Keeping the electricity grid up and running through summer heat waves and winter deep freezes is an ongoing balancing act. Power lines that stretch for miles are vulnerable to wind and fire. 

Fuel sources used for industrial heating are front and center for the U.S. government as it examines the emissions factor per unit of coal and natural gas compared to the emissions factor of the electricity grid.

On September 7, the U.S. Department of Energy released its “Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap,” which identifies four pathways to reduce industrial emissions from five manufacturing industries: chemical, petroleum refining, iron and steel, food and beverage, and cement. The four pathways include: energy efficiency; industrial electrification; low-carbon fuels, feedstocks and energy sources (LCFFES); and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).

What will the government do for you? That’s a common question to hear around election season. Twice a year, however, the regulated community hears the question: What will the government do to you?

The U.S. Department of Energy announced up to $28 million in funding for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, ULtrahigh Temperature Impervious Materials Advancing Turbine Efficiency (ULTIMATE). The ULTIMATE program will develop and demonstrate ultrahigh-temperature materials that can operate in high-temperature and high-stress environments of a gas-turbine blade. Projects will specifically target gas-turbine applications in the power-generation and aviation industries.

A system currently being developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory can quickly store heat and release it for use when needed, surpassing conventional storage options in both flexibility and efficiency. Argonne’s thermal-energy storage system (TESS) was originally developed to capture and store surplus heat from concentrated solar power facilities. It is also suitable for industrial processes, desalination plants, combined heat and power (CHP) systems and heavy-duty trucks.

AK Steel accepted an award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) High Performance Computing for Materials (HPC4Mtls) Program. Researchers from AK Steel plan to work in collaboration with DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop microstructure-based transformation models to predict austenite stability in high-strength steels in a project titled “Thermo-Mechanical Forming Process Development to Produce Tailored Strength Automotive Structural Components.” The collaboration will develop mathematical models that could enable the production of automotive components with properties tailored to meet the demanding performance requirements of the future, according to AK Steel.

Recently, efforts have been undertaken to improve the ironmaking process. This project summary offers a look into one such effort.

Advancements in nonferrous metals processing could not only save energy in their manufacture, but also provide significant energy savings through the use of lightweight metals.