ETAC Helps Manufacturers Save Money, Jobs and the Environment by Going Green
Today’s manufacturers are facing a triple threat — skyrocketing energy costs, materials shortages and natural disasters are putting a severe strain on supply chains. Mike Vasilik believes one of the keys to saving manufacturing in Pennsylvania is to “go green.”
Vasilik is director of the Electrotechnology Applications Center (ETAC), which helps manufacturers improve energy efficiency, achieve and maintain environmental compliance and improve productivity and manufacturing efficiency.
“Energy, environment and productivity are all tied together,” says Vasilik, who has led the Northampton Community College (NCC)-based center for the past nine years. “When we increase energy efficiency for a company, we find environmental savings. When we find environmental savings, we inevitably find cost savings. This approach will help save and create manufacturing jobs all over Pennsylvania.”
Helping Companies Save Money, Energy
This past year, ETAC assisted more than 140 companies, with projected annual cost savings of $6.5 million, energy savings of 22 million kilowatt-hours, water savings of 81 million gallons and pollution reductions of 4.9 million tons of emissions and 2,000 tons of solid waste.
ETAC, which started 11 years ago as a partnership between PPL Electric Utilities, NCC and Ben Franklin, is focused on helping manufacturers improve heating, drying, coating, curing, and other processes. Ben Franklin also provided ETAC with seed funding and business planning assistance. “It’s difficult to go through a manufacturing site without seeing some of these processes in operation, and there are always ways to improve energy usage and reduce the environmental footprint,” Vasilik says.
ETAC specializes in the use of infrared, ultraviolet, radio frequency, microwave, electron beam and other emerging technologies — all of which have niches where they operate best. For example, e‑beams are highly effective at destroying volatile organic compounds, toxic by‑products of many manufacturing processes.
Affordable for Small Businesses
“With technology improvements in e‑beams, prices have been coming way down,” Vasilik says. “Many small to mid-size companies don’t realize they can afford them, particularly with some of the state loans that are available.”
While ETAC has done work with such well-known Pennsylvania companies as Easton-based Binney and Smith and Pittsburgh Brewing Company, 80 percent of its clients are small businesses with fewer than 100 employees. Recent projects include:
- Helping Sinking Springs-based Henson Company improve its process for making wrestling uniforms, enabling the company to maintain its market leadership.
- Improving the effectiveness of eye surgical instruments for Exeter-based Surgical Specialties.
- Conducting a study to help United Corrstack in Reading use “opportunity” (waste) fuels to power a cogeneration plant.
While most of its clients are Pennsylvania based, ETAC’s expertise has gained it a national reputation. “For example, there is a $100 billion operation in Alberta, Canada to convert oil sand to oil by burning natural gas to create steam to sweat the oil out,” Vasilik says. “The problem is they are not developing a new energy source to help the worldwide energy crisis. Their energy/profit ratio [energy freed up divided by energy used] is one — that is, the amount of energy expended to retrieve the oil is equal to the amount of energy the oil will generate.”
Making Energy from Waste
ETAC is also working with another company that is about to launch a system that can efficiently turn garbage — in the form of municipal solid waste — into energy pellets. “We’re going to run out of fossil fuel in about 25 to 30 years, so we need to start preparing now,” Vasilik says. “Imagine being able to process our landfills back into usable energy.”
BFTP plays a vital role in helping bring ETAC’s potential to companies. “Throughout our existence, we’ve always had funding or project-specific work coming through BFTP, as well as input on strategy and marketing through their role as a member of our board,” Vasilik says. “These collaborative efforts are helping retain and create manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania. Some new technologies are very sophisticated and effective, but can be beyond the reach of small companies. We are always seeking lower-cost solutions, and BFTP has proven to be a great partner in these efforts.”
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