaction to plant failures where the exact replacement motor is not handy or on the shelf.  The result is that the plant power and power factor can be very poor because there is a lot of excess capacity that is not being used efficiently.

Industrial plants also suffer from peak demand billing practices.  The utility company agrees to provide power, but large users get billed extra when they have peaks above their average usage.  Again, look at the large loads, and see if some or all can be put on soft starters or inverters with longer starting profiles.  AC motors try to get to full running speed and spend several seconds at poor power factor and huge inrush currents during starting.  Most motors require at least 4 seconds to get to speed.  So, is there a savings opportunity if you can get by with a 6 to 10 second starting period?  Yes, there absolutely is.

The smaller loads like individual plant floor machines are a little harder to regulate.  Some production machines consist of dozens of individual motors and sub-systems.  In large conveyor installations, newer control system turns off whole zones of equipment if there is no traffic for that section.  Use the same strategy in production equipment.  If there is nothing coming into the machine, turn off as much stuff as possible.

Again, look for the largest loads.  In CNC machines, the spindle is usually the dominant load.  Turning off a 10kW spindle motor will save lots more money than turning off 400 Watt positioning axes.  However, don’t pass up an opportunity if one exists.  If there are a large number of individual axes of motion that have low duty cycles, it may be cost effective to put brakes on the load and turn the motors off when they are not in use.

Prudent planning can be turned into real cash savings.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

As someone who has been out of work in the past few years, I have first hand experience with the subject.  Let me offer a couple of observations.

Government is not the answer.  Anytime government gets involved there is a very high risk that money will get spent and nothing will change.  Remember stimulus 1?  We were assured that if this money were spent, unemployment would never go above 8%.  And with unemployment at 9.1%, the administration wants to try stimulus 2.  No thanks.

What are the real unemployment numbers?  No one wants to really talk about that because it would mean having to admit that the real number is much higher.  Quoting from the most recent data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there are 14 million people unemployed, officially, with a labor force that has increased to 153.6 million in August.  That’s where the 9.1% comes from.

But the BLS also reports 2.6 million people “marginally attached to the labor force”.  This category refers to people who have been out of work over the last 12 months, ready and available for work, but had not looked for a job over the last 4 weeks.  I’m still not sure I understand this categorization, certainly someone who has been out of work for 12 months should qualify as unemployed.  The quibbling over details here is clearly designed to hide the real numbers.

2.6 million plus 14 million is 16.6 million which is 10.8% unemployment.  The psychologically dreaded 10% unemployment number could be easily avoided if one can find a way to finesse the reporting categories.   How bad is it really?  Some commentators have said the real unemployment numbers are 16% or higher.  Donald Trump said it was 20%+ in his interview with Greta van Sustern last week.  Personally, I am quite sure its something above 10.8%.

Sadly, this is not the first time employment data has been misrepresented.  Remember how the “Green Economy” would generate 30,000 jobs?  The report that was quoted by many in Colorado State and Federal government used a number of statistical machinations to “fluff up” the numbers.  Workers who put insulation in your home were counted as part of the “Green Economy” as were a fraction of the appliance manufacturers workforce, since effort to reduce energy consumption is a part of that industry.

Attempts by government to increase employment have been mediocre.  The way government creates jobs is by adding more government workers.  Which this administration did like crazy in its first year.  This is not how we grow the economy.  Every dollar spent by government is at the expense of someone who works for a living.    It robs the consumer of discretionary dollars that can be spent in the real economy.  When things get bad enough, government spending robs people of their ability to pay for necessities.  This isn’t how it’s supposed to work.

More disturbing is the trend in the number of manufacturing jobs added per month.  The manufacturing sector added 14,000 job per month in the second quarter, compared to 35,000 jobs per month added in the first quarter.  Not a good trend.

There are two big lessons here.  One is that manufacturing is where the jobs are. American jobs and American manufacturing.  Our politicians have been running down the manufacturing sector for the last 20 years.  Second is that government is not the answer.  Americans and American ingenuity are.  So let’s agree to let American’s get about the business of inventing the future and get the roadblocks out of the way.

Energy Policy and Industry

Energy is the #2 cost in many companies.  During a statistical analysis of energy use by plant location in the 10 county Houston metropolitan area I found incredible amounts of energy required by manufacturers.  Stuff that you wouldn’t necessary think of until you start breaking down the details.

Cooking raw sugar and turning it into white sugar, for example, requires incredible amounts of heat and steam.  And generating steam requires a lot of energy.  Steam is very expensive to generate and almost impossible to store.  The cost of steam is so high that plants measure steam loss by the second.

Producing magnesium as a metal is a large scale electrolytic process.  The emphasis is on electrolytic.  The plant I visited measured current in 10′s of thousands of amperes.  There was so much power that the PC screens in the building had to be triple shielded or the magnetic field of the power distribution system would mess with the displays.  Huge annual cost of energy.

Where industry and commerce require significant amounts of energy to operate, these businesses become very sensitive to the cost of energy.  The same is true for individuals.  As the cost of gasoline increases we must individually choose to use less, or since some people don’t have the option to use less, pay more for gasoline and have less income to spend on other things.

Energy policy under the direction of the DOE and Congress has promoted solar power and wind power over coal, natural gas and nuclear energy.  There are two problems with this approach.  First, these technologies are very expensive.  Any time someone promotes technology and won’t talk about cost, you should be suspicious.  And that has been the history of alternative energy.

The second problem is that there is currently no way to store the power that is generated.  So unless you can use the power immediately, you’re in trouble.  A popular solar project is cited that used solar panels to generate peak power during the summer afternoons during periods of increased power demand when high air conditioning loads are required.  This is still a very expensive solution, but where the utility charges 3 or 4 times more for electricity during peak demand periods, this solution makes sense.  But it is a very limited application.

The question is, who decides how much energy will cost in the US?  State governments grant permits to open a utility.  They also decide what the utility companies’ goals will be.  The DOE has created consensus about alternative energy without approval from Congress.

Do the decisions of the government make sense?  That’s where the controversy starts.  If you are trying to run a business, then anything that increases costs is probably bad.  But no one in government appears to be listening.

Many businesses and almost every consumer is impacted by the decisions made by government.  Every extra dollar that is spent on lighting,  heating and cooling, and transportation is a dollar that is no longer discretionary.  So maybe that’s the real question.  Who decides what you and I spend our money on?

To the extent that government Policy causes dollars to be paid as increased energy expense, then the rest of the consumer economy suffers.  Which is part of the current problems that our economy is currently experiencing.

Progress? or What?

Where is the line between art and technology?  Design is how we respond to a need.  Part of that response is functional, technically oriented, part of that response is aesthetic and subjective.  Great design comes from extraordinary solutions that embody the deep knowledge and understanding combined with great aesthetic aspects that make the solution appealing to the user.

Sometimes that understanding comes from years of experience.  That experience and expertise is crucial to creating quality design.  Often in today’s culture the qualities of long term experience and expert opinion are omitted or unavailable.  As major new technologies emerge, it takes time for broad experience to accumulate and produce the maximum benefit of the technology.

Anybody remember the brick phone?

Of course, there have been many improvements in network performance and microelectronics packaging, but those improvements are all driven by improving the cellphone experience.  The improvements over time are impressive, we are now carrying portable multi-media computers that can support all major communications services.  And most of those phones (computers) are $100 or less.

This is generally the legacy of the electronics industry.  Extremely high performance with a pace of improvements that is breathtaking.

The “learning curve” that enhances our experience of recent innovations like the cellphone is also present in all our other modern systems.  Only some of them aren’t so modern.  Water treatment and delivery is hundreds of years old technology that has been modernized to the extent of using electric motor pumps and modern control technology to facilitate things, but is largely the same as it has always been.  The electric utility was invented by Thomas Edison for the purpose of delivering dc power to small regions in the early day of the electric light.

In some circumstances the “learning curve” can also represent institutional knowledge and bureaucracy that prevents progress from taking place.  The amount of time necessary to demonstrate new technology in a given field, time to conduct feasibility studies, environmental impact studies, massive costs and effort are expended with no guarantee of return.  This kind of risk can only be borne by large companies with sufficient cash flow to support the investment.  It is certainly not the domain of small entrepreneurial startups.

So things like crude oil from Rocky Mountain shale will not produce the 10,000 good jobs that were planned by Shell Oil because after spending all the required time and money, Ken Salazar denied their permit to build a plant. Even though the all the studies all concluded that the project would be successful.

Is it progress, or what?

Energy, the Economy, and the DOE

For any modern economy, energy is part of the cost structure of pretty much everything. Depending on the specific product, direct energy costs are often the second largest cost of doing business for many industries.  As an example, in electrolytic refining of metals, energy cost can be 10% or more of the final cost for the product.  So a significant increase in energy cost can result in immediate increases in product costs.

This is a very important consideration that is often not a part of public policy. The cost of electricity is currently going up because alternative energy technology is driving the cost of electricity up.  The impact of pubic policy on industry, and on the consumer, is having a negative effect on all parties concerned.  Utility companies, consumers and industrial users are all experiencing increasing costs.  Utility companies are forced to lay off employees, consumers have less disposable income and industrial users are forced to raise prices.  All bad for the economy.

When gasoline goes up by 25% a couple of things happen that are fundamental to the economy.

One is that consumers pay more money for gasoline and less money for other things. Contrary to how the government seems to operate, consumers can’t arbitrarily increase their spending when a major cost goes up.

At the rate we use gasoline, approximately 137 millions gallons per day, the mainstream economy is losing $137 million per day from the consumer sector.  That calculates out to about $50 Billion a year that isn’t getting spent on other goods and services.  Not a good thing for employment.

The other thing about increased cost of gasoline is that transportation costs for agricultural goods and consumer goods.  So another hit to the disposable income side of the economic equation.

The DOE annual budget has risen from $7B to $27B in 2010. Since the inception of the DOE as proposed by Jimmy Carter in 1977, the mission statement has been to ensure the energy independence of the United States.  Only at the time we were only 25% dependent on oil products from foreign sources.  Now we are 75% dependent on oil products from foreign sources.

The dependence on foreign oil might be acceptable if it were in response to market conditions.  But we have spent $357 billion dollars from 1990 to 2010 (not including the money spent from 1977 to 1990), and we are now more dependent on foreign oil sources.

This situation is also partly in response to the oil industry shift during the 1980′s in which it was considered more cost effective to import than to produce domestically.  At the time, this may have been true, but the situation has changed.

The real problem at the root of this is the permission to drill for oil or natural gas.  Since the Federal government regulates land leases through the Bureau of Land Management, the government has final authority to determine if oil or natural gas will be pumped from the ground or in the ocean.

So talk to your congressman.  He (or she) has the power to directly impact the price of gasoline.  Not the oil and gas company.

Japan, Nuclear Power, Real Challenges

The earthquake in Japan brings us face to face with another challenge to the engineering community.  The earthquake is certainly a disaster, and we hope and pray that the loss of life in Japan will be small.  But the emerging crisis of radiation leaking from nuclear powerplants that have been damaged by the quake and tsunami waves are pause for serious reflection about the future of energy.

The damage is the result of natural forces that are beyond the ability of designers to engineer against.  And how we take heed of these events, or even if we take heed, may be the real measure of progress in western civilization.  The future of nuclear power plants is going to have include choices and alternative technology.

A nuclear power plant is a complex system, mostly controlled by technology from the process industry because it creates steam to drive a turbine which turns a generator.  The generator is a classic electric motor run in reverse to create electricity from torque.  So there is mechatronic technology involved in the process itself.

Even more mechatronics content is involved in the creation of the fuel and the operation of the control rods in water cooled reactors.  Robots are also frequently used in the processing of the fuel into the final shape for use in a reactor.

But the bigger question is what are the technology choices for nuclear power generated electricity that can survive the forces of natural disasters?  Interestingly, there are a number of mini reactor technologies that because of their small size, are much more likely to withstand the forces of nature.  Just Google mini nuclear reactors and you will find pages of information.  And discussions of numerous technologies that are competing for use in the power industry.

Large water cooled reactor have been producing electricity for 40 years or more.  But these designs are massive and susceptible to failure when the water flow is interrupted.  Which is what we have going on in Japan.

There are wave reactors, Thorium reactors, small water cooled designs and pebble bed reactors.  Each technology working its way through the torturous process of qualification for use by federal regulators.

Some of the technology is unproven and controversial.  But since I have seen the pebble bed reactor demonstrated, for me this is a leading edge technology.  The pebble fuel is a small .5mm diameter pebble of uranium contained in layers of graphite and ceramic.  By spacing the fuel apart in small bits, it cannot reach thermal runaway, and in fact, using helium coolant, the system can reach thermal equilibrium at 800 degrees.  Since the ceramic insulator is designed to withstand temperatures of 3000 degrees, there is little chance of the fuel melting the insulator and creating a runaway chain reaction.  Safe, small.  The American Nuclear Regulatory Commission attended a demonstration of this technology years ago.  I saw the video.

So the question is, when are we going to see some progress?  At the rate our government chooses to do things, it will take years.  At the risk of being redundant, providing electricity shouldn’t be about politics, it should be about free markets, and doing things right.  If the electric power industry is going to be regulated by politicians, then politicians need to be doing the people’s business and getting it done.

Alternative Energy Considered

Alternative Energy technology is something we have to consider carefully in the context of the real cost of energy.  Certainly we can use less as part of the solution.  But we can use less without changing our living conditions to the point that we freeze in the winter, broil in the summer and read by candlelight.

In part, a strategic energy policy should include incentives for people willing to engage in the risk of financing photovoltaic plants and wind power projects.  One of the problems with this is that the technology is not cost effective compared to the established methods of generating electricity.  More on that shortly.

But of great concern is how the “incentive” programs are designed to work.  And are they working as intended?

The creation of a “Feed in Tariff” (FiT) is one mechanism that the state governments use to incentivize investment in photovoltaics.  However, the FiT is limited in how much capacity can be built in the photovoltaic supply of electricity.  It has to be funded at the State government level.  So this is really a transfer payment from a group of taxpayers to a small group of investors to get the PV plant built.

In another frame of reference, when we consider the cost of producing energy, the history of the last hundred years has resulted in a mature industry that delivers power on demand to 300+ million users for pennies per kilowatt hour.  The purchase price of a coal fired power plant to produce energy in the US is in the range of $5.9 million per megawatt of capacity.  And that capacity is available day or night.

By the way, this also means that charging electric cars at night, when demand is generally lower for the power plant, is a great way to make the plant more profitable.

So the remaining question is; if you were really worried about the environment and felt that coal and natural gas were bad for the environment, what are the choices and most of all, how expensive is that going to be?

Well, if you are paying 14 cents a kilowatt hour presently, understand that your utility company is probably paying anywhere from 23 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour to buy the power from photovoltaic sources.   That’s pretty expensive.

And photovoltaic plants suffer from the fact that they only operate during daylight.  In fact, they only operate at peak power 2 to 3 hours a day.  Which is only 1/8 of the 24 hour day.  So the asset is only producing 12.5% of the time.  So they are not very cost effective with out a lot of subsidy money coming in to pay for them.

Nuclear power using wave reactors or pebble bed reactors can be very small, are very safe and they are also very economical.  They operate 24 hours a day and don’t emit any pollution to the atmosphere.  At an estimated $6.8 mil/mW they are the ideal alternative for those who are Eco-conscious without breaking the bank.

So why aren’t we hearing more about this option?

Re-Manufacturing the USA

For about 20 years that I can remember most candidates for the Presidency of the United States have disrespected manufacturing.  Most people who are running for the office of President don’t have manufacturing in their background.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise that after years of manufacturing being attacked from a political standpont that we have a huge decline in the manufacturing base of the American economy.  Yes, there are certainly other factors at work here, but our political perspective is one among many which need correction.

Since the Second World War, manufacturing employment has dropped steadily from 33% of all employment to about 10% of all employment.  What is really interesting about this trend is that the total output of manufactured goods has remained roughly constant.  What accounts for this is increasing productivity.  And in recent years a lot of that productivity has been from automation.

The same Department of Commerce research shows agricultural employment, typically a very high labor area, dropping from 33% to 2-1/2% from the turn of the century, 1900′s, to the present.  And similarly, agricultural output in the US has remained constant.  The main force behind the reduction in labor has been the mechanization of agriculture, or as I would like to refer to it, the “mechatronic-ization” of agriculture, if that doesn’t butcher the English language too severely.

Mechatronics is that elastic term that takes into account so many disparate technologies.  Putting a hydraulic system on a power take off from the gasoline engine on a tractor in order to power a variety of farm implements is mechatronics at its finest.  And the dawn of factory robotics in the 1980′s has lead to production welding robots that cost less than $50,000.  So people are being freed from some of the more repetitive tasks required at the factory level, and, I suppose, being replaced by automation.

The dilemma becomes, how do we create new jobs.  Many people believe that the “Green Revolution” will create a lot of new employment.  Personally, and after much review of industry studies, there are jobs there, but not enough to turn the economy around anytime soon.  And frankly, most of the green power generation technologies have failed to meet their economic burdens, so it’s a work in progress.

On the other hand, the same ingenuity that led to robots on the assembly line in Detroit has also provided us with 3D solid printers that produce very high quality parts in small batches at very low cost.  Another mechatronic triumph.  Three axes of stepping motors using belt drives and rod bearings to move a print head in 3D that dispenses a variety of hot melt plastic materials into solid shapes following a computer program for a 3D part.

This technology drastically reduces the major hurdle of new product development, which is the cost of prototyping.  Hmmm.  Sounds like an opportunity.  And it is.

So maybe the key to increasing employment is new solutions to old problems.  Reinventing the means of production in every industry should be a powerful stimulus to innovation, invention and economic growth.  Let’s hope so.

Wind Power – Progress, Slowly

Converting the energy from wind to electricity is a huge mechatronic challenge.  Lots of backyard inventors are trying their hands at it.  At the end of the day, it will come down to what works economically.

The issue is that you have to convert the kinetic energy of the wind, which is very low depending on where you are, into enough mechanical energy to turn something that will turn a generator.  Sounds simple, and it is, up to a point.

The wind part can be thought of in Watts per Square Meter of energy.  So we have to come up with something that has very large surface area and very light weight.  Sailing technology comes to mind.  And there is a huge range of efficiency based on aerodynamics, which is why there is so much effort around blade design in the current generation of wind turbines.

But at energy levels of 150 W/m**2, it takes a lot of square meters to hit enough energy to be useful.  If you are thinking “small wind” for residential applications 2000-3000 watts peak power would require 20 square meters of surface area. That could be a rotor just over ten feet in diameter by eighteen feet tall.   That is a very large mechanical structure for a residential building.  And not easy to support securely against high winds.

2000  to 3000 Watts of intermittent power might displace half your power bill during the year if the wind blows a lot.  If not, maybe 1/4 of your annual power bill if you don’t get a lot of wind.  So you still need the power company unless you make the turbine 4 times bigger.

And the product cannot cost more than you are paying presently for the electricity. In states like New Jersey, New York or California where electricity costs are high, that might amount to $1500 if the value is for part of the annual power used.  In states where electricity costs are 11 cents/kWh, its really not worth it.

Land based wind farms have not done very well so far.  Think about the complexity of building gearboxes at the megawatt level that have to withstand sudden changes in wind conditions.  It’s nothing like the industrial world.  Historical costs of operation and maintenance (O&M) are being reported at 20 and 30% due to premature failure of gearboxes, electrical systems catching fire, blades breaking due to control system failures.  The list goes on.

So Wind Power still stands as a major mechatronic challenge.

What is the proper role of the government in the wind energy business?  President Obama says he is committed to promoting wind energy in this country.  Wind Energy will bring jobs to America.  Well, maybe for some of the construction guys.  So far, a significant amount of wind turbines sold in the US come from foreign suppliers.  And even for domestic wind turbines, a lot of the parts come from offshore suppliers.

If you look at all the new bureaucracy being created,  well, it will be amazing if anything ever gets done.  The newly formed Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement has been created to oversee the sale of leases of Federal Waters, where offshore wind is expected to migrate. Seems like the only jobs being created are Federal jobs.  By the way, they have 14 openings right now and some of them are Petroleum and Enviromental Engineers, so if you’re not busy, check it out.

The process to get a lease from BOEMRE will take at least 2-3 years before you can even think about putting equipment out.  Can you spell Boondoggle?

Energy Saving and Industry

Energy conservation is a popular subject.  And a lot of commentary has been offered about the importance of energy conservation in the industrial community.  I agree.  But the desire for energy conservation needs to be tempered with real cost benefit analysis.  Which sometimes gets passed up.

Almost all variable frequency drives are sold on the basis of the amount of energy, and money, they will save as part of the justification for spending the money on the equipment and installation.  Fans and pumps can benefit from reduced power consumption, especially when there are hundreds of horsepower of load involved.   Mechanical life expectancy increases and maintenance costs are reduced as system speeds are reduced to meet the operating setpoint of the driven load.

Large material handling systems have found ways to reduce costs.  Systems that are divided into zones can be monitored for the the presence of product on the conveyor lines.  If there is no product present, the conveyor motor is idled which saves energy.  When there are large systems, like airport baggage handling systems, with hundreds of horsepower of equipment spread over miles of conveyors, the load requirements are similar and a 20% or 30% reduction in system energy consumption can be very significant.

But plant floor machinery can be very different depending on the industry you are in.  In the medical manufacturing arena, there are lots of machines and lots of stepping motors in them.  Sometimes 24 axes of stepping motors can be in a very small machine.  And medical manufacturing plants can have hundreds, even thousands of motors.  So you would think that there are similarities in terms of the energy savings opportunity.

But factory automation systems present different energy usage problems.  Stepping motors, for example, are low power consumption systems are always on.  The motor may not be doing any work, but the power supply needed to provide DC power is always on.  So power is being converted, even though the motors may not be doing any work.  But the fact is that stepping motor systems are fairly low power, 200 Watts is typical.  So even when there are loads made up of hundreds of stepping motors, its hard to come up with enough energy saving to return the cost of a complex effort to control it.

In the servo world because multiple servo axes are not all on at the same time, average load and power supply sharing have led to a number of servo amps that use common dc bus architecture. This is a great way to say money and reduce equipment size.  But even large systems are limited to 10 kilowatt average power.  And frequently these systems have the ability to manage the input power so that the AC load is fairly efficient.

But once in a great while, there are applications where excess bus energy is generated, or regeneration is taking place.  This is the case when a palletizing machine lowers its load.  The weight of the material on the pallets drives the motors instead of the amplifiers.  This puts generated electricity onto the input voltage bus.  Imagine the surprise of the electrical maintenance department getting an emergency call that the palletizing equipment was generating too much power!

Every prospective energy saving project needs to be considered in the context of the industry, application and cost benefit.    A simple Pareto analysis of the major segments of energy consumption can be conducted which will categorized and quantify the opportunities for energy cost reduction.  Many of the best opportunities will come from unexpected areas.

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