Rubber & Plastics
The Rubber and Plastics Market manufactures products from raw materials such as ‘plastic resins, natural and synthetic rubber, reclaimed rubber, gutta percha, balata, and gutta siak" (p. 3).1 An enormous variety of goods are produced from these ingredients. Among these are plastics for beverage and food containers, DVD's, kitchen utensils, foam for noise abatement, blister packaging for shipping, and resin fuel tanks.1 Rubber products include industrial belts and hoses, molded products, roofing and sealing products, and tires.1

CHP installations in the Gulf Coast region (Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas) include the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Oklahoma, Bayer Corporation rubber plant in Texas and the Himont USA facility in Louisiana.2 For more on CHP in the rubber and plastics market, go to Current Status.

For a more detailed view of the industry, see Profile of the Rubber and Plastics Industry.

Additional information is available about the:

• Current Status
• Future Potential
• Benefits, Challenges & Solutions

The Plastics Industry is facing severe pressure from overseas imports. With China alone, the United States has gone from a trade surplus in plastics of $894 million in 2000 to a trade deficit in plastics of $3.72 billion in 2002.1 The US plastics industry is no longer considered to be competitive with products from offshore producers.1

Similarly, the ratio of industrial rubber imports to exports has dropped. Presently, it is approximately 2:1.1 The Rubber industry is considered to be only moderately competitive against developing producers.1 Domestic tire manufacturing capacity has also plummeted. Also, corporate mergers and acquisitions have resulted in foreign ownership of roughly half of the US domestic tire manufacturing capacity.1

In addition to these competitive issues, other issues include an aging boiler inventory, costly grid power outages and power quality problems, and increasingly strict air quality standards. All are putting pressure on the rubber and plastics market to cut costs and emissions, and to increase efficiency.

Power is a significant expense of the manufacturing process. In 2004, the rubber and plastics market purchased 3.2 billion dollars of electricity and 950 million dollars of fuel for heat and power.5 In the same year, this market self-generated an additional 673 million kWh of electricity.5 Only 1% of the electricity used by this market was self-generated.5

The rubber and plastics industry has significant potential for CHP. Only 18% of the total estimated CHP capacity is currently installed.3 This leaves a substantial amount of CHP capacity that could be used to reduce heating and power costs, to increase energy efficiency, and to generate revenue through sales of excess capacity. (For more on these topics, go to Future Potential.)

For a diagrammatic summary of this market's energy use and loss, please see the U.S. Department of Energy's Plastics and Rubber Products Footprint.

CHP systems generated energy cost savings, increased energy efficiencies, lowered CO2, and NOx emissions, and improved energy reliability and quality.

Issues included oversensitivity to grid power quality changes, which tripped the system into "island mode". And individual pieces of equipment underperformed, which were repaired or replaced.


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