 Levinson Productivity
Systems, P.C.William A. Levinson, P.E. Principal 570-824-1986  |
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Use everything but the squeal
Avoid the waste in the first place
The Fuel Cell: an innovative way to "burn" coal
Use Everything but the Squeal"He perfected new processes— the very smoke which had once poured from his chimneys was now made into automobile parts" (Upton Sinclair, 1937, The Flivver King).Is ISO 14000 a costly and time-consuming annoyance with which you have to comply to make your customers happy? Is it an expensive marketing tool that makes your business look environmentally-"green?" Henry Ford showed that it can make you an enormous amount of money. Ford, who lived in an era when he could have legally dumped into the river whatever wouldn't go up the smokestack, could have met today's ISO 14000 simply by documenting his environmental management system. Here are the basic principles, which can be implemented through a good environmantal management system (EMS)."Black smoke is unconsumed carbon— nascent heat— lost energy— wasted coal. A smoking chimney registers money lost" (The System Company, How to Get More Out of Your Factory. London: A. W. Shaw Company, Ltd. 1911, 28).
- "Use everything but the squeal." Find a use for materials that would normally be considered environmental waste.
- Don't make the waste in the first place.
Sausages,
sausages... this reminds me of Upton Sinclair's better-known book, The
Jungle. The Jungle's purpose was to expose the plight of
meat-packing
factory workers in Chicago, "Hog Butcher to the World" at the beginning
of the 20th century. Many readers didn't get far enough in the book to
read about the workers' plight because there was a very graphic
description
of the workings of a meat-packing factory near the beginning. The key point, though, is the meat-packing industry's adage, "Use everything but the squeal." When an animal was processed, the idea was to find a use for every single piece of material.You got leather as well as meat. Intestines became "natural sausage casings." Stores still sell pickled pigs' feet and, as for "head cheese"-- well, it involves the pig's head and it certainly isn't cheese. By this time, vegetarianism starts to look very attractive...
Henry Ford, who grew up on a farm and who therefore may have been familiar with animal "processing," applied this principle to his industries. "Nothing will come from nothing," said King Lear, but Ford wrote in Today and Tomorrow (1926), "It is not possible long to continue to get something for nothing, but it is possible to get something from what was once considered nothing." This one sentence encompasses the entire principle of getting the most out of every piece of material.
- "We treat each tree as wood until nothing remains which is serviceable as wood, and then we treat what remains as a chemical compound to be broken down into other chemical compounds which we can use in our business" (Henry Ford, Today and Tomorrow). Ford's wood distillation plant produced $12,000 worth of products every day (methanol, charcoal, and other products). This was enough to pay 2000 workers Ford's then-high $6/day minimum wage. In other words, instead of pitching leftover wood into a landfill (and possibly paying someone to take it way), Ford was able to effectively get 2000 workers for free.
- The charcoal briquette was originally a Ford product. It came from wood chips that were left over from lumbering operations.
- Ford's blast furnaces produced 500 tons of slag every day. Of these, 225 tons went into cement and the other 275 tons were used to pave roads.
- "Why should a crate or a packing box once used be considered only as so much waste to be smashed and burned?" (Ford, 1926, Today and Tomorrow).
- Ford told his workers to open crates without using crowbars, which might have damaged them. Empty crates were sent back for "another load." Note, however, the desirability of being able to knock down the crates into flat parts so you don't end up shipping mostly air back to your supplier. This is what Ford's River Rouge plant actually did.
- There's a legend that certain wooden boxes, which Ford had his suppliers make to very specific dimensions, were disassembled and incorporated into Model Ts as floorboards. What would have been waste (or raw material for the distillation plant) became part of the product.
- Scrap paper was converted into binder board, waterproof board, and heavy cardboard.
The Fuel Cell: an innovative way to "burn" coal"…we will not so lightly waste material simply because we can reclaim it— for salvage involves labour. The ideal is to have nothing to salvage" (Henry Ford, 1926, Today and Tomorrow).
The
reaction of coal with steam produces hydrogen,
which is an ideal fuel for fuel cells. Even Kyotoists who dislike the
"discard to atmosphere" suggestion for the carbon dioxide will like the
idea of bypassing the the efficiency limits of traditional power
generation cycles that work by transferring heat from a hot reservoir
to a cold one. The Carnot cycle (a theoretical best-case) does not
limit the efficiency of the chemical reaction of hydrogen in a fuel cell to make electricity. This method therefore makes less carbon dioxide than a traditional coal-burning plant but it has the potential to reduce energy costs because not as much coal is needed per kilowatt-hour.