Bloomberg Government, a new media outlet focused on the business implications of government, recently profiled the remarkable economic and environmental benefits of waste heat recovery and other energy recycling techniques. The article also covers the efforts of members of the Alliance for Industrial Efficiency—including RED, GE, Dow Chemical, Sierra Club, and others—to ensure this clean energy solution gets the recognition it deserves in Washington.

During the last U.S. Congressional session, the Alliance advocated for industrial energy efficiency tax incentives that would increase manufacturing competitiveness, create jobs, and reduce pollution. The incentives bills, S. 1639 (sponsored by Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM and Olympia Snowe, R-ME), and H.R. 4751 (sponsored by Rep. Paul Tonko, D-NY and Dean Heller, R-NV), received strong bipartisan support but didn’t make it into the final tax package.

RED’s Tom Casten, quoted in the piece, gets right to the point: “[Waste heat recovery] is a tremendous opportunity to cut costs, the amount of fuel we are burning, and to cut CO2.”

Exactly. So it’s time to enact legislation that puts energy recycling on the same footing with other clean energy sources like wind and solar.  The article explains why:

• “As much as 20 percent to 50 percent of the energy that manufacturing processes consume is released as waste heat, according to a 2008 Energy Department report. That power can be used by the factory where it’s captured, sold to the local power grid, or both.”
• “Heat vented from facilities such as steel mills, cement kilns, glass manufacturers and natural-gas compressor stations could generate enough clean energy to power more than 7 million homes, based on a study by ICF International … That is the equivalent of $4.3 billion in annual electricity costs.”
• “Together, waste heat and cogeneration can provide as much as 20 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030, equal to the amount now generated by the nuclear-power industry, [according to] the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.”

Tax incentives for energy recycling would also help industry meet planned EPA carbon dioxide emissions standards. The EPA’s recently issued guidance for greenhouse gas emissions permits (PSD and Title V Permitting Guidance for Greenhouse Gases) makes energy efficiency the centerpiece of its compliance options. It recognizes energy recycling techniques including waste heat recovery and combined heat and power (CHP) as cost-effective ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial sector.

Sen. Bingaman plans to work with Sen. Snowe to advance the tax breaks this year, according to a statement issued by his staff on Dec. 17.

So there you have it. Let’s hope this is the first of many big stories in 2011 on benefits of waste heat — and that this is the year Congress gives it its due.

Too often, the business community and the Environmental Protection Agency seem to be at odds. But recently, the EPA has earned praise from a variety of business groups for recognizing energy recycling as a good way to cut greenhouse emissions.

EPA’s recently issued guidance for greenhouse gas emissions permits (PSD and Title V Permitting Guidance for Greenhouse Gases) makes energy efficiency the centerpiece of its compliance options. It recognizes energy recycling techniques including combined heat and power (CHP) and waste heat recovery as cost-effective ways to cut greenhouse pollution in the industrial sector. It also explicitly mentions CHP and waste heat recovery as Best Available Control Technologies (BACT), which will allow industrial plants to employ energy recycling techniques as a way to satisfy EPA’s permitting requirements.

This decision caused the Alliance for Industrial Efficiency to praise the EPA in a comment letter written on behalf of several businesses and business organizations, including RED, the Glass Manufacturing Industry Council, Mechanical Contractors Association of America, National Electrical Contractors Association, Ormat Technologies Inc., and The Association of Union Constructors.

The beauty of the EPA move is that it’s as good for the economy as it is for the environment.  As the EPA recognizes, energy recycling offers proven techniques that can dramatically improve the energy efficiency of industrial plants. It’s a win-win that reduces emissions andenhances the competitiveness of American manufacturers by reducing energy costs, typically a top operating expense.

As RED’s Tom Casten said, “It’s a myth that we can’t grow our economy and reduce greenhouse emissions at the same time. By improving the efficiency of large industrial plants, which account for about one-third of total U.S. energy demand, we can lower energy costs, increase productivity, create jobs and help the planet.”

Of course, more can be done, and the Alliance is calling on the EPA to strengthen its proposal by requiring all facilities to consider CHP and waste heat recovery at the beginning of the permit process. It also recommended the EPA create a comprehensive, searchable database of BACT determinations and available technologies for all industrial sectors, to ensure that regulated entities can consider all available options.

We hope the EPA agrees to these recommendations. They’ll make a good decision even better.

A growing coalition of business, labor, and environmental groups has rallied together to support investment tax credits for combined heat and power and energy recycling projects. The Alliance for Industrial Efficiency sent letters to the Senate Finance Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, urging them to include an industrial energy efficiency provision in their final tax packages.

Since I last wrote about this effort, the coalition has grown to 122, and now includes such new notables as the United Steelworkers, The Pew Environment Group and ArcelorMittal.

Why are organizations with such varied interests uniting on this issue? Because energy recycling dramatically improves industrial energy efficiency, and therefore increases manufacturing competitiveness and creates jobs — all while reducing pollution.

As our own Tom Casten put it, “The industrial sector is a huge consumer of power, yet it’s often overlooked in the quest for energy efficiency. Manufacturers that recycle their waste energy can typically cut energy expenses by 20 percent, making them more competitive while slashing carbon emissions. Companies can then reinvest those savings in hiring more workers and expanding production.…

The industrial energy provision can already be found in S. 1639 (sponsored by Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM and Olympia Snowe, R-ME), H.R. 4751 (sponsored by Reps. Paul Tonko, D-NY and Dean Heller, R-NV), and in the House Ways and Means Committee’s draft energy tax package. If enacted, the bipartisan provision would create and preserve jobs within the industrial sector, including for the manufacture, installation, and operation of combined heat and power and waste energy recovery equipment.

Recycled energy, which captures waste energy from industrial facilities, now receives no tax benefits. Combined heat and power, a highly efficient process that generates both electricity and heat on site (also known as cogeneration or CHP), currently obtains only a 10 percent investment tax credit for the first 15 megawatts of a project limited to 50 megawatts in size. The legislative proposals in the House and Senate would encourage more large-scale projects by removing the cap, applying the tax credit to a project’s first 25 megawatts, and adding a 30 percent tax credit for recycled energy and combined heat and power projects with efficiencies above 70 percent. For comparison, the average U.S. power plant is only 33 percent efficient.

At the end of the day, it’s a small change to the tax code that can make a very big difference for our economy and the planet. Let’s hope our elected leaders are listening.

On a warm summer night in Chicago, thousands gathered in Millennium Park to watch the new documentary Carbon Nation. Recycled Energy Development’s own Sean Casten is featured in the film discussing energy recycling as a profitable way to mitigate climate change. “I don’t know of any bigger opportunity to make more money reducing more C02 than this one. So, if you don’t give a damn about the environment, do it because you’re a greedy bastard and just want cheap power,” says Casten.

The much buzzed-about film attracted a Who’s Who of Chicago media, government and business leaders, including journalist Bill Kurtis, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and producer/businessman Craig Sieben.

This solutions-based, “big tent film” about tackling climate change while boosting the economy inspired the audience.  Let’s hope other cities embrace it as warmly as our hometown has.

We hope you’ll be hearing a lot more about energy recycling now that several companies in the field have teamed up to launch a new initiative called Heat is Power. The goal is to educate lawmakers and the public about the enormous potential of the type of energy recycling known as waste heat recovery—or as they put it, “WH2E” (waste heat to electricity)—to help solve our energy woes and put America back to work. According to Heat is Power, WH2E is the “missing link to America’s clean energy future” and has the potential to “boost U.S. competitiveness and keep American industry in America by providing a new source of profit or cheap onsite clean electricity for our industrial manufacturers.”

The group also points out that, “no country is yet a leader in exports of this technology… American companies today can manufacture this technology with greater than 90% American content. Capturing the export market of this technology will catapult the United States in the global clean energy race and result in the creation of sustained American manufacturing jobs.”

The Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) just released the results of a comprehensive study on how to improve industrial energy efficiency. It makes an important point: it pays to invest in recycled energy.

Conducted by Keybridge Research and the University of Maryland’s Inforum Modeling Project, the study looked at IECA’s Sustainable Manufacturing & Growth Initiative policy recommendations, which include investment tax credits for combined heat and power (CHP) and recycled energy, a Clean Energy Standard Offer Program (CESOP) and other proposals. The researchers found that implementing IECA’s recommendations would dramatically improve American manufacturing competitiveness and:

• Increase real GDP by $77 billion in 2020.
• Increase cumulative employment by 9.4 million job-years in 2010-2030.
• Increase cumulative private investment by more than $1 trillion in 2010-2030.
• Increase family income by an average of $788 (0.68%) in 2020.
• Increase cumulative net exports by $392 billion in 2010-2030.
• Reduce energy-related GHG emissions by 13% in 2020.

The study goes on to say that “the net fiscal cost associated with the IECA recommendations would be less than 0.1% of discretionary government spending between 2011-2030, and would result in a cumulative increase in real GDP growth that is approximately 20 times greater than the cumulative net fiscal cost — providing U.S. taxpayers with significant ‘bang for the buck.’”

Forget stockyards and railroads. The City of Big Shoulders, RED’s very own sweet home Chicago, has become a national center for energy recycling — the most cost-effective clean energy solution around.

As RED’s own Sean Casten pointed out at the Environmental Law & Policy Center’s recent forum on Chicago’s clean energy economy, the Windy City is home to several energy recycling companies. It also boasts numerous research institutions and associations focused on this kind of clean energy, including the Energy Resources Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Midwest CHP Application Center, which coordinates our region’s combined heat and power technologies.

Chicago also has several CHP and waste energy recovery projects nearby. For example, just south of the city, ArcelorMittal Steel’s smelters capture waste energy from their coke ovens and stacks in order to generate about as much electricity as a small coal-fired power plant, all without burning additional fossil fuel or emitting pollution or greenhouse gases.

Chicago as HQ for the leading energy-recycling businesses, research centers and installations makes it a great center for energy innovation.

No wonder we like it here.

When you’ve got Dow Chemical, the Sierra Club, and the Sheet Metal Workers union agreeing on something, you know it’s got to be good.

A slew of organizations have signed a letter urging Congress to pass bills that would promote energy recycling at industrial facilities. These organizations range from environmentalists to manufacturers to unions to contractors.

What’s this eclectic bunch pushing for? We want investment tax credits to encourage combined heat and power (CHP) and waste energy recovery, probably the best ways to slash greenhouse gas emissions and power costs simultaneously. The specific bills include:

• S. 1639, sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
• H.R. 4144, sponsored by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA)
• H.R. 4751, sponsored by Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY)
• H.R. 4455 sponsored by Representatives Mike Thompson (D-CA) and John Linder (R-GA)

These bills would encourage near-term, shovel-ready projects that will create and maintain thousands of jobs. Moreover, as I pointed out in a recent E&E TV interview, energy costs would fall through increased efficiency. Not bad.

In the heart of coal country, a simple truth is gaining traction: recycled energy is clean energy.

West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin just signed legislation designating recycled energy a renewable source of power within the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). That’s a big deal: it means utilities—which already have to buy a portion of their power from alternative and renewable sources—are now more likely to buy recycled energy from West Virginia manufacturers. The result will be a stronger manufacturing sector, more jobs, and a cleaner environment.

So what’s the takeaway here? It’s this: clean energy is clean energy, and it should be rewarded no matter what form it takes. Wind is clean. Solar is clean. Recycled energy is clean. All of it matters. We can’t be narrow-minded about what pathways to a clean energy economy we’re willing to pursue. If something works, we need to reward it.

West Virginia gets that. Which state is next?

Experts on technology and the environment gathered in New York last week to save the world. In a daylong summit hosted by TIME Magazine and the World Technology Network, various clean energy gurus “explored long-term, short-term and game-changing technologies and strategies that can re-shape our lives, our businesses, our policies, our planet, our future.” The theme? “Reality check: Technologies Putting Us on the Path to Sustainability.”

Reality-based thinking may seem novel these days, but it was in abundance at this summit. Our own Tom Casten joined a panel on alternative energies moderated by TIME’s Bryan Walsh. Although Tom’s beat is combined heat and power, improving our world’s energy predicament will require creative solutions from all quarters. It needs them urgently.