US: Georgia-Pacific’s Sweetwater West gypsum wallboard plant in Texas has completed an upgrade to its board-drying equipment. It has installed an Energy Optimization System (EOS), also known as a waste heat recovery unit, including new ducting, two new fans and a new exhaust stack, to an existing four-zone dryer. The newly upgraded system enables the collection of the waste exhaust from three zones of the plant and injects it into a fourth zone. This enables the burner in that zone to operate at a lower capacity. Around 2500t/yr of CO2 is saved in the process.
David Neal, vice president of Gypsum Operations for Georgia-Pacific said, “Advancements in energy savings and resource consumption reduction are goals toward which Georgia-Pacific works every single day.”
Georgia-Pacific started building a second wallboard plant next to its Sweetwater West plant in late 2020. The new 65Mm2/yr unit was scheduled to start production in late 2022.
