Projects and Related Studies
Industries of the Future
Working in partnership with industry and with support from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Industrial Technologies (OIT) is helping to reduce industrial energy use, emissions, and waste while boosting productivity. Operating within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EE), OIT conducts research, development, demonstration, and technology transfer efforts that are producing substantial, measurable benefits to industry.
Over the past 24 years, OIT has supported more than 550 separate research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects, producing over 140 technologies. In 1999 alone, successfully commercialized technologies saved more than 185 trillion Btu in measured savings. While these energy savings are impressive, industry has reaped even greater benefits from the productivity improvements, reduced resource consumption, decreased emissions, and enhancements to product quality associated with these technological advances. In addition, many OIT-supported projects have significantly contributed to expanding basic knowledge about complex industrial processes and laid the foundation for the development of future energy-efficient technologies.
Since 1994, OIT has implemented an innovative, customer-driven research strategy known as Industries of the Future. This strategy ensures that OIT projects meet the country's needs and make the most of limited research resources by helping to focus public and private technology investments on industry's most critical research needs.
The Industries of the Future strategy has made it possible for entire industries, many for the first time, to work together to define and pursue their top priorities for RD&D. The new approach takes full advantage of the unique insights and resources industry can bring to the research planning and implementation process. Industry's involvement essentially ensures adoption and use of the successful energy-efficient technologies.
The Industries of the Future strategy effectively integrates a broad range of efforts to meet industry's current and future needs.
- Collaborative RD&D focused on selected, energyintensive industries, including agriculture, aluminum, chemicals, glass, forest products, metalcasting, mining, petroleum and steel.
- RD&D in enabling technologies, applicable to a wide range of manufacturing industries, including combustion, sensors and controls, advanced materials, continuous-fiber ceramic composites and distributed generation.
- Technical assistance through the provision of energy and environmental plant assessments as well as data, decision tools, and recognition programs promoting adoption of a new system approach to increasing the efficiency of electric motors and driver systems, compressed air, and steam.
- Financial assistance to encourage cooperative demonstrations of emerging technologies and the development of energy-saving ideas and innovations by inventors and small businesses.
- State Assistance to aid in providing similar support to industry at the state level to that provided by OIT at the national level.
The Industries of the Future process has been widely heralded as a model for public-private partnerships. It affords industry a strong voice in the allocation of federal industrial research dollars while enabling OIT to maximize research productivity. The process takes advantage of the inherent relationship between efficiency and production costs, using market drivers to help focus scarce resources where they can effect the greatest improvements in U.S industrial efficiency.
The Industries of the Future is a winning proposition for participating companies, U.S. industry as a whole, and the entire nation. Participating manufacturers, suppliers, and vendors expand their technical knowledge base, gain access to complementary technical expertise and facilities, and acquire a bigger voice in directing RD&D in their industry. Although participating private firms may be the first to benefit from more efficient technologies through pilot testing or demonstration programs, all U.S. industries can benefit from these technologies once they have been commercialized.
Project contact: Joe Roop