A Technical and Economic Assessment of Efforts to Advance Glass Melting Practices

摘要

Although the glass industry has been described as a mature industry, it does not yet exhibit the degree of standardization and commonality in interests that most mature industries exhibit. While price and cost pressures are characteristic of a mature industry, common ground in technology and operations is bard to define. Each segment of the industry -- and even individual Companies within a segment -- operates several different furnace designs and employs a variety of melting technologies. The industry continues to struggle with capital productivity and faces a number of environmental issues. Solutions to the environmental issues will likely increase the challenge to improve capital productivity. Cost-effective environmental compliance technology is a critical need. Better understanding is also needed of the capital and operating costs for environmental solutions. Significant reduction in energy usage has been achieved over several decades, but the remaining amount of energy that can possibly be saved in the future is much less. Energy costs are still a large component of the cost of glass melting, but the industry believes it is approaching the practical limits to further step changes in energy reduction. Incremental efforts to save energy and attention-to-detail efforts to reduce losses are continuing. There are some available technologies to further reduce energy consumption, but the savings expected do not justify the capital investment at the current cost of energy and cost of capital. Additional industry collaboration is possible for small, manageable new initiatives. Enthusiasm and financial support are lacking for a large-scale next generation melting system project. The most significant individual areas for potential melting improvement include batch and cullet preheating, a driven process to accelerate shear dissolution in the fusion process, and innovative means of reducing refining time. Other potential areas for industry collaboration beyond melting include more effective glass temperature conditioning, production efficiency and yield improvement in glass fabrication, and cost-effective environmental solutions. Business and technical leaders in the glass industry must develop a common view of the forces that will drive the industry in the future and increase cooperation on the highest priority challenges if the industry is to survive as a vital industry of the future in the United States.