With most electric utilities across North America switching from flat rate to time-based energy provision – also called off-peak or time-of-use (TOU) – customer charges vary dramatically. Priciest during the day and less expensive on weekends and holidays, power usage can be challenging to manage. No matter how frugal or environmentally aware we are, many of us still need to use our ovens, and run the dishwasher during daylight hours.

The avoidance of paying exorbitant prices for power is no longer only the goal of survivalists and environmentalists who dream of leaving big cities for a life in the wilderness, but has come within reach of all of us thanks to technological improvements, and lower equipment and supply costs.

Growing energy independence
Compared to just a few decades ago, our energy needs have gone from merely greedy to insatiable.

From power-hungry appliances like clothes dryers and ovens to smartphones, massive flat-screen TVs, video game consoles, laptop computers and tablets, our dependence on a reliable supply of electricity is enormous. And even after years of renewable-energy initiatives and investment, much of our power still comes from fossil fuels.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), utility-scale generators were behind the net generation of approximately 4.1 trillion kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2019, the latest available year for data. Leading the energy source pack at 38 percent was natural gas, followed by coal, 23 percent, nuclear, 20 percent, renewables at 17 percent (total), then non-hydroelectric renewables, hydroelectric, and petroleum (plus remaining minor sources) at ten, seven, and one percent.

Together with increasing electrical usage comes the need for a stable supply of power, which is far from guaranteed today. It isn’t unusual to experience brownouts in peak summer months, when central and portable air conditioners and ceiling fans are running constantly.

Brownouts, whether deliberate or unintentional, are drops in voltage levels, and usually last just a few minutes compared to dreaded blackouts, which can affect small towns or major cities for hours, days, or even longer. Caused by mechanical failure, human error or weather, some of the largest – and longest – include the Northeast Blackout (2003), Hurricane Sandy (2012), and the Ice Storm of 2013, which left many across North America without power for weeks.

These and similar power outages resulted in some homeowners – frustrated by freezing and bursting water pipes – investing in diesel generators, from small models costing a few hundred dollars, to large outdoor units priced well into the thousands.

About the size of a central air conditioner, these advanced home backup generators are powered by natural gas or liquid propane (LP). Comfortable in the security of being able to generate electricity as long as fuel is flowing, savvy homeowners can remotely monitor the operating status and maintenance of these backup generators from anywhere in the world via smartphone, tablet, or computer.

Get the lead out
While backup generators are an option, they represent just one step toward getting off the grid for good, along with solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal. Although our forerunners have harnessed the rays of the sun for thousands of years through mirrors and magnification, lighting torches and cooking food, it wasn’t until the early 1800s that scientists began investigating methods of collecting and storing solar power.

In 1883, American inventor Charles Fritts created the first true solar cells. Fritts installed solar panels, from a combination of thin layers of gold and selenium, on the roof of a New York City building. While functioning at a low energy conversion rate, his invention paved the way for greater solar energy developments, such as those used on satellites launched in the late 1950s.

Coinciding with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil crisis of 1973 and a 400 percent increase in the price of a barrel of oil, the University of Delaware created the world’s first photovoltaic (PV) powered residence. The storage option for off-grid solar energy was lead acid batteries. Large, expensive, cumbersome and needing to be stored upright, these batteries were comprised of lead and sulphuric acid. Highly corrosive and prone to leaking, lead acid batteries must be properly recycled, and never discarded in landfill where they can affect ground water.

Providing about 1,000 to 3,000 cycles (at a 60 percent discharge rate), lead batteries are still used for solar, but are being replaced by safer lithium batteries. Smaller than the lead version, lithium batteries are more expensive up-front but have a long lifespan, making them well-suited to off-the-grid solar-powered homes.

All batteries retain a certain charge, but the discharge rate of lithium is 80 percent or greater, compared to about 50 percent for lead-based batteries.

In 2015, famed electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla incorporated lithium-ion battery technology into the Powerwall. One of the first commercially-available all-in-one units, the Powerwall was designed to store TOU energy, to be combined with solar panels, to serve as backup power, and to be suitable for homeowners going off the grid.

In just five years, many other companies leapt aboard with their own home-battery backups, including Germany’s Sonnen and South Korea’s LG.

Beyond solar
For homeowners wanting to unshackle themselves from utility companies, solar is just one option.

Another fast gaining popularity is geothermal. Taking advantage of Mother Nature, geothermal uses the energy stored below ground to heat our homes in winter, and cool them during the summer. Since the ground absorbs solar energy, geothermal taps into this energy through an underground pipe system. Filled with water, pipes are configured into a loop below the ground’s frost line.

Meanwhile, an indoor geothermal heat pump works with a system of ducts or radiators. Water continually circulates. During warm months, this water is transferred outdoors to cooler earth, and the heat pump takes this cold water, and returns it to the home; in the winter, warm water is circulated through houses.

While geothermal energy from natural hot springs has been used for thousands of years for bathing and cooking, it wasn’t until the early 1890s that it was used in the United States. Requiring drilling, trenching, pipe loops and the purchase and installation of a heat pump, ductwork, and various electrical components, the installation of geothermal systems varies widely in price. For smaller off the grid homes, it can typically cost US$12,000; for larger houses, geothermal systems can run to US$30,000 or more, depending on complexity.

Although this may seem a hefty initial expense, geothermal systems are effective. Compared to traditional furnaces and air conditioning – which usually last 10 to 15 years – geothermal systems have a lifespan of 20 to 25 years.

The power of renewables
As more companies enter the market, the price of renewable sources of energy continues to drop, including that of wind and hydro power.

Once the domain of large cities and municipalities with wind farms, home wind turbines are now affordable and readily available. Depending on energy needs and size of the property, wind generation models come in the 500, 600, 1500 and 2000 Watt ranges, and with different wind-speed ratings.

Widely available online from Amazon and other retailers, kits from companies like Eco-Worthy include not only a wind turbine, but also solar panels which can be used for both off-grid homes and boats. Called hybrids, these wind/solar systems take advantage of both forms of renewable energy – often when the sun is out there is little wind, and when winds are strong, it is overcast.

For those off the grid, these hybrid systems are efficient, highly scalable, and relatively affordable. If additional solar panels or another wind turbine is needed, these can be easily added to meet energy needs.

Going with the flow
Although water power was used for thousands of years to turn paddle wheels and grind wheat into flour, the first true hydroelectric generation only started in 1880, when a water turbine was connected to a dynamo in Grand Rapids, Michigan to produce light.

This led to the development of large-scale hydroelectric generation sites across the U.S. and Canada, notably the Hoover Dam – which generates approximately four billion kilowatt hours of power annually – and multiple hydroelectric generating stations near Niagara Falls.

For those living off the grid near sources of running water, hydroelectric power is another renewable option. Depending on location (sometimes turbines are not permitted to disrupt waterways), there are two options: tapping-into dammed water flowing into a turbine, or a turbine directly located in a river, lake, creek or stream.

Harnessing hydro
To be successful, a certain elevation or ‘head’ and adequate water flow – measured in gallons per minute – is required. Since little equipment other than a turbine and generator is necessary, this makes hydroelectric among the least expensive off-the-grid solutions. Even micro hydro-generators fitting inside pipes to capture small amounts of power (10W), are available.

Compared to solar and wind power, which vary depending on the weather, hydroelectric power is relatively constant. Unless there is a drought, water flows, but the amount varies depending on the season. Like wind turbine/solar systems, complete hydroelectric packages are available from companies like Scott Hydroelectric Generators. Rated at 1500 Watts and able to produce 200W, these generators are sufficient for most off the grid homeowners, and come with options like batteries and inverters.

Some homeowners go off the grid and harness renewable energy sources like solar, wind, hydro and geothermal to reduce their carbon footprint, yet the majority seek energy self-sufficiency because they want to pay as little as possible for energy in the future.

While sources like solar and wind work well, they are dependent on nature, and a combination of different renewables is probably best for anyone wanting to put the power back into their own hands.

The post Going Off the Grid<p class="company">New Options in Residential Energy</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Innovation in the renewable energy technology field is truly non-stop. Whether through solar, wind, hydro, wave, heat-exchange, tidal, wave or bioenergy, renewable energy technologies allow the creation of heat, fuel and electricity from renewable sources. As exciting new energy technologies continue to emerge, with advances in areas including lithium-ion battery storage and energy blockchains, the future in this field continues to shine bright.

The energy sector is changing rapidly, with governments around the world embracing new and ground-breaking technologies that will benefit both the planet and people. From passing important legislation to incorporating sustainable energy sources into the practices of manufacturing companies, advancements are continually being made that will make a positive difference.

Energy industry trends can be categorized into three concepts:
1. Decarbonization – a transition toward a clean, carbon-free economy through the integration and increased shares of renewable energy sources.
2. Decentralization – electricity with a large number of multi-level producers and consumers distributed geographically, allowing lower energy intensity while providing prospects for developing renewable sources of energy.
3. Digitization – indicates the widespread use of digital machines and devices at all levels of the power system, from production and infrastructure to end-user devices.

Something new under the sun
It’s impossible to talk about renewable energy without considering environmental issues and how they affect our daily lives. Discovering and then embracing renewable clean energy sources remains a goal for all involved in the industry in an effort to embrace innovations that not only meet the world’s unending need for power, but also conserve the planet and our future in the process.

Solar power, for instance, has been around and utilized in various technologies for years – everyone has a neighbour with solar panels installed on their roof, for instance – but now that technology is reaching more impressive heights. A solar-powered train in Australia can complete a three-kilometer trip with 100 passengers on board in 10 minutes. It boasts zero emissions and is housed in its own powered shed for cloudy days.

As an ultimate source of clean energy, photosynthesis, with its by-product of hydrogen, remains a clear leader. Emulating the process plants use to generate energy, this energy source boasts zero emissions, but is difficult to replicate artificially. Now scientists from the University of Cambridge and Ruhr University Bochum have successfully found a way to split water molecules into individual hydrogen and oxygen atoms, opening the path to a future free of fossil fuels.

The power of water
Sunlight and the world’s water supply provide the most stable sources of energy. The unrealized energy potential of our oceans is a vital area of study for scientists learning how best to harness the tidal energy in massive bodies of water. The process of utilizing tidal stream generators to power turbines and harvest this invaluable resource will only continue to grow.

Along with water, solar power remains a great source of renewable energy. There is enough sunlight falling on the Sahara Desert every day to power the entire planet, but the challenge is considerable: at present, in practical terms, solar power can only be captured as a charge in a battery and not as a fuel. A new liquid, however, has been developed that is able to store solar power for up to 18 years and could soon make its indelible mark on the world.

We’re all familiar by now with the concept of 3D printing, but you may not yet have heard of 3D-printed solar-energy trees. This incredible innovation, which is exactly what it sounds like, can harness solar power through tiny synthetic leaves made of flexible organic solar cells.

Each leaf sports its own power converter and can also collect both heat and kinetic power (from temperature changes and wind movement) when used in the open air. The “tree” trunks are made of wood-based biocomposites and don’t resemble the traditional solar panels found on rooftops — in fact, they look a lot like real trees.

Other amazing innovations include electric tires that harness power from the heat generated by road friction to pass electricity to your car, and carbon nanotube electricity. These are tiny structures made of carbon that link together in a honeycomb pattern to create tubes of amazing tensile strength with the potential to generate surprising amounts of electricity under certain conditions of twisting and stretching. Down the road these tubes could possibly power small electrical appliances.

All of these innovations are geared toward achieving the same goal: providing clean energy to help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and stop global warming, a worldwide concern that continues to escalate as demands for energy grow.

Other technological innovations can be found in marine solar with floating solar arrays, in floating offshore wind harnessing, and in molten salt reactors which could provide carbon-free electricity in the future with fewer radiation risks than nuclear. Green hydrogen is described as renewably-produced hydrogen with extremely low emissions that could potentially overtake the traditional oil and gas industries.

Equitable access
Along with all of these amazing advances, we should remember that huge parts of the world still lack access to very basic energy services at all, in which case renewable energy should be considered in a very different way: as an energy source that can be made more accessible and available to remote or disadvantaged populations. In order to slow and eventually halt global warming, more countries need to embrace the shift from fossil fuel usage to renewable energy sources. This requires large-scale accessibility in all countries, not just in the developed parts of the world. Unfortunately, clean energy technologies like wind, solar, electric vehicles, smart grids, and energy storage are generally still more costly than conventional sources, so making them available around the world is a challenge, particularly in developing counties.

Wind and solar power are expensive due to the additional cost of the batteries required to store generated energy, and thus, innovative means of energy storage are expected to be at the forefront of emerging technologies and efforts to make power more accessible and affordable. Energy storage innovation includes, for instance, using old electric car batteries to provide grid energy storage, as seen on Barbados, while community-based microgrids can save energy while providing energy independence, efficiency and protection against failure.

Blockchain technology, meanwhile, offers an incorruptible peer-to-peer network that eliminates the need for middlemen for electricity suppliers. Blockchain technology aims to unite all energy stakeholders under a single decentralized network. Electricity producers, distribution network operators, metering operators, providers of financial services, and traders will benefit from utilizing ‘smart contracts’.

These contracts ensure that all energy-related transactions pass through a secure, fixed network, eliminating potential losses. Blockchain also can potentially achieve a level of equality between energy producers and consumers by making electricity affordable for a larger population.

As these technologies continue to grow and develop, they’ll help make renewable energy more affordable and desirable around the world.

Facing the future
The demand for energy on our planet is not going to decrease any time soon. It will continue to rise with improving standards of living, so developing innovative technology for clean renewable energy is imperative.

Political and industrial leaders need to work more closely and intensively with scientific and technological innovators and developers to not only facilitate the generation of more (and more sustainable) energy, but to make it accessible around the world. Manufacturers and leaders can make the difference in reducing emissions and safeguarding the health of the planet through a host of exciting choices and pioneering possibilities. By embracing renewable technology and making the switch to a greener lifestyle, we’ll save the environment, and ultimately save ourselves.

The post The Limit Does Not Exist<p class="company">The Bright Future of Renewable Technology</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The company’s journey began in the late 1970s producing stationary two-shaft shredders for a wide range of manufacturing plant-based applications. By the middle of the next decade, Shred-Tech had developed one of the world’s first mobile shredding trucks, designed to shred confidential office paper and documents on-site.

Fast forward 40 years – Shred-Tech now has well over 6,000 shredding and recycling systems installed worldwide, and are recognized globally for their first-class products as well as commitment to engineering, innovation and quality. With shredders in daily use around the world, servicing over 31 countries, Shred-Tech equipment is helping customers reduce costs, generate revenue and protect the environment.

Shred-Tech has been “Thinking Green since Day One.”

In 2019, Shred-Tech® was acquired by The Heico Group of Companies LLC. Heico’s array of global resources will help Shred-Tech continue to grow and expand their offering of exceptional products and services to customers worldwide.

Shredding and HAAS TYRON
Shred-Tech® is the exclusive distributor of HAAS TYRON shredders throughout North America. But before considering these formidable machines, let’s briefly look at the way shredding works.

While many businesses and even homes have mini- to medium-sized shredding machines, it takes industrial-sized shredders to handle the genuinely big jobs. The HAAS TYRON shredder processes wood pallets, tires, paper rolls, plastics, roots, green waste, railway sleepers, residential and commercial demolition materials, municipal solid waste, industrial waste, food waste, mattresses, plastics, synthetics materials, aluminum extrusions, white goods, e-scrap and more. The shredders can also be used to produce refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and to reduce volumes at landfills and transfer stations.

HAAS TYRON exclusive
Since 2016, those who need shredding processes of this power have had access to the potent range of German-developed and manufactured HAAS TYRON primary transportable shredders exclusively through Shred-Tech®.

HAAS TYRON shredders’ speed-adjustable shafts rip through even the most complex materials, such as mattresses and e-scrap. The machines tear material into random pieces, liberating them, and the ferrous material is removed with the cross-belt magnet. The shredder shafts can rotate forward and backward and can operate in unison, bidirectional and at different speeds at the same time. These are infinitely programmable for changing material streams.

Available in three models, the 1500, 2000 and 2500, they range from 25 tons per hour to 100 tons per hour, depending on the application and material. Operating options include stationary, trailer or track mounting, hopper extensions, cross-belt magnets and water spray dust control. The machines are designed for extreme environments, ease of maintenance and low wear and tear.

The hydraulic systems ensure that the machines can withstand running 24/7 in extreme weather conditions.

Problem solvers
To complement the HAAS TYRON Primary Shredder, Shred-Tech® also offers a line-up of top quality single-rotor shredders and granulators manufactured in Italy by Camec Mechanical Solutions. Much like the partnership with HAAS, Shred-Tech is also the exclusive North American Distributor for the single rotor Camec lines and granulators.

Rob Glass, President and CEO of Shred-Tech® explains, “Our thorough understanding of all aspects of engineering and manufacturing, fueled by a proud and energetic corporate culture, puts Shred-Tech® at the forefront of the industry.”

All Shred-Tech shredding systems can be configured with application-specific knife design, cutting chamber size, horsepower, feed and discharge rates to suit the customer’s requirements.

With the unique flexibility that this offers, it is not surprising that “customers oftentimes approach Shred-Tech® with a problem that many competitors haven’t been able to solve,” as Cristina Battick, Senior Creative Marketing Manager, puts it.

In-depth service
With Shred-Tech’s broadly skilled in-house en¬gineering team, they are able to work closely with the sales department and the customer to find a viable solution. Coupled with a vigorous quality control process, in-house assembly and manufacturing, Shred-Tech builds and manufactures the world’s best shredding and recycling systems.

Shred-Tech® honours and fulfills all warranties on every unit. In addition, they offer full servicing replacement parts, as well as a dedicated, all-hours emergency service hotline. Skilled service staff offering full technical assistance can be onsite as quickly as the next working day depending on location.

Shred-Tech’s product lines and services include mobile document shredding trucks, collection trucks, plant-based document shredding systems, custom-designed shredding and recycling systems, original equipment manufacturer parts (OEM) and preventative maintenance contracts.

Breaking through
Founded in 1978, Shred-Tech® set out making stationary two-shaft shredders for waste products in various types of manufacturing plants. Then, in the mid-1980s came the breakthrough, when the company presented the world with the first-ever mobile shredding trucks. These trucks are designed to provide on-site secure document destruction.

Shred-Tech®’s contribution to a healthier planet is their machines’ reduced fuel consumption. They proudly announced that all of their 2018 model shredding and collection trucks run on ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel) and B5 BioDiesel and meet the EPA’s toughest emissions standards.

“Predictive Idle/Auto Shutdown” is a program available on all models that senses low shredder loads to shut off the high engine idle when the shredder is unattended and the hopper is empty; moments later the PTOs are turned off along with the engine. This means never wasting fuel and engine hours. The new remote panel start button allows you to restart the truck from the side control panel when you return with more paper to shred.

Thinking green
The company estimates that thanks to the volume of paper recycled by Shred-Tech®-fabricated trucks, over 22 million trees are saved annually. To share this understanding of how much can be done for the environment, Shred-Tech® hosts their annual Shred-Day. Local households are invited to drop off their confidential documents and watch them shred, with the proviso that they in turn make donations to United Way, the international non-profit organization that provides support to communities in need of education, sanitation, food assistance, and more.

The post Taking Control of Waste, A Thousand Shredders at a Time<p class="company">Shred-Tech® Corporation</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Scientific Dust Collectors was established in 1979 by a group of company engineers in Louisville, Kentucky. In the late 1970s, as the pollution control industry was beginning to grow, the founders of SDC began to concentrate on developing a technology that could minimize the pollutants released into the air by dust collection equipment. Their solution used a nozzle-based system to clean the filters more efficiently than the competing products available at the time. SDC patented this innovation and has incorporated it into almost every piece of equipment it manufactures. Since that time, the company has developed a broad range of novel technologies and holds fourteen patents.

In 1995, SDC moved its headquarters to Alsip, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Today, the US and Canada are the two primary markets for SDC, although it does have some customers outside of North America. It is a division of Venturedyne, Ltd., a large corporation with multiple divisions in various fields related to pollution control and magnetics detection/separation.

With twenty-five to thirty employees, SDC is still a relatively small company, and this has allowed it to maintain a focus on customer service. “We believe in trying to be responsive, and we listen to what our customers say,” says Gerardi. “Because we are small, we are flexible, and one of the things I am proudest of in all my years here is that many of our customers are repeat customers.”

As the pollution control industry continues to grow, so does SDC. It remains relevant in its market by manufacturing the highest quality equipment, providing efficient cleaning systems, and introducing new products.

“One of the things that we do differently than most other dust collector manufacturers is we make our own stuff. We design, engineer and manufacture our own equipment,” says David Wick, sales manager at SDC. Rather than sending a design to a local job shop, SDC chooses to design, build, and assemble its cleaning equipment in-house to have complete control over the product’s quality.

The company builds quality baghouses, cartridge dust collectors, bin vent dust collectors, high-pressure filter receivers, cyclones, and downdraft tables. SDC’s baghouse dust collector is its primary product. A baghouse is a structure containing a number of cylindrical fabric filter bags that collect a layer of dust on the surface of the fabric until no more air can pass through, at which time the caked particulate is removed and the clean bags are ready to resume filtering. The cleaning is done on-line without having to shut the process down.

Baghouse dust collectors are ideally suited to capture dusts that are larger or more difficult to clean. Dusts that are high temperature or hygroscopic are better suited for collection in baghouse dust collectors. In addition, larger dust sizes (greater than 50 microns) and higher grain loadings (over five grains per cubic foot) are ideal for baghouse units. Dusts that have a tendency to form films that solidify should be handled in fabric baghouse collectors. If hydrocarbons are present in the airstream, the same problems may occur. For these types of applications, baghouses are recommended because the dust cake may require flexing before the cake will burst. Some examples of dust that are collected using fabric filter baghouses are: flyash, coal, cement, lime, fiberglass, paper, plastic, sawdust, and other stringy or irregular shaped dusts.

Cartridge dust collectors are ideally suited to capture granular shaped dusts. These are free-flowing materials that collect on the outside of the cartridge filter pleats and are easily released from the media during the cleaning cycle. Cartridge collectors are ideally suited for smaller particle dust sizes (less than 50 microns) and low grain loading levels (less than five grains per cubic foot). Some examples of dusts that are collected using cartridge collectors are grinding or sandblast applications, welding fumes, laser and plasma cutter fumes, graphite, pharmaceutical powders, and fine chemical powders. These dusts require minimal flexing of the media during the cleaning process; thus, cartridge collectors will work satisfactorily on these products. When the dusts are difficult to handle, hygroscopic, or high temperature, a fabric filter baghouse is a better alternative for trouble-free dust collection and longer filter life.

SDC suggests its performance superiority relies on its patented high velocity cleaning technology and best practices in dust collector manufacturing. The company’s high side inlets, wide filter spacing, inlet baffling, and the elimination of the flow restricting Venturi allow for a guarantee in performance, efficiency, and filter life.

Another advantage offered is energy savings. On generic collectors, the Venturi passes a liquid or gas through a narrowed passage that increases the speed of the flow and reduces its pressure. SDC removes the flow restricting Venturi and is able to save its customers two inches of water column, which is a reduction of two inches of static pressure. In higher-volume dust collection systems, this can significantly save electrical and compressed air costs.

“If a customer has a seventy-five-horsepower motor that they’re running all the time and we can save them two inches of static pressure, that is true electrical savings, and the more they operate and the higher the horsepower being used, the more energy savings are available to them,” says Gerardi. “That’s unique, and we’re the only ones that do it.” As many large manufacturers continue to develop green initiatives and improve lean processes, SDC hopes to make a name for itself as the leading provider of baghouse dust collectors.

The challenge is in raising awareness and educating others in the industry about the benefits of its dust collectors. People too often continue to use traditional methods despite advancements because they are more comfortable with what is familiar. Luckily, there is much more concern about efficiency and proper maintenance these days, and this has increased the company’s customer base. SDC guarantees the effectiveness and longevity of its filters in writing. The company has found a better way to collect dust, and fortunately, new standardization in the industry will help validate its claims.

Prior to 1987, the dust collection industry lacked a clearly defined specification for measuring equipment performance, and the only real standard had been air-to-cloth ratio. The air-to-cloth ratio measures the amount of air that passes through a given area of filter. It can help measure the quality of those filters and can help determine how many filters will be needed, but it does not consider many important factors such as operating conditions and the collector’s design. This lack of a clear specification made it difficult for companies like SDC to accurately quantify equipment performance and effectively compare its products to those of competitors.

In 1987, the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) developed a new specification called Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV), which given heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) engineers the ability to rate air filters on a scale of one to twenty. On the MERV scale, a rating of one through four is used for a low-performance filter like a standard residential air conditioning unit capable of filtering dust and pollen, while twenty represents high-performance filters for use in laboratory environments and clean rooms.

While the MERV rating system was designed as a metric for HVAC equipment, before long, the dust collection industry began using it to rate its own filters. MERV provided a standard for measuring filter performance, but it was not a perfect match for dust collection, having been designed for a completely different application.

Finally, in 2016, ASHRAE released Standard 199, a specification designed explicitly for testing the performance of dust collection equipment. This standard means that dust collection engineers can rate equipment in a strict and thorough six-stage process. Each stage tests a particular aspect of the equipment’s performance under very precise conditions. This results in a rating that can be easily compared to other Standard 199 rated products on the market.

Throughout the history of the dust collection industry, engineers have been forced to fall back on inadequate rating systems, but thanks to ASHRAE’s new standard, SDC can truly demonstrate the quality of its products.

“This is our chance to show the world how great our cleaning system really is. We’re excited about ASHRAE because it’s going to give some of the companies, including some of the large companies that have never heard of Scientific Dust Collectors, a way to objectively look at the test data. Our results aren’t published yet but they will be soon, and we believe the marketplace is going to be pleased with what we will be showing them,” says Gerardi.

Prior to the release of ASHRAE’s Standard 199, SDC did its own testing and published its own results. The company could demonstrate the quality of its products, but because the results came directly from SDC, the company was depending on customers to have trust in the integrity of the data it was releasing. Fortunately, the company has built a good, honest reputation with its customers, and they are confident in its abilities.

Now that the company is utilizing ASHRAE’s standard, customers can be confident in SDC products without having to blindly trust company claims about testing, engineering, and math. The new standard has given the company the opportunity to have a third party(s) verify its claims, and based on the lack of any published results to date, will be the only company to do so.

For the average end user, SDC’s adoption of the standard might mean a significant improvement in production capacity. Companies that generate pollutants have to file for permits based on how much dust and other pollutants are put into the atmosphere. Standard 199 will give SDC’s customers an extremely accurate measurement that could allow them to push production as close to permitted maximums as possible, rather than having to work with estimates and a much larger buffer. It can also enable these companies to file more accurate reports and reduce pollutant output, leading to more efficient operation and an improved bottom line.

“The ability to look at the results and compare that to others helps them say which equipment will work for them. There will be some companies that will be quite uncomfortable with that, but after all these years, we welcome this,” says Gerardi.

The post Demonstrating Efficiency Through New Industry Standards<p class="company">Scientific Dust Collectors</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

One of two things: you throw it in the garbage, or you recycle it by donating, selling or taking it to a local recycling kiosk or your cell carrier for a buy-back program. Cell Phones for Soldiers uses donated mobile phones to give free talk time to active-duty military and veterans, while the Hope Phones campaign trades in your well-used cell to get new technology for mobile medics in developing countries.

What you decide to do with that phone has a significant impact on the environment, says Michael Collins, President and CEO of eCycle Solutions, a company dedicated to recycling electronic waste, or “e-waste,” and safely disposing of non-reusable parts and materials.

Consumption numbers should come as a wakeup call. The Environmental Protection Agency says that if Americans recycled the roughly 130 million cell phones that are disposed of annually, enough energy would be saved to power more than 24,000 homes in a year, Scientific American reports. And for every million cell phones we recycle, we can recover about 35,000 pounds of copper, 800 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 30 pounds of palladium – conserving those natural resources and the energy and labour required to mine them.

“Before it starts to break down, the metals and plastics can be toxic to the environment or be a potential fire hazard,” Collins says. “And if you stop and think about it, somewhere in your house you’ve got a drawer. And in that drawer are cords and plugs, and maybe an old tablet or an old computer in a closet someplace.”

It’s his business to be concerned about what people and businesses do with the growing amount of e-waste we produce. Because there’s nothing in that smartphone that can’t be repurposed.

eCycle Solutions, headquartered in Ontario, Canada, is an advocate for environmental stewardship, working closely with provincial collection programs and private partners like Best Buy and Staples to collect used electronics. Established in 2005, the company is also a leading provider of what has become an essential industry.

When your office decides to upgrade everyone’s computers and the workhorse printer, for example, eCycle steps in to remove all private data and break down the devices to take out harmful batteries, mercury, toner, ink and leaded glass for use by the company’s processing partners. Depending on the condition of electronics, some may be upcycled to schools or health facilities where there’s a need.

There’s also a huge emphasis on safety for the company’s 500-plus employees. Every mobile device contains lithium ion batteries, which are a fire hazard and explosive in a steel shredder. Advanced fire suppression systems and quality checks in the teardown lines make sure the chemicals can be safely handled and sent for recycling.

Aftermarket parts like steel and precious metals are sold to distributors for manufacturing new products. Palladium, now a highly valued precious metal, is a key component in exhaust systems in vehicles where it helps turn pollutants into less-damaging carbon dioxide and water vapour. It’s also widely used in dentistry, jewellery and, yes, electronics.

Our planet has limited raw materials, and the shift to supporting the circular economy – where long-lasting design, repair, reuse and remanufacturing protects the earth – is one that everyone has to make, Collins says. “We all have to be conscious of end-of-life use and have buy-in from the whole value chain. It’s really consumer demand driving the ball, and then you go to the front end of that chain as a manufacturer, asking what is he or she actually using to make and build that material?”

The good news is, electronics manufacturers are establishing more sustainable practices. U.S. smart speaker brand Sonos, for example, offers existing customers a 30 percent discount on new devices when their old smart speakers are deactivated and recycled. Similarly, Teracube launched a smartphone with a warranty that promotes recycling. If the phone is damaged, customers can pay a flat fee to get a refurbished phone, while their damaged one is repaired and sold to another buyer.

Legislators are also on board. The European Union, for one, is pushing for the adoption of a standardized charger for smartphones to reduce charger cord waste.

One of the most surprising things for Collins, at the company’s helm for 18 months, is the rapidly changing market for buyers of recycled parts and materials, which directly affects eCycle revenue.

“The downstreams where we take end-of-life product once it’s been recycled, those markets shift and change monthly,” he explains. “There was a glass company in Spain that used to take all of our CRT glass from your laptops or television display screens, using it to enhance ceramic products. So that little glitter you get in a ceramic tile actually comes from glass.”

In mid-2019, the Spanish government cut off those imports, so literally within a matter of 30 to 60 days, eCycle could no longer send that glass to the company and had to scramble to find a new buyer. eCycle also installed glass cutters in two of its facilities to remove the lead contaminant from display screen glass to appeal to a broader range of buyers.

The big challenge, Collins says, is, “how do you maintain your recyclables which represent anywhere from 40 to 50 percent of your revenue?” It’s a balancing act. Managing e-waste involves constantly trawling the global markets, looking for where to send end-of-life, refined, recycled product that meets the certification requirements of the Canadian marketplace.

As smartphones and other electronics become increasingly smaller and lighter, there is less intrinsic value in them from an e-waste commodity standpoint. The next wave of recycling will focus on household appliances, looking at steel, copper and aluminum for re-manufacturing – something that eCycle is already doing and preparing to ramp up even further. In fact, the company has just installed an extraction belt for steel in its Mississauga, Ontario shredding line.

“Microwaves, toasters, your vacuum cleaner, your soda machine – all of these things are now starting to come through the stewardship programs that are picking these up,” Collins says. “As a result, I don’t want those parts and plastics with my electronics recycling. So I’ve got to segregate and separate to make sure that I’ve got the proper commodities going into the proper buckets so I can maximize the value associated with that particular product.”

eCycle is definitely an influencer in the circular economy, helping to shift the mindset of not only individuals with ongoing awareness programs but also manufacturers that may not have considered the aftermarket potential.

“We’re having more discussions with manufacturers who have specialized medical equipment or other support equipment that they’ve utilized and now it’s come to end-of-life. In the past, it’s gone to landfill or has been sold off into a third-party market. Now, they’re actually trying to figure out how to do the right thing for the environment.”

The post Giving Your Ex-Smartphone and Burnt Out Appliances New Life<p class="company">eCycle Solutions</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The company has a service team called STAR Field Fit that goes out to examine the needs of its clients’ power plants, and this gives it the ability to provide the highest quality of products and services. The STAR Field Fit Team’s semi-trailer trucks are equipped with machine shops. These trucks enable STAR to quickly make parts onsite at the power plant.

The capacity to respond quickly is essential in the power industry, because if a plant goes down, it can affect an entire city. STAR is always improving its service speed for when a power plant is having issues. The mobile team serves all of the United States, and it has also ventured overseas into Europe, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico.

“We are the only turbine company that’s woman-owned and family-owned, and most of the others are big companies like GE. But we are at this point right now getting about eighty percent of all replacement parts in this industry, which is wonderful,” says STAR Administrative Assistant Trish Reid.

The family company began in 1988, when Tammy Flaherty brought the idea of manufacturing replacement parts to her father John P. Flaherty Jr. who owned a foundry at the time. The Flaherty family already had plenty of experience in manufacturing going back four or five generations to the early 1900s. Trish, who also happens to be Tammy’s sister, describes the beginning of the company’s journey. “She sat down with my dad, and they decided to start this little company called STAR in 1988. Tammy had a vision of an enduring, woman-owned business, and together they decided they would make these parts individually to go into all the power plants throughout the U.S. and got on the road and started making sales calls and pitching it. That’s how we started.”

The Star Field Fit branch of the company was established in 2001, and after a recent expansion, STAR now has two locations in Marion, Ohio. There are approximately fifty employees within the company, and Star Field Fit has fifteen staff members specialized in reverse engineering.

With clear emotion in her voice, company President and Chief Executive Officer Tammy Flaherty expressed appreciation for her loyal and dedicated team of employees. “I have to say, I am so blessed with everyone at my company.” Much of the staff has been with STAR for over twenty-five years, and this is because once someone becomes a part of the team, they are considered part of the family.

“We are all kind of one big family. We have a lot of lunches and dinners together, and we do a lot of celebrating together. We take care of family, and if issues come up, we try to help out family and with things that people need here,” says Trish. STAR is a strong believer in helping people through hard times and has helped provide the funding for treatment when a family member of one of its people is having trouble with addiction.

Just as the company is very engaged with the care of its employees and their families, it is also highly involved with the community and local organizations in Marion, Ohio. It takes a particular interest in addiction counseling and recovery because the drug-related problems have become more prevalent in the community, and STAR wants to uplift all the people of Marion. “Marion is also a family to us. This hometown is where we grow up, and so the people here mean a lot to us here,” says Trish.

STAR gives back through the local YMCA, donates money to home healthcare service Helping Hands, and supports Goodwill’s career center by employing people who are having trouble seeking work. It provides coats to children at a local school and dedicates time to support food shelters in person. From the Marion Palace Theatre to recovery centers, hospitals, and schools, there is no aspect of the community that STAR has not supported in the last thirty-two years.

For a number of years, Tammy was also on the board of directors for the Marion Area Chamber of Commerce. She was involved with a manufacturing group within the chamber focused on helping to build businesses back up after the town lost much of its industry in the early 1980s.

Ohio State University has a regional campus in Marion and STAR supports the school in several ways. All of its employees are offered education through the Marion Technical College, which is on the same campus as Ohio State University at Marion. The company encourages its people to improve themselves and move up the ladder because its goal is to promote from within as much as possible.

Although the details are under wraps, STAR is in discussions surrounding an exciting new idea for a patent in the turbine industry. The company continuously searches for emerging technology and different methods to improve efficiency and decrease waste.

“We’re always looking to the future on how to do better with the energy field. What is the best thing for the community? What is the best thing for the U.S., and how can the power companies help?” Trish says.

To reduce the amount of material discarded into landfills, waste-to-energy (WtE) has become more common in the U.S. in recent years, and this is an area in which STAR is quite knowledgeable. Waste can be burned and turned into usable energy, yet this method is not as well-known as solar or wind alternatives.

Of course, the company supports a variety of approaches to generating power, including coal and nuclear power plants; however, it makes adjustments wherever possible to mitigate the effects of power generation on the environment.

The coal industry is STAR’s biggest market, but as more coal plants are shut down across the country, the company seeks to support these facilities and suggest possible innovative ideas that could help turn the business around, including waste-to-energy.

Integrity and honesty are the two most fundamental values here, and this attitude comes directly from its leadership. Every employee quickly learns the company will go out of its way to resolve an issue or make up for a mistake. If a part is incorrect or any other problem occurs, STAR will immediately find a way to make it right. As this is a family-owned company, the Flaherty name is on the line, and its reputation as a trustworthy partner is too important to risk.

To receive some feedback on its services, STAR sent out a newsletter to clients to ask how satisfied they were and see if there were any recommendations on ways to improve. The clear message from the responses was that clients appreciate when a company recognizes and validates their concerns.

Growing at a comfortable speed, STAR acquired a second building for expansion, hired additional employees, and purchased new machinery last year. And the company will continue promoting education for its employees to keep them moving forward in their careers.

In the hopes of remaining ahead of the curve in the industry, STAR is excited to branch out into new fields and discover new technology, building upon Tammy’s vision. “We’re always trying to grow, find places where we’re needed, and find new ways to help produce electricity to the world. We are trying to stay on top and be innovative,” explains Trish.

With thirty-two years of experience in the turbine industry, STAR has learned to make every effort possible to take care of the environment, no matter how small or insignificant a new green initiative may seem. “You have to stay on top of the environmental protection. It’s not just making a part; it’s making a clean part. It’s trying to keep the world clean; it’s the EPA; it’s everything that we can do to be on top of making this world a better place,” says Trish.

The post A Turbine Manufacturer Protecting the Environment and Supporting its Community<p class="company">Steam Turbine Alternative Resources</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

RegO® is well recognized as a specialized manufacturer of flow-control components and engineered-to-order applications. Truly countless customers have turned to its wide-ranging offerings of valves, pressure regulators and other safety devices for gases in liquid form.

RegO’s primary markets are liquid propane, industrial gases like liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, liquid helium or argon, as well as liquid natural gas. Gas in liquid form needs cold or pressurized conditions to take on liquid form, making it extremely dangerous, toxic or explosive, and making the rare abilities of RegO® even more valuable.

As CEO Mike Lucas explains, “These are very demanding applications, particularly industrial gas applications to get those gases to stay in liquid form. You’re often negative two hundred and forty degrees, three hundred degrees below zero.”

Safety for a century
Such conditions are not only challenging, they’re mission critical and leave no room for error.

Customers want safety, security, and peace of mind knowing that they will be safe, and that’s where RegO® Products excel. Who better to support that mission and handle these dangerous and sensitive pressurized gases at extraordinarily low temperatures, than a company with over one hundred years of solid experience? This is the real deal, a serious business in a serious field – a far cry from any trendiness or fashion.

“Our real brand proposition, our real brand value and, I think, why customers come back to us, is really the safety – I should say quality, and reliability – of the products,” says Lucas. “Safety is of utmost importance to our customers and it’s really been the long history of quality and reliability of the products.”

Further to RegO® being a leader in expertise, quality and reliability, RegO® Products has been an innovator throughout its long history and offers customers access to over five thousand active products in its catalog.

RegO® Products’ product management team stays apprised of its customers’ needs, as Lucas noted. “Understanding the applications and customers well enough that we can spot unmet product gaps or business model gaps. We look to increase operation, safety, or performance of their systems.

“We’ve been the first to market with a lot of products, but I think it’s really that peace of mind. Customers just know those products are going to work. They are designed to work and work robustly in those applications,” Lucas explained.

Of the company’s robust approach to quality, Lucas says, “Validation and verification of the design takes place at our own labs and through a third party,” in terms of product and material quality, performance requirements, standards, tolerances and accuracy.

“We have extensive quality-control processes all the way back to qualifying and validating vendors, to testing incoming components and materials,” he says, and explains that testing is done both manually and automatically to ensure high reliability and repeatability.

Global presence
Based in Elon, North Carolina, where it operates four manufacturing facilities, RegO® Products is a domestic manufacturer with a global presence. The company has invested in the development of extensive global sales and distribution channels to support its domestic and global customers, as well as local and international engineering centers and test labs where its products are tested and validated.

Lucas highlighted RegO® Products’ commitment to being “Made in the USA,” which comes in the form of a $7 million capital investment plan. Over the next couple of years, its North Carolina facilities which will see the addition of fifty full-time employees and of increased capacity to meet demand. Currently, RegO® Products has seven-hundred employees globally.

Across its operations, investments in improved capacity and output are taking place. RegO® Products dedicates extensive resources to the production process. This is both to ensure quality and safety during production, and to ensure compliance with internal and external standards and requirements.

Lucas says, “We want to make sure our factories remain state-of-the-art, and remain flexible, both for growth and to take advantage of the new manufacturing technologies available.”

Not jobs – careers
To offer the best, it must be the best, and to do that RegO® has identified several ways to attract, develop and retain talent. RegO® utilizes county and state training grants, creates apprenticeship and internship programs that allow it to benefit from direct college recruitment, and offers pathways for career advancement that help it leverage the best talent.

“It’s a focus area,” says Lucas. “We’re constantly working on it so we can get good people in and we give them a career path and chances to learn more and keep them engaged and in the business for the long-term.”

Lucas described a skills matrix that RegO® Products developed that guides training and advancement activities, so employees can clearly define career targets and so establish a career path with the support of the company. Every effort is made to promote from within and there are full-time trainers on staff to help employees reach their goals.

Close attention is also paid to the culture to ensure it reflects the company’s human-centered values. This achievement serves as an additional tool to attract and retain labor and improves engagement and employee buy-in company-wide.

RegO® consciously fosters a culture based on respect, engagement and a sense of pride. In part, the company owes its longevity to the way its culture has adapted and evolved throughout its long history; as it has grown; and as the market has changed. Never has it been stagnant or complacent.

In every aspect of its operations it continues to improve and evolve to remain attentive, fast, efficient, responsive, and flexible for its customers. It is these traits which have enabled it to grow and that will position it for the future, as the company will surely need to evolve continuously to remain competitive in the accelerating changes of the global market.

Strategy for the future
Surviving more than a century in business is not random luck, especially considering the rate of failure of companies today. There aren’t many who can boast that kind of longevity. Nevertheless, just as RegO® Products has three core business streams, it has three core strategies of focus to continue the company’s advance into the future.

As the largest manufacturer in the liquid propane space, the goal for RegO® will be first to maintain product and service quality to protect existing customers, and to sustain control of its market share.

In its two other business segments, industrial gases and liquid natural gas, the plan is to more aggressively target growth, both through expanded sales channels and new product development opportunities, and to grow its market share in both segments respectively.

Beyond its three core business segments, a permanent and overarching goal of RegO® Products is to look internally to improve the reliability, responsiveness and value it offers its customers without compromising the reputation for safety and quality it has earned in the liquid gas market.

The post Quality Backed up by More Than a Century of Expertise<p class="company">RegO® Products</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Kaiser Premier traces its roots to the Colorado-based Premier Oilfield Equipment Company, which built hydro excavators and distributed through Caterpillar dealerships. These truck-mounted excavators primarily served the oil and gas field through both the exploration and pipelaying markets.

But that changed in 2014 with a major slowdown in oil and with Caterpillar bowing out of the vocational-truck business. With the company facing an uncertain future, it searched for investors to no avail.

“I went to all the typical financial institutions, as well as strategic buyers that are already in our market space in the U.S.,” recalls present CEO Dan Weber, who was initially hired as a consultant.

Meeting of minds
His search led him to Lichtenstein, in Europe, where Kaiser AG Chairman Markus Kaiser is the latest of his family to lead Kaiser and its various subsidiaries. Weber’s timing was fortunate; Kaiser was looking to expand its American holdings, and had in fact been eyeing Premier Oilfield Equipment as a suitable vehicle for Kaiser’s advanced technology.

The deal that the two men put together was formalized in May 2017. Kaiser Premier was born. As one of the Kaiser family of business entities around the world, Kaiser Premier would benefit from international financing and globally-leading technology.

With Kaiser’s support for the company, Kaiser Premier could press on with manufacturing and distributing its hydro excavators. With strategic intent, it formed a subsidiary division, Kaiser Rental, shortly after Kaiser Premier’s formation.

As well as expanding the business, this action was intended as a clear statement to the business community at large. As Weber explains: “We felt we needed to reassure the marketplace that the chassis issues are behind us.”

Thanks to the rental process, client companies could now sample (and purchase) Kaiser Premier’s hydro excavators and sewer cleaner recyclers. From a production capacity of two new hydro excavators per month in July 2017, the company can now put ten on the road every month.

New products, new performance
Kaiser Premier’s CV Series, the latest in its hydro excavators, is the culmination of decades of development. Powered by a Robushi three-lobe PD blower, these hydro excavators have a suction power of 6,600 cubic feet of air per minute with a vacuum level of up to 27” of Hg.

The CV’s design provides 342 degrees of boom rotation, and is able reach 26 feet out or 20 feet down without any additional suction hose extensions required. An internal 700,000 BTU boiler provides hot water as needed for cold weather applications.

This ruggedness and reliability showcases Kaiser’s global presence. The company designed its trucks for deployment in harsh conditions such as the Canadian oil fields, thereby creating a system capable of doing its job under any condition, as Weber remarks: “It’s a very robust, strong, simple design, and over the course of the last few years… we have started reintroducing the hydro excavator back into the market.”

Kaiser Premier’s advanced technology also extends to truck-mounted sewer cleaning systems. The company’s trucks are able to service any sewer line, from 6-inch to 100-inch pipes. Proprietary Kaiser technology allows Kaiser Premier’s trucks to save and recycle water during cleaning, reducing cleaning times.

Weber estimates that cleaning productivity improves by between 50 to 150 percent. “This is the technology that, over the past year and a half, we’ve been introducing to the North American market,” he says. “Recycling is a mature technology in Europe, but an emerging technology in North America. With over 2,000 recyclers delivered to the global market, Kaiser is the definitive leader in the industry,” Weber added.

Kaiser Premier’s AquaStar line of sewer cleaners, with its advanced KDU jetting pump, delivers water at up to 132 gallons per minute (gpm) at a pressure of up to 2,900 psi. Its large hose reel capacity of up to 985 feet of jetting hose and 55.6 feet of suction hose largely negates the use of suction tube extensions. The placement of the vacuum pump inside the fresh water chamber helps reduce noise, cool the system and increase suction power due to shortened suction lines.

In addition to these improvements, both the CV and AquaStar utilize Kaiser innovations from around the world to increase efficiency and safety. Advances in automation now allow operators to operate trucks remotely through full radio control, with an intuitive LCD display delivering all relevant feedback on some models.

Finally, KAISERteleservice allows for unprecedented remote diagnostics, allowing service engineers to access all data and adjust service parameters remotely.

International benefits
These innovations are the product of Kaiser’s international focus, true in both Lichtenstein and Colorado. “We sell our product in multiple countries all around the world, so the technology has been developed and proven in various conditions,” Weber says. “The conditions of a sewer pipe in Houston, Texas, are very different from the conditions of a sewer pipe in New York City.”

As part of the Kaiser family, Kaiser Premier benefits from some of the most rigorous testing and advanced technology available today. On a local and international level, the company is continuously receiving feedback from clients and operators.

“This is a constant cycle that never ends,” Weber explains. “We have over 30 engineers on staff to support this improvement and development. It’s our firm belief that we can distinguish ourselves by having a technology better than anything else on the market.”

As an example, Kaiser Premier has been continuously refining the water filtration system on its sewer cleaners to minimize or prevent the chronic issue of clogging. The company has managed to only require single filtration, no mean feat.

Rigorous testing has also resulted in a liquid-ring hydro excavator, a first for the industry. “We’re the only manufacturer in the world… that provides a liquid-ring vacuum pump in the hydro excavation application,” Weber says. This liquid ring mitigates risk by removing the possibility of metal-on-metal contact, eliminating the risk of sparks and explosions.

Like any Kaiser product, these new vacuum pumps endure rigorous testing to ensure they work anytime, anyplace. “That’s an advantage of our existing product technology,” Weber concludes. “We’re taking a large leap forward by introducing this application.”

Kaiser Premier’s innovation is now being extended to adapting existing Kaiser products to the U.S. market. The company’s trademark walking excavators, its mainstay in all-terrain excavation, are being utilized in steep cliff work in the Rocky Mountains to swampland clean-up projects in Florida.

Thanks to their unique design, the walking excavators eliminate the need for environmentally-disruptive rigging. “This excavator has been proven to work in some very severe conditions – 30, 40 degree slopes,” Weber remarks. In true Kaiser fashion, the excavators are also highly automated, with independently functioning arms requiring little input from an operator.

Needed: a few good people
Yet, as Kaiser Premier moves forward under its new banner, it faces the growing pains of any expanding company. Finding qualified personnel remains a perpetual challenge, particularly skilled-trades professionals such as welders and machine operators.

Growing from an initial workforce of 25, Kaiser Premier now boasts over 100 employees, and Weber says the company plans to continue its bounce back – but with caveats.

“We see us growing to 150 employees within the next three years, but we’re going to need qualified people to make sure we do not, in any way, suffer from a lapse in quality, design and representation.”

To ensure smooth growth, he and his team are striving to build a new, strong, workplace culture at Kaiser Premier. Formalized top-down leadership-training classes place a heavy emphasis on personal development, delicately balancing the act of motivating employees without creating negative repercussions.

But Weber says the risk is worth the reward. “The purpose of it is so we can understand our strengths and our tendencies, so that by understanding them, we’ll be able to work forward together and challenge each other in areas where we might not otherwise, because we’re concerned that we might be stepping on each other’s’ toes.”

The post The Phoenix of Colorado<p class="company">Kaiser Premier</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Founded in 1972 to manufacture mining equipment, Petro-Tech quickly rebranded itself to serve the growing oil field in Canada’s Prairie Provinces. “Because of the low cost associated with heating, people didn’t worry about wasting heat,” Business Development Manager Phil Sepkowski reflects.

But, with a growing shift into building and heating efficiency, Petro-Tech has found its technology in more and more demand. Petro-Tech prides itself on making the most efficient equipment humanly possible, conserving and utilizing waste heat.

Petro-Tech’s skid-mounted heat medium packages provide up to 40 MMBTUH, (million British Thermal Units per hour), fully inclusive with pumps, heat exchangers, piping and an intrinsic control panel providing all heat-related data. The company’s thermal systems utilize glycol, and its related compounds, in addition to hot oil to provide heating for buildings and equipment of all sizes.

On a smaller scale, Petro-Tech also provides all equipment involved in the heating process, including heat exchangers (both liquid- and air-cooled), boilers and reboilers. The company’s research team works both internally and with other companies to continually push the envelope of heating technology.

“There are some really, really bright engineering minds out there that have been working on this for a long time,” says Sepkowski. “We’re doing what we can in-house, and then we deal with smaller companies that are working with us to fine-tune our equipment and make it even better.”

White-hot precision
In addition to its wide array of heat-medium packages, Petro-Tech also provides process furnaces for use in the petroleum and natural gas refining process. The process requires long run-times with little shutdown, necessitating high efficiency and reliability. As in its heat medium technology, Petro-Tech prides itself on its precision engineering and building skill.

Alloy coil materials and certified welding techniques ensure high durability, while Petro-Tech’s meticulous quality-control methods guarantee full accountability. The company also utilizes PMI (positive material identification) to verify the elemental integrity of all metal components, further ensuring product integrity. Low nitrous oxide (NOx) burners reduce environmental impact, and Petro-Tech’s modular construction methods helps reduce build times.

Meeting client needs
With nearly 50 years of business experience, Petro-Tech justifiably presents itself as a precision design/build firm. Many clients, particularly subcontracted engineering firms, provide Petro-Tech with precise and meticulous specifications. Petro-Tech, in turn, creates a turnkey solution with its own in-house engineers.

In Sepkowski’s words, this degree of total control is a testament to the faith Petro-Tech’s clients place in it. “They trust us to design the equipment and ultimately provide the guarantee that the equipment’s going to function according to the parameters and conditions they require.”

A reason for this trust stems from Petro-Tech’s localization. The company’s products are assembled in its 75,000 square foot Calgary manufacturing facility, and Sepkowski estimates that between 70 and 90 percent of all parts are sourced from within Canada. With no off-shore assembly work, the company can manage every aspect of quality control and maintain its high production standards.

Many of Petro-Tech’s clients, with offices in Calgary and the surrounding area, can easily visit Petro-Tech’s facility and see their orders being fabricated and assembled with their own eyes. “A lot of equipment gets purchased offshore,” Sepkowski remarks, “so to see what’s going on with your equipment at any given time, the end user has to trust that that manufacturer is doing exactly what they’ve been asked to. In our case, they can come and personally look at it, touch it, review it.”

In addition to this personal touch, Petro-Tech provides aftermarket service as well, managing every step from fabrication to installation and subsequent field service.

Relying on people
As a proud Canadian manufacturer in a robust sector, Petro-Tech recognizes that the precision it requires depends on a talented and committed workforce. To enhance workforce cohesion, the company fosters an atmosphere of employee empowerment.

“Anybody who has any concept or idea that can affect our profitability, our performance, our quality – everyone is encouraged to come to the table with that opportunity,” Sepkowski says. “That’s the best way to recruit.” He notes that this atmosphere of empowerment has attracted many employees – including himself – to work at Petro-Tech. “Empowering people always encourages retention.”

This empowerment helps Petro-Tech remain competitive in a crowded field, ensuring it can hire the most passionate and talented workers in the industry.

The company currently designs heat-recovery systems capable of dealing with flue or exhaust gas temperatures of up to 1,200°F (650°C) and capture the heat in thermal oils, glycol mixtures, inlet, air or steam. But Petro-Tech intends to lead the way in developing super-efficient heaters. “The technology exists right now,” Sepkowski remarks, “but we’re going to build it better.”

The goal is to install this new-generation equipment into all new buildings, and retrofit existing structures to handle the new heat-efficiency standards. While it will be a long-term investment, the potential returns are exciting. “What we’ve discovered so far is there is the potential for 20 to 50 percent heating efficiency savings,” Sepkowski reports, “so it’s very, very much the way of the future – not only for our organization, but for many others.”

Emission-free
Petro-Tech’s new move into heat efficiency and emission reduction is well-timed. Canada’s Federal Government has pledged to make the country net emission-free by 2050. On a smaller scale, numerous provinces such as Ontario and Nova Scotia have announced the same goal. Others are even more ambitious, with British Columbia enacting that all new buildings must produce net zero emissions by 2032.

At the corporate level, large businesses such as Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL), one of Canada’s largest oil and gas extractors, are also working to be net zero emitters.

Lost heat, lost value
In addition to the obvious environmental benefits, increased heating efficiency has equally obvious cost-saving benefits. “Heat equals value. It’s never been thought of that way, but it really does,” Sepkowski remarks. “Any heat can be turned into a bottom-line reduction in cost savings.”

Oil firms in western Canada produce most of Canada’s waste heat and carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, western provinces are now paying significant carbon taxes – a strong source of regional contention during the recent Federal election. Higher heat efficiency rates will also reduce carbon taxes to businesses, which Sepkowski says will be a net gain for all. “Anything that can be used to reduce that is basically going to be paying the carbon tax, or paying less of it.”

As Petro-Tech looks to the future, the company plans to move even further into precision design and manufacturing while also moving toward a more energy-efficient offering and leveraging new technologies to help customers reduce their carbon footprint. The company is taking its products to new levels of efficiencies and offering products that allow producers to meet their carbon emissions standards. As more businesses, municipalities and entire nations work to reduce emissions and improve heat efficiency standards, Petro-Tech has its sights set on becoming the leading manufacturer in this new sector.

The post Raising the Bar – and the Standards for Heat Efficiency<p class="company">Petro-Tech Heat Technology</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

The company also sells automation solutions such as pump controllers and multi-point injection systems, as well as pump parts and accessories.

“Ninety-five percent of our pumps are proprietary,” states Paul Brisbin, Regional Manager.

TXAM differentiates itself through a combination of leading-edge products, huge selection, and excellent customer service. “We have a patented design in our [pump] housing that gives a lot longer life to the packing and a lot longer life to the motor,” Brisbin notes. “We use an all-stainless-steel housing, so [our pumps] are very durable.”

The company’s HBT series of solar and electric pumps are among its most popular products. The HBT2 electric pump comes in either single or double-head format, can work to a maximum pressure of 6,000 PSI/400 Bar, and has a switch that can convert power from AC to DC for locales where AC power is not reliable. The HBT1 solar pump, meanwhile, can work to a maximum pressure of 2,000 PSI/140 Bar, comes in single or double-head format, has an innovative pump design, and is environmentally friendly and low-maintenance.

TXAM also carries a full line of Pneumatic pumps: the PTP2500 pneumatic pump, the 3500 and the 6500, which all come in single-head format and can handle a maximum pressure up to 6500 PSI; and the TX-BP beam pump, which is available either as single or double head format and can handle a maximum pressure of 1,000 PSI/70 Bar. An extended arm feature is available with the TX-BP Beam Pump.

Specialty items like the HBT EXP series of ‘explosion-proof’ pumps are certified to work in Class 1 and Division 2 areas such as oilfields. Safety is paramount in such environments, where even a small external spark can trigger an explosion.

TXAM also offers advanced solutions such as the IPC 2000 tank monitor and pump controller which lets operators remotely control their pumps and tanks from a laptop or cellphone. The control can monitor pump delivery and tank level, pinpoint pump location via GPS, and can be programmed to send out reports and alarms.

The 600TSP SCADA pump controller has tank monitoring and proportional control. Pump delivery can be controlled remotely, and the product offers an instant network connection to gather and analyze data in real time.

Thanks to such devices, customers can “get up in the morning, look at their computer and say ‘I don’t need to go out and check the chemicals today because everything’s running fine,’” says Brisbin. “The patented system we have will tell them if a pump is not running, and it also makes the pump very accurate and delivers exactly what you tell it to deliver.”

This is particularly good news for anyone with pumps in cold-winter climates such as “North Dakota [or] some location that you might not get to for three weeks because of the weather,” he says. These controllers are part of a general trend towards automation in the pump sector.

“We’ve got a lot of automation projects going on right now. One of these is the multipoint injection system. For a fifty-well pad of directional gas wells, instead of having fifty pumps, we’ve got multipoint systems that are very sophisticated. You can have up to sixteen injection points with one pump. It makes for a much smaller footprint on the location. The multipoint system is a new thing right now,” he says.

The multipoint injection system also ensures repeatable, accurate injection rates. An operator can enter the desired injection rate in gallons or quarts per day, and the system automatically takes care of the rest.

TXAM also sells parts and accessories, from stainless steel tubing and tube fittings to stainless steel atomizers, valves, bushings and nuts, site glasses, battery boxes, and gas scrubbers.

Not only does it make good pumps, but it also stocks a huge variety of them. “We carry a larger inventory than any of our competitors. Nobody comes close,” states Brisbin, who says the company maintains a huge inventory “on the ground in over eighteen locations.”

In addition to Texas where the company has multiple offices, it has offices or field offices in North Dakota, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Arkansas, Colorado, and West Virginia. TXAM has international representatives in South America as well.

These locations offer a wide inventory and excellent customer support, and staff are happy to help clients over the phone or Internet, in-person, or in the field with pump installation and repair, field work, technical assistance, and engineering.

“Service, reliability, and availability is what really separates us. We’re on call seven days a week. We have people that cover weekends. Somebody needs something, we can get it to them,” says Brisbin. “It’s not unusual for some of our guys to be out at one o’clock in the morning replacing a pump or helping someone repair one.”

Thanks to this combination of excellent products, wide selection, broad geographic reach, and customer-focus, TXAM has been expanding at a fast clip. “The company now has roughly three times the employees that we did when I came to work for TXAM in July of 2011; [we had] only one remote location and now we have 18,” says Brisbin.

There is discussion about opening a new field office in Alaska. The Alaska office won’t open, however, “until we have the right person. That’s the hardest thing and the most important thing—getting the right person,” he says.

Given its rapid rate of expansion, the company keeps certain criteria in mind when considering new personnel. In terms of service-technicians, it likes people who are “willing to work. You grab a guy that’s married, got a kid or two, and then wants to work, wants the overtime, wants to grow with the company. That’s the guy you’re looking for. We’re easy to work for, but you must be self-motivated. As far as a sales guy, we look for somebody again who is a self-starter and doesn’t need to be managed,” he explains.

“Staff who are hired are treated very well and as a company we want to keep our people whole when issues come up in life. It flows down from the very top of this company. We’re responsible for people. If you take care of the people, they will take care of you,” says Brisbin.

When it comes to promoting itself, TXAM relies heavily on face-to-face marketing and regularly attends trade shows and industry conferences.

In August 2019, the firm showcased new pump automation controllers and tank monitoring systems at the NACE Central Area Conference in San Antonio, Texas. Among other products, it demonstrated its 600TSP SCADA pump controller and IPC 2000 cellular pump controller and gateway tank monitor.

The company attended the Oklahoma Oil & Gas Expo held October 10, 2019. TXAM Pumps was a Platinum level sponsor of the event and displayed its latest pump automation systems at the show.

“You’ve got to be like a hound dog. You’ve got to have your nose on the ground, going door to door, being in front of people. That’s what we do,” affirms Brisbin.

Having the right people and focusing on keeping them is central to getting through economic downturns. TXAM tries to “get the right people and make sure the guys who get out there and get business understand what we’re responsible for. We’re responsible for all the people that we hired. We’re now responsible for them and their livelihoods and their family,” he says.

Moving into new markets is another way to get through any doldrums in the oil and gas sector. “We’re looking for other revenue streams now outside of pumps, simply because the market is only so big, and we want to grow this business as big as it can get,” explains Brisbin.

For example, he has been recently looking into the commercial possibilities of well-head containment products.

Despite this, TXAM remains committed to its chemical injection pump product line.

Brisbin has a clear vision of the future. “I see us continuing to grow and get smarter,” he says. “I see us turning to more automation. Five years from now, I see us with probably two or three more facilities throughout the U.S. There’s a lot of business potentially in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.”

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