Plant Services - September 2007 - (Page 11) BACKTALK Clearly prefers paper I ’ve been reading the paper version of Plant Services now for a couple of years. I prefer the paper version and have enjoyed reading the variety of articles. But I typically find time to read your publication when I’m not sitting with a computer available: traveling, waiting on others, tired of working with the computer and wanting to rest my eyes from the bombardment of electrons. Because I work in the paper industry, I found Paul Studebaker’s “When a tree falls” (June, page 9) article interesting. Another recent editorial in another publication brought up the fact that the cost of using paper has little impact from the cost of making paper (land ownership, tree growing, tree harvesting, transportation, pulp manufacturing, paper manufacturing, etc.) but much more from where and how you store the paper after it’s printed. Does it accumulate in piles in the office or home that clutter so much that you can’t find anything and you search in frustration for the item you need? at’s the biggest waste due to using paper. I suffer from this problem and struggle to stay current with the assortment of mail that’s delivered. Next is the filing time and retrieval effort, if indeed you need to later retrieve that information. e couple of e-mail formatted magazines I have delivered are more frequently purged without ever reading. And the ones that repeatedly clutter my inbox I try to stop by identifying them as junk mail so they are automatically purged. Get the picture? So, I will continue to read your paper version (as long as it’s free) and will skim both the articles and advertisements. Hey, I understand the user-friendliness of electronic links from the e-zine to supplier’s Web pages, but I put more emphasis on reading the magazine in my comfort and control. Wayne Bucher, consultant WB Consulting, Inc., Birmingham, Ala. Most companies lack experienced technicians With regard to Joel Leonard’s “Wake up the suits” (May, page 11), I spent 17 years in the factory automation side; Rockwell International and Siemens Automation. Technology and automation is an expensive route for the industrial customer. Most smaller customers don’t take full advantage of the information flow you can get to the corporate level. Most companies also don’t have the experienced maintenance electricians or mechanics to not only maintain but to offer technological ideas to help grow the company. Mark Caltabiano, project manager Calt Construction, Smithtown, N.Y. How much more e cient can you get? is is in response to “ e D-Energizers” (May, page 38) and specifically about “ e Steamer.” ere are a lot of 20- to 30-year-old boilers out there operating at between 75% and 80% efficiency. A lot of those boilers could be operating at 90% or better if the plant manager were to look at incorporating the technology of “condensing flue gas heat recovery.” If these old iron fi reboxes have been maintained, there’s no reason to send them to the scrap box in the back 40. ey could have another 10 to 20 years of operating life in them, and then once they are retired, the flue gas condenser can be S connected to its replacement, making that new 83% boiler operate at more than 90% efficiency. e key to achieving this increased efficiency is to look past heating boiler feedwater (that is for the standard economizer, 2% to 4% energy savings). We have to ask why the boiler is here. Is it sending out steam or hot water to heat exchangers, where incoming street water is being heated for process or plant washdown requirements? Maybe there’s domestic water that needs to be heated for showers or doing laundry. Maybe there’s a swimming pool to heat. Let’s try to accomplish this with that waste heat that would otherwise be lost up the chimney. Instead of exiting flue gas temperatures of 300° or 500°F or more, let’s try to bring it to well below 100°, or below 60°F. Now the boiler room is running efficiently. Natural gas is too precious a fuel to waste. Is there more that we can do? Have you ever seen natural gas irrigate the lawns and the flower beds? No? ere’s all this condensate coming out of the base of the Sidel SRU flue gas condenser unit, with a pH of 4. Will the plants and lawns be offended? It can be brought back up to 7 quite easily. Now we are watering with basically distilled water. How much more efficient can we get with natural gas? Sid Abma, president Sidel Systems, U.S.A. Inc., Atascadero, Calif. .PLANTSERVICES. 11 http://www.plantservices.com
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