Cristian Cardenas-Lailhacar

Reaching net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) is a world-wide concern. Industry consumes about a third of the energy in most countries. The variety of plants and manufacturing products is enormous, playing a key role in our society. In general, their energy use includes electricity, fossil fuels (natural gas, propane, diesel, and coal), and in some cases the use of renewables (photovoltaics and biogas). Although manufacturing technologies are relatively mature, there is significant potential for improvements from an energy efficiency and economic perspective, and to reduce the amount of emitted GHG, like carbon dioxide.

After conducting more than 250 energy assessments on manufacturing facilities in the US and Latin America, we have established a direct relationship between CO2 emissions and plant production. This relationship is derived from the baseline generated from monthly energy consumption, and plant productivity. The plants range in their annual energy costs from $100k to $5 million. The results are summarized in terms of potential energy savings found. Four scenarios are identified: Business as Usual, Low Implementation Cost, Policies and Projections, and Aggressive. Furthermore, our analysis allows us to identify the energy used by each operating piece of equipment, their operating cost, and the associated GHG emissions.