March/April 2012
Vol. 3 No. 2
®
publishing affiliate of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, International®
Contents
Features
18 Cover Story
Is LED right for MFG?
12 lighting manufacturers say “It depends” or “Yes siree!”
LED lighting’s energy efficiency, safety, and brightness are well-documented. But is it right for use in factories? Some lighting manufacturers maintain that LEDs are suitable for niche applications in industrial plants but
are not ready to replace metal halide and fluorescent bulbs; others assert
that LED is full-on ready for high-bay and general area illumination.
On the cover: Cover photo of White Wave Foods Plant Engineer Toby Duveneck by Andrew
Shurtoff for Green Manufacturer.
28LED lighting retrofit is organic for ecoresponsible food producer
WhiteWave Foods implemented a 650-fixture high-bay LED lighting retrofit
throughout its Virginia plant that saves it $15,000 per month in electricity,
eliminates most of the maintenance required to change out fixtures, and
reduces the cold warehouse’s chiller energy consumption by a third. The
greatest savings came as a result of the less frequent lighting changeouts.
The LEDs in the cold-storage area are expected to last about 12 years.
31 Sage Supplier: How North American manufacturers are supplying to solar
On the surface, it may appear that the barrier to entry to supply the solar
energy segment is too high to hurdle. Not so. Many North American manufacturers have gotten into the solar energy industry as suppliers either by
manufacturing the balance of system or by making some rather imaginative alternatives to the standard crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules.
38Bioenergy fuels green paper mills Modern biofuel technology incorporates cogeneration capabilities, also
called combined heat and power (CHP), to produce both electricity and
heat or steam from one fuel source. For one energy-intensive industry—
paper manufacturing—biofuel has long been a fuel of choice. Some paper
manufacturers double as producers of bioenergy that they sell to utilities.
42Optimal handling of end-of-life electronics means recycling Electronic waste is a growing, 50-million-tons-a-year problem. When electronics’ toxic components are dumped in landfills, they create a hazardous
legacy for current and future generations. Zero-landfill efforts, regulations
prohibiting curbside disposal, data protection concerns, and environmental liabilities are driving manufacturers to look for legal and environmentally safe methods for e-waste disposal.
18
38
