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Postscript
Postscript
As with any book, there is an element of ‘a labour of love’ in the creation of this workbook. Some of the information in the book is obtainable from other sources but it is invariably general and not specific to plastics processing. This makes it difficult for managers in the plastics industry to access the information and to assess how relevant it is to their operations. My experience and efforts in energy management in plastics processing are driven by a desire to improve competitiveness in the industry but also a desire to make a real difference in terms of energy consumption in both the developed and the developing world. Whatever happens with ‘climate change’, the security of supply of fossil fuels will continue to be variable and the generation and supply of energy based on these fuels will become more expensive in the future. In a very real sense, ‘we are not building a brick wall – we are building a cathedral’. This is a workbook and not a sacred text, it is designed for real use in real plastics processing companies. Please use and abuse it as such. All of the concepts and projects discussed in the book will work in practice but it can never be comprehensive in scope or coverage. If you have some good projects that work really well then let me know and I can include them in the next edition. Equally, if you have projects that do not work out then let me know and I can include them in the next edition! When the first edition of this book was planned, over 10 years ago, it was going to be a ‘small’ introduction to energy but rapidly grew into a whole book. In the 10 410
years since then the field has grown considerably and this edition is even larger to reflect this. As always, I dread the thought of producing the next edition. The variety of the plastics processing industry means that this can never be a definitive work – space and time do not permit this. Much of the information is informed by my own experiences in the field and if I have no practical experience with a specific process then the data are necessarily reduced. If there are significant omissions then please let me know and I will attempt to update the text for future editions. I have acknowledged as many of the sources as possible in the text but it is impossible to acknowledge all those people who contributed practical assistance and ideas (good and bad) during my time in the plastics industry. Many of these people are the unrecognised heroes of energy management; they are the facilities and maintenance managers around the world who daily strive to reduce energy use at their sites. I would like to thank all these people for their continued tolerance and enthusiasm in delivering sustainable change. They are the people who make the difference.
A final thought from H. L. Mencken: ‘For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.’ Postscript
As with any book, there is an element of ‘a labour of love’ in the creation of this workbook. Some of the information in the book is obtainable from other sources but it is invariably general and not specific to plastics processing. This makes it difficult for managers in the plastics industry to access the information and to assess how relevant it is to their operations. My experience and efforts in energy management in plastics processing are driven by a desire to improve competitiveness in the industry but also a desire to make a real difference in terms of energy consumption in both the developed and the developing world. Whatever happens with ‘climate change’, the security of supply of fossil fuels will continue to be variable and the generation and supply of energy based on these fuels will become more expensive in the future. In a very real sense, ‘we are not building a brick wall – we are building a cathedral’. This is a workbook and not a sacred text, it is designed for real use in real plastics processing companies. Please use and abuse it as such. All of the concepts and projects discussed in the book will work in practice but it can never be comprehensive in scope or coverage. If you have some good projects that work really well then let me know and I can include them in the next edition. Equally, if you have projects that do not work out then let me know and I can include them in the next edition! When the first edition of this book was planned, over 10 years ago, it was going to be a ‘small’ introduction to energy but rapidly grew into a whole book. In the 10 410
years since then the field has grown considerably and this edition is even larger to reflect this. As always, I dread the thought of producing the next edition. The variety of the plastics processing industry means that this can never be a definitive work – space and time do not permit this. Much of the information is informed by my own experiences in the field and if I have no practical experience with a specific process then the data are necessarily reduced. If there are significant omissions then please let me know and I will attempt to update the text for future editions. I have acknowledged as many of the sources as possible in the text but it is impossible to acknowledge all those people who contributed practical assistance and ideas (good and bad) during my time in the plastics industry. Many of these people are the unrecognised heroes of energy management; they are the facilities and maintenance managers around the world who daily strive to reduce energy use at their sites. I would like to thank all these people for their continued tolerance and enthusiasm in delivering sustainable change. They are the people who make the difference.
A final thought from H. L. Mencken: ‘For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.’ Postscript