OIT Times: OIT's ROI: $6.5 Billion and Rising

June 21, 2001

The Office of Industrial Technologiesrecent Expo was, in part, a celebration of the successes that OIT and its partners have achieved in their shared drive to cut energy use, reduce emissions and waste and, overall, enhance the competitiveness of America manufacturing industries. By nearly any measure, those successes have been impressive indeed.

According to figures published in OIT recent report Impactsummary of Program Results, the cumulative energy savings of more than 140 completed and tracked OIT projects and other programs is approximately 1.6 quadrillion Btu, representing a production cost savings of $6.5 billion. This is after the initial investments made by both government and industry are subtracted out. (You can download Impacts from www.pnl.gov/impacts/).

In addition to energy savings, the environmental benefits of these technologies are also considerable. According to Impacts, the joint efforts of OIT and its partners have also kept 121 million tons of CO2, 246,000 tons of NOx, 463,000 tons of SOx and 124,000 tons of particulates out of the air.

Productivity benefits surpass energy savings
And, the data don include the productivity improvements and waste minimization benefits gained from the implementation of OIT-sponsored technologies. Estimates suggest that, in dollar terms, these benefits could represent savings as much as three times greater than the energy savings.

These quantifiable benefits are large and sometimes difficult to grasp, but, says DOE Deputy Assistant Secretary for Industrial Technologies Denise Swink, they all add up to one thing. uperior technologies mean energy savings, higher productivity and a better bottom line for any manufacturer,she said.

OIT focuses on energy-intensive, resource-based manufacturing industries whose importance to the American economy is often overlooked. But, said Swink, he nine energy-intensive ndustries of the Futureemploy more than three million people at all educational levels, from semi-skilled workers to PhDs. They form the foundation for our economy, with each job in manufacturing on average generating four additional jobs in the service sector./p>

At the same time, these basic industries face a number of common challenges, especially, says Swink, a shortage of R&D focused on pre-competitive process technologies that can benefit wide segments of entire industrieshe very type OIT and its partners target.

OIT innovative way of doing business brings companies together to work on pre-competitive technologies that can benefit their overall industry. Its ndustries of the Futurestrategy begins with each industry reaching consensus on where it wants to be by 2020 and what technologies it needs to get there. OIT then cost-shares R&D teams to address the identified challenges.

Expected savings from current portfolio
And, while the resultss noted aboveave been impressive, looking at OIT current portfolio of technologies suggests that historical successes might well be dwarfed by future ones. OIT present portfolio includes 120 projects scheduled to be commercialized within two years (see list on page 6), and about 400 more with slightly longer horizons. By 2010, energy savings flowing from technologies developed in OIT-sponsored partnerships are projected to reach more than one quadrillion Btu per yearalued at over $5 billion at current energy prices. By 2020, energy savings are projected to reach 4.1 quads per year, or nearly 10% of the total energy now used by industry.

In this issue of The OIT Times, OIT Team Leaders discuss some of the recent and emerging technology successes stemming from our work. We describe technologies that will likely contribute to this enormous reduction in energy demand.

ee very proud of our historical contributions to America industries,said Swink. ut, in looking at what our Team Leaders have to say, I think it apparent that, for OIT and its partnersnd for U.S. industry in generalhe best is yet to come./p>