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Some will consider this column to be very negative and indeed it may be--but the following needs to be said.
There is the old story about the fellow that quit the US Patent Office in the 1790's because he thought everything had been invented. Your author does not feel that way, even today. However, some of you may think he does unless you follow the logic in this column very closely.
If a teenager asked me today if it would be wise to spend their university years as a student studying how to make energy usage more efficient, I would have to very carefully consider their question and probably tell them, "No, you cannot have a full and complete career studying and perfecting energy efficiency improvements." Carefully notice I did not talk about a career studying energy extraction methods, but limited myself to energy efficiency improvements.
Why do I say this? When it comes to energy efficiency improvements there are hard physics-based limits that are easily defined. These limits are two and only two. The first one is the conversion of one form of energy into another: the limit is 100% perfect conversion in an ideal world (in effect a perpetual motion machine, a claim for which the US Patent Office will honor only with a working model). The other limit is the opposite of the first: this is the limit of insulation, which in a perfect world would allow zero energy exchange between two surfaces or two volumes.
We know that both of these limits, in even a world without financial constraints, are impossible. In a world where one must trade capital expenditures for operating expenditures, in other words, the real world, the constraints are much less than 100%.
This is much different than trying to set a speed record or even see the famous Moore's Law of computing power march forward. Those limits do (in the case of speed) and seem (in the case of Moore's Law) to have no hard boundaries. Granted, Einstein told us the absolute limit on speed is the speed of light*, however, that is so distant from anything we can do, for all practical matters we can think of speed as being limitless.
Yes, energy exchange and non-exchange (insulation) have very finite boundaries. They are similar to the basic studies of limits in high school mathematics. I remember our high school math teacher, Mr. Shaffer, positing the problem of the frog jumping towards a well. This frog had a unique jumping technique: with each jump he could jump half the distance from himself to the well. The question was, does he ever get to the well? In an ideal world, he does not, of course, but does approach it asymptotically.
Energy efficiency research is the same. Whether seeking 100% conversion or -100% conversion (perfect insulation) there are finite limits. Probably in an ideal world those limits are around 90%; in a world where one has to pay capital to achieve the best limits possible, they may be even lower, perhaps 80%. Who knows for certain where these are, but the point is we will reach limits in both cases.
So let's posit for a moment that best available technology says we are at +/-50% in our energy conversion expertise (the positive being conversion from one form to another, the negative representing insulation). We'll set the rules slightly different than the frog's jumping for argument's sake. Let us say we can improve by 5% the first year (2010) and each year after that we only improve by 1/2 of what we did the year before. Hence, in 2011, we will be at +/- 55%, in 2012 we will be at +/-57.5% and so forth. The argument goes asymptotic in 2031 at 60%. Don't like these numbers? Start with +/-70% now and an improvement of 5% the first year, hold all other conditions constant. The model goes asymptotic at +/-80% in 2031, probably the practical limit.
If we do use the frog model (improving by half the remainder each year) and start at +/-50%, we'll go asymptotic at 99% by 2016. I don't think we are that good.
The poorest form of energy conversion of which I am aware is solar cells (one might, in the strictest sense, call this extractive technology). Sharp, of Japan, apparently has the currently highest efficiency cell at 35.8%. Yet, if you set the improvements at only 2% for the first year from this base and assume you can march forward at a rate of improvement of 75% of that of the year before, the model still goes asymptotic at 43.8% by 2034.
Of course, all of this is just an interesting mathematical exercise, but it does give us a framework and a dilemma box for our current scientists and engineers studying energy conversion. For if they say they are making improvements faster than this, they are obviously going to run out of work sooner; slower, and we may ask, " What is delaying your progress?"
The point is, in 20 to (let's give it an extra ten years for uncertainty) 30 years, we are going to be at the end of practicality in energy conversion and insulation technology. We'll call all of this Thompson's Law, just for the fun of it.
So, again, what do I tell the high school senior thinking about studying energy conversion technology? You might want to think about having to prepare for another career to jump to about the time you are 50. This gig will be over.
For safety this week, it is appropriate to talk about hypothermia (a human body too cool) and hyperthermia (a human body too hot) for a moment. Both are medical emergencies. If your safety meetings have not covered these recently, I recommend you do so.
Be safe and we'll talk next week.
*Let's chase a rabbit for a minute: I am told if you build a pair of scissors with blades a couple of miles (3 km or so) long and close that pair of scissors at a rate of 1 rpm, when the closure gets to be about a mile from the point of rotation, that closure point will be traveling faster than the speed of light. However, that point has no mass and exists only theoretically, so it is possible. By the way, there is a certain technical manager in Wisconsin that may want to check this calculation and report back to us next week.
Second Page...
[Adv.] ASD Inc.
ASD has a very nice instrument for Kappa Number and Brightness measurement which they are featuring at the moment. I encourage you to check it out by either clicking on their button ads or "More" below.
And when you talk to ASD Inc., please tell them you saw their advertisements at Paperitalo Publications.
Regards,
Jim
Riddles by Travis:
This American term comes from the French language, loosely translating "at random." A less sentimental description would be "a collection of small pieces of junk".
Note: Emails are organized in the order received, with first received at the top.
***
Some points to consider about hand dryers (though I've seen that they installed them to save money, but aggravate the user. Years ago, when a new grocery store opened and they only installed a hand dryer, at my "suggestion" they also put in paper towels!) ...
1. One drying cycle is not enough. You need two to do the job (double the energy). They wear out and need replacing, where is the cost of making these things included in the cost estimate? Installation costs $75-150 they say. 2. It takes a lot more (valuable) time to dry your hands. Not as convenient. 3. No towels there available for bathroom cleanup both by user and store, including cleaning the dryer. 4. Towels are/can be made from recyclable fibers, used towels can be recycled. 5. How about the people that don't want to use the dryer and use toilet tissue instead?
On the other hand, my own use of paper is much less today than 20 years ago, e.g. almost never print stuff I do on the computer, and my use of paper towels is scrutinized so I use only what I need. We still read the daily newspaper and recycle the old ones.
Did you know this NI reader is also over 80?
Chuck Green Webster, New York USA
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Yes, Chuck. I knew you were over 80. We have several faithful readers of your experience. May we all be so lucky.
Jim
***
Jim,
I fully agree that our industry is doing a poor job of defending ourselves, but what "Xcelerator" does is a terrible trashing of the entire pulp and paper industry. What about the simple facts that trees are renewable and paper can be recycled.
When I went to the link, I was immediately put off by their claims regarding an LCA. In my experience, LCA's can be skewed to whatever answer the group paying for it wants. Having been involved in two instances, one by our industry and one by environmentalists, I will never participate in anything like one again.
A few years back, a respected pulp and paper research organization was tasked to do a LCA on producing wheat straw pulp in the Canadian prairies and shipping it to a directory grade paper mill on the BC coast. Forget the fact that it made no economic sense, this group chose the worst possible cases for wheat straw pulp production such as a location where energy was made from coal versus other locations where hydro or natural gas were available. As a peer review panelist, I objected to this and several other obviously chosen factors to make wheat straw pulp look as bad as possible. Nevertheless, the LCA was finished using the worst possible technical scenario for wheat straw. To make matters even worse, a short version including my name as a peer reviewer was published in a respected industry journal without my knowledge even though any publication of the results was supposed to be passed by the peer review panel first. Needless to say, I was not pleased as I did not agree with the fundamental basis of the LCA and my objections were never published.
Also a while back, a major environmental organization based in the East coast USA published a major document (study) of the pulp and paper industry. It included a section on nonwoods fibers and some folks with knowledge in this area were asked to comment on the draft document. The draft document was fairly well balanced but the final published version was anything but balanced. It had been completely skewed by one individual who had a commercial opportunity using nonwood fibers. I contacted the organization and asked why the changes were made without any further verification by all reviewers. They simply said that this is not how they did things. I insisted that my name be removed from the document and had to threaten legal action if it wasn't. My name was removed from future issues but many were already out in the public that could not be recalled. And, I am not the only "nonwood expert" who had their name removed from the document.
Unfortunately, the public takes LCA's as gospel and it is almost impossible to fight against them once they are loose in the public domain.
Bob Hurter Ottawa, Ontario Canada
***
It gets even better... the coal fired power plants are now beginning to burn wood pellets in order to generate that electricity required to drive the Xcelerator. There can't be a worse use for wood and it's considered 'green'?!
Chris Demler Mason, Ohio USA
***
Jim,
As Paul Harvey might have said, there is a need to consider the "rest of the story." To determine the ecological beneficence of electric blower hand dryers vis-a-vis paper towels, one would need to take into account the potential environmental impact and carbon footprint of generating the electricity to run the blow dryer. The blow dryer is also likely to cause the floor beneath it to get wet – a potential safety hazard?
Best regards,
Chuck Klass Redington Beach, Florida USA
***
Dear Jim,
a question 'was the "Xcelerator" sticker made from paper?'
a comment re 'air quality' paper filters are used extensively. these can be engineered to have very good efficiency at capturing particles in the 0.3 micron range [often the problem zone], see Truong, YB ; Kyratzis, I ; Schutz, J A ; Helmer, RJN, "Preliminary Study of Electrospun Paper Filters for High Efficiency Fine Particle Capture.", Proceedings 61st Appita Annual Conference and Exhibition, Gold Coast, Australia 6-9 May 2007:
and of course can carry anti-microbial materials.
ultimately you can put these things on your garden and can perhaps act as C sink...
deforestation is a problem...having plenty of paper products is one way to drive re-forestation especially if there are profitable PnP businesses. i believe this created a problem in Tasmania where people were buying up farm land and planting trees..the surrounding farmers didn't like all the trees..
a comment re 'paper' perhaps you need to call it something else
cheers,
Richard Helmer CSIRO Australia
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Nice to hear from you, Richard. You always have a great point of view.
Jim
***
Jim,
I'm just an old EE. I don't have an issue with coal, oil, and gas. I'm working on 2 coal boilers right now. Don't the electric hand dryer "do gooder" folks realize that trees are renewable but the electricity for the blow dryer comes mostly coal, oil and gas - fossil fuels?
I remember when in a paper mill town a national food chain put in a new store with electric hand dryers. The manager could not fathom why in both the men's and women's restrooms someone kept ripping them off the wall... After 3 times, he put in paper towels.
Larry Wells Birmingham, Alabama USA
***
TAPPI, representing the pulp, paper and allied industries, sponsored "Forests for Our Future" at EPCOT in Orlando. It opened at the Bi-Centennial Celebration at EPCOT in 2000 and during the 5 years it operated was viewed by almost everyone that went through the Disney experience. Focus group interviews indicated that more than 1/2 the people that experienced "Forests for Our Future" and heard the messages about sustainability, recycling and environmental stewardship changed their mind about our industry. Children, parents and teachers were a significant percentage of those who changed their mind as a result of hearing and seeing our positive message. Disney said it was one of their most significant features at EPCOT and was willing to continue the partnership into the future. Why didn't it continue? I had the opportunity to train the cast members at "Forest for Our Future" and can guarantee that the messages were clearly stated and the questions of the guests correctly answered. The cost to operate the venue was less than 25 cents per guest!!! The reason it closed.....the pulp and paper companies wouldn't provide the funding. It wasn't the message, the impact it had on those that experienced "Forest for Our Future" or the Disney organization. I will never understand how industry leaders could pass up that opportunity to improve our image. I won't disclose the amount, but if 5 companies had kicked in, each check would have been in 5 figures.
Bill Fuller Federal Way, Washington USA
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Bill:
The efforts at EPCOT were admirable, but they were too little and probably too expensive for the exposure they garnered. And, as you tangentially point out, the funds came from the TAPPI treasury, not directly from the industry.
What we need are superbowl commercials, and years of them (see Ben Prinsen's coments, below).
Jim
***
I heartily agree that the paper industry has done a lousy job of dealing with issues like the proliferation of electric dryers in place of disposable paper towels.
I tried to get NCASI interested in such a study a few years ago (NOT with a view to my participating) but there was no interest.
One would think that KC would have done a useful study.
The authors of the report on Excel web site has a few glaringly unreasonable assumptions
1) They assume that the towels are manufactured in the US, and transported 750 km by ship and 750 km by land. My guess is that most towels are manufactured much closer to the point of use.
2) They assume 2.9 GJ/ton electricity consumption for pulp manufacture. That is about 800 kWh/t. That is the total consumption of a good kraft mill, but ignores the fact that 60% to 110% of that comes from burning black liquor and bark. Hence the assumed electricity consumption for the paper products is unreasonably high. (I won a fight on this issue in Nature about 20 years ago. The then American Paper Institute president, and others, had criticised me because an author misquoted a publication of mine. After I did a fair bit of work and persuaded Nature to recant, API never even said thanks. Wonder why I am taking half an hour to write this to you, but will not spend the time on a rigorous analysis?)
3) They assume that none of the paper towels are recycled after use. Seems to me that the bins of used towels are eminently recyclable. Surely at least a significant proportion are recycled. At least the authors should justify their assumption that none are.
4) They ignore the load electric dryers put AC systems. They point out that dryers help heat building, but I suspect that there is more AC power used in the US than heat in the US.
5) I am far too old to believe that a "new and improved" hand dryer is so dramatically more efficient that those made by competitive manufacturers for 40 or more years, at least without independent verification. Data on the "high" efficiency is from the dryer peddler.
Neil McCubbin Foster, Quebec Canada
***
Jim,
In the last week I saw a publication (of course I can't remember where) showing that paper towels did a better job of reducing microbes/bacteria on hands than air dryers. I was going to bookmark it but forgot.
Apparently the towels help remove the bacteria and also people prefer drying with paper. They leave with damp hands when air dryers are used.
These are not the publications I saw but other links on the same topic: http://www.handwashingforlife.com/paper_towels http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15796287
Linda Robertson St. Charles, Illinois USA
***
Hi Jim,
You may not be targeting the right folks... As you and I have commiserated before, the pervasive negative public perception and correspondingly poor understanding of the paper industry's role in the US economy is another symptom of weak industry leadership, both by paper companies themselves (on a more local scale) and the industry-representing associations (nationally)... What does AF&PA do anyway?... Its web site doesn't even work properly, so good luck trying to find out there...
While not much can be done to slow digital displacement of the communications paper business, the paper industry contributes nothing to debates about "paper vs.plastic" bags and packaging; "hot-air vs. tissue" in personal sanitation and "bio-fuels vs. fossil fuels" in the energy business... In the ever-desirable interest of transparency and accountability, is the AF&PA budget available for any degree of scrutiny and analysis of expenditure priorities and efficacy?... For example, how well do AF&PA's industry-boosting efforts and results compare to comparable industry-boosting organizations in other industries, and in the paper industry in other countries?...
My biggest fear is that, in the all-too-common, deliberately opaque political way, AF&PA pays a firm of lawyers/lobbyists a big retainer mostly for being willing to accept a big retainer... (Nor would discovering that the AF&PA budget is too small to attract legal "seagulls" be very comforting, since it would be yet another indicator of substandard industry leadership.)...
Kudos to you for rattling TCA's and Excel Dryers' cages... However, in meeting their customers' needs, they definitely are less a part of the problem than the invisibility (for decades now) of the paper industry "leadership" in influencing those customers' understanding and appreciation of the tree growing industry...
I anticipate attending your Lightweight Paper Machine symposium in Atlanta... Let's hope we'll get a quorum.
Watch out for icy patches on pathways and roads.
Best regards, Dave Bennett Mahwah, New Jersey USA
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Thanks, Dave. The Lightweight Machine Workshop should be a good event. We have one announcement out and will be putting out more. Cost is only $75.00 (designed to be cost recovery for our hotel expenses).
Jim
***
Hello Jim,
My opinion is that your view is correct but not relevant. Sorry to say it, but I am also in the paper industry. The reason that paper is under attack is that it is becoming not relevant in the electronic age. The best proof is that the paper industry's organizations switched their papers from paper editions to electronic editions. How can you ask them to attack if this is the reality?
Unfortunately, the "green" attack on paper is only at the "side lines" and a counter attack in this field is a waste of time.
Regards,
Avi Tenenbaum Hadera Israel
***
Jim,
Very good points.
Perhaps the truth about the energy savings of using paper vs blowers should be put on towel dispensers!
Also, perhaps Travel Centers does not know how many truckers we put on the road.
Mark Andrews New Augusta, Mississippi USA
***
Hi Jim,
I read your comments about protecting the paper industry and had to laugh. I met the enemy and it is I! As a member of both TAPPI (PLACE division) and SPI (Society of the Plastics Industry) I can honestly tell you that the enemy is not the consumer. It is quite simply poor science. We see this erosion of scientific scholarship, method, and debate in all aspects of our lives, perhaps the most marked example of which is the global warming debate. This debate has turned into the strident catcalls of a government legislature with little merit to the science behind the argument. With respect to plastic, we feel there has been little education behind the bans to products and scaremongering. Paper needs to take the offensive and advertise the green elements of its industry. A couple of well placed SuperBowl ads would have made an excellent launch to this campaign. The real issue is that scientists and engineers have lost the floor when it comes to scientific debates and that will require each and everyone across all industries to make a concerted effort to raise the level of research and debate back to previous levels. From data come statistics, come provable hypothesis...
Benjamin Prinsen Mississauga, Ontario Canada
***
...You were on the right track with this week's NI editorial. Let's attack, and let's start by recognizing that we at Cellulose Community think differently than the rest of the crowd.
Jon Kerr Loveland, Ohio USA
###
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For your reading pleasure...
What Clients Love by Harry Beckwith
Beckwith has written several sales and marketing books that are superb; not your usual sales blather.
Available at amazon.com
How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today's Economy by Steve Forbes and Elizabeth Ames
Available everywhere.
Team of Rivals, the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
It may seem strange to have a "popular" book here, but this is one of the best books on management (by example) I have ever read. It is also a very well researched book, assembled in a remarkable manner. It is five stars for sure.
Available everywhere.
Chemical Additives for the Pulp and Paper Industry by Professor Stephan Kleeman, Ph.D. et al.
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