Abstract
Immense amounts of energy are being thrown away every day in petroleum refineries, chemical plants, and throughout all types of industrial operations. Much of this energy is at temperature levels below 350OF and is typically rejected to the atmosphere through cooling towers and air fin coolers. We will designate this as "low-level heat". Between 20 to 30% of all the energy that enters a plant is lost as low-level heat. In a 100,000 BPD refinery, this is the equivalent of about 2,500 BPD of oil, or 15 billion Btu's per day. If any improvement can be made in the recovery and reuse of this heat, the energy efficiency of our plants would be significantly increased.
Plaster, W. E. (1979). Making Use of Low-Level Heat. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu). Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /93893.