Decarbonisation
The best vision is insights
G
lasgow made it very clear again; the way we manufacture glass will have to change to become carbon neutral and we have less than 30 years to do so. There is no doubt glass manufacturing is an energy intensive industry and being forced to move away from using fossil fuel
will need both a change of technology and, most probably a different mindset. Since the introduction of the regenerative furnaces, the glass industry came a long way achieving, year after year, the highest energy efficiency improvement figures among energy
intensive industries. Unfortunately, the efficiency improvement of traditional fossil fuel fired furnaces came almost to a standstill around 2000. Does that tell us this technology has been pushed to its energy efficiency limits? Not yet, but it is close to these limits and new melting technologies and the use of renewable energy needs to be considered. Many new glass furnace designs will emerge, but, before we even dive into what the furnace of the future should look like, we need to answer some other important questions: “What type of renewable energy will become sufficiently available, is it suitable for our processes, will it be energy efficient enough, will it be available at a commercially acceptable price and at the locations where glass manufacturing sites are found?”
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Rene Meuleman* describes some of the alternative fuels for glassmaking and states any move away from fossil fuels will require a change in mindset as well as technology.
21 Glass International December/January 2022
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