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Article: Steam balances save money: developing--or digging out--the needed data is one key to a good steam balance. Another is holding lots of conversations with the plant's engineers and operators.(Feature Report)
- Article from:
- Chemical Engineering
- Article date:
- July 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Access Intelligence, LLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The economic value of a well-prepared, continually updated steam balance in a process plant is easy to illustrate. According to the U.S. Dept. of Energy, 45% of all fuel burned by U.S. manufacturers is consumed to raise steam. In a recent year, about $18 billion in 1997 dollars was spent to feed steam-generating boilers. By now, in 2004, the current-dollar figure is sure to have grown significantly.
Let us say that a particular plant has three utility boilers, normally producing a total of 600,000 lb/h of high-pressure steam for onsite use. While fuel-gas costs used to be reasonably constant at about $2.50 per million (MM) Btu, they now fluctuate widely with spot ...