Activity
  • Functional Safety, a SIF-Based Approach, and Burner Management

    Earlier this week, Emerson’s Chuck Miller and Mike Boudreaux were at the ChemInnovations 2010 conference in Houston, Texas. During this session, presenters talked about topics related to safety and security for instrumentation, automation, and control...
  • Efficiently Cracking Hydrocarbons in Ethylene Furnaces

    A few weeks ago, I relayed a story from Emerson’s James Beall about a process of ongoing plant control performance improvements on which he’s been working with a process manufacturer. He said he had another great story about an ethylene furnace optimization...
  • Reducing Distillation Column Energy Usage

    I saw some startling facts in a presentation by Emerson’s Pete Sharpe, whom you may recall from many process optimization-related posts. This week he visited The Automation Group (TAG) office in Houston, to discuss distillation and fired heater optimization...
  • Practical Ways to Save Energy in Your Plant

    A recent Wall Street Journal article, U.S. Expects Steady Climb in Energy Prices opens: Energy prices are undergoing a long, slow march higher as major economies shake off the effects of last year’s recession, the U.S. Energy Information Administration...
  • Ethylene Process Loss Reduction and Energy Efficiency Improvement

    Reconciling Mass and Energy Balances in an Ethylene Complex is the name of a presentation recently given by Emerson’s Patrick Truesdale. The venue was the 2009 AIChE annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. Patrick is a senior consultant on the Industry...