Dow Corning has announced a $50 million investment in new equipment for its Midland, Michigan plant that is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent, total emissions by 75 percent, and lower the site’s consumption of natural gas by 400 billion Btu per year, according to the company.
The new equipment includes a recycle system designed to remove and recycle by-products from manufacturing processes, and a thermal oxidizer that will reduce air emissions from the site while generating steam for process heating.
The recycling system uses a plasma gasification process that separates the waste material generated in the chlorosilanes manufacturing process into organic and chlorine parts. The organic portion is converted into a synthetic gas for use in the steam boilers. The chlorine portion will be converted into one of the raw materials used to make chlorosilanes. Remaining materials will be turned into a relatively small amount of inert obsidian-like glass that is also recyclable.
When fully operational this process will generate approximately one-third of the site’s steam load.
Dow Corning is working with two companies on the project. The waste processing system will be owned by Integrated Environmental Technologies. A second company, Veolia Environmental Services, was contracted by IET to operate the recycling equipment. Several of the new jobs created from this investment will be Veolia Environmental Services employees.
EBAY'S WATER CONSERVATION PROGRAM PAYS FOR ITSELF
eBay saves water and energy with a program that'll achieve ROI within 18 months. How much could you save? Go to calculator>>
CLEAN ENERGY DOESN'T GET ANY COOLER THAN THIS
Hybrid Cooling Solutions from Ice Energy. There's no cooler way to improve your bottom line. Discover the power of Ice. >>
CUT ENERGY COSTS WITH VMWARE VIRTUALIZATION
Eliminate server sprawl, reduce costs and save energy with VMware Virtualization >>
FINALLY! NEXT-GENERATION CARBON MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR BUSINESSES
Clear Standards environmental intelligence software helps businesses measure, analyze, and reduce their carbon footprint. No more spreadsheets! >>
There’s no question that ecolabeling is in demand as companies in all sectors launch marketing focused on "green" company and product attributes. ... continue »
Close to all American consumers (90%) believe that acting in an environmentally responsible way is important, but feel corporations hold most of ...
Nest recently held their 2nd designer discussion "Design with a conscious". with a packed house, three product designers spoke about their ...
Comments
I appreciate your newsletter, it is the only one I read religiously.
However, you need to vet your wording more carefully. This effort is not necessarily bad but it is also not recycling - it is “thermal waste treatment with resource recovery”. There is also a convenient omission of the environmental impacts of the emissions from the gasification process.
Phil Berry October 2nd, 2007