Logjams and Energy Jams Opportunities in Disguise

This issue’s cover story features the nation’s largest window manufacturer and a great American company, Andersen Corp. (see “Biomass gets famous window-maker out of a logjam”).

The manufacturer was borne of a logjam—literally. In 1903 a mileslong logjam occurred on the St. Croix River that deadlocked all flow of the thousands of logs felled from the forests nearby that were on their way to lumber mills to become the building materials of future homes and businesses. The logjam was immovable for weeks as loggers kept adding more logs to the river and expecting the river’s flow alone to unwedge the increasingly populated river.

The enterprising Hans Andersen saw the logjam as an opportunity. He purchased the troublesome logs, removed them a few miles upstream from their original sawmill destinations, and opened his own sawmill—the precursor to today’s window and door manufacturer.

Andersen’s successors have proven to be just as resourceful. When faced with the loss of their coal-fired steam source, they viewed it as an opportunity to substitute a clean, energy-efficient, renewable power alternative.

Energy Crisis, Cost Escalation

The status quo can lull people into inertia, while problem-solving sets in motion innovation and improvement. After all, as the great problem-solver Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

As domestic and international demands on motive and stationary energy burgeon, U.S. manufacturers—all North American manufacturers—face a unique opportunity. The looming energy crisis may be the best opportunity you have yet to make better choices, as Andersen has, as to what powers your manufacturing operations and facilities.

Instead of trying to unwedge the energy logjam with the same old, tired, polluting, and finite energy sources and using the same outdated, frail, and unreliable electric grid, you have an opportunity to source clean, renewable energy; install on-site energy; and engage in robust, smarter grid management.

Progressive, Not Regressive, Approaches

Solar power is the fastest growing energy sector in the U.S. and by 2014 it will likely be the largest source of new electric capacity in America, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

As for its potential, the sky’s the limit. Every hour more energy from the sun hits the earth than the world’s entire population consumes in a single year, according to many sources, including Quantum Solar Power.

Wind power could provide 20 percent of the U.S.’s electricity needs by 2030, the U.S. DOE concluded in a 2008 study. Considering that the study was conducted when the largest wind turbine generated 2.5 megawatts prompts me to wonder how much more of the U.S.’s electricity needs wind can support, now that Siemens just produced a 6-MW turbine and GE announced it is developing a 15-MW turbine.

Transmission is a way to make a lot of new wind energy possible because the current grid is constrained, according to Hans Detweiler, Clean Line Energy (read “Wind power transmission provides manufacturing opportunities” ).

Increasing electricity bills offer an opportunity to source electricity from cleaner, renewable resources and to improve an aging electricity infrastructure. High gas prices prompt looking beyond our reliance on foreign oil.

Progressive energy sources—solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass—rather than regressive energy sources are the optimal solutions to unwedge the energy jam, as well as to ensure a stronger manufacturing base and a cleaner future.