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Years ago I did some process and project management consulting for a big powertrain manufacturer in Maryland. They used to be (part of) an American company, but
by ubermonkey 5y ago
Years ago I did some process and project management consulting for a big powertrain manufacturer in Maryland. They used to be (part of) an American company, but as time passed the became a unit of a Swedish one.
Power train manufacturers have, by necessity, something they called test cells. They're rooms where an engine can be attached to a dummy shaft and run to evaluate changes to design, or test assumptions, or any of a million other things.
In Maryland, no attempt was made to capture the work done by these engines, nor was any attempt made to get value from the (hot!) exhaust.
At a similar facility in Sweden, though, the test cell engine output was tied to a power generation and storage setup, and the exhaust was captured to heat the building.
They were built at the same time. It's always baffled me.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoAlmost certainly due to different regulatory regimes. One would have accounted for the pollution and costs and the other wouldn't basically instructing the corporation to be wasteful and pollute unless it wanted to lose money by doing so.
- cormacrelf 5y agoThis isn’t a very deep observation. We haven’t even been told that the Swedish plant’s test-engine-heater wasn’t saving them money. Maybe the Swedes are just smart and good at spotting opportunities to reuse heat? If it was due to regulation, what regulation?
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI thought the commenter was indicating that both plants were built at the same time by the same Swedish company, in two different regulatory regimes. So I feel my take is plausible in this specific instance as well as generically.
- cormacrelf 5y agoI don't think that was implied, only that the Maryland plant came to be owned later by the Swedes, who then owned both plants. I would have been interested to hear "Swedish regulation of waste heat is highly stringent and nearly every spare joule is used for generation or directly for heating. This is due in part to their climate" or whatever. Your comment was like answering "why are M1 chips faster than Intel at some very specific task" by saying "they come from a different manufacturer".
- bombcar 5y agoBuilding a machine that does nothing is likely simple; but once you are using it as a generator all sorts of permits will come into play. It may still be worth doing but it may not be considered because it's a "hassle".
- moltke 5y agoHeat is really a nuisance in Maryland almost all the time, so it makes sense.