Energy Project Snapshots
Hotel Alice & Rebuild Mississippi
The Hotel Alice in Ellisville, MS, is a renovation project that is designed to bring people and businesses back into a deteriorating downwtown. The 11,500 square foot historic building is a Bed & Breakfast with a coffee shop/restaurant and an antiques shop. Their average monthly electric cost is $800, while similar businesses pay $1800 monthly.
The Rebuild Mississippi team performed technical analyses on the building envelope (lighting, windows, plumbing, gas and electrical systems, heating and cooling systems, roofing, insulation) and made numerous recommendations for energy efficiency improvements. Hotel Alice was honored as the Energy Champion for Commercial Buildings at the Rebuild America National Forum 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Soy-based Latex Paints
American Pride, an evironmentally friendly paint, is the focus of an Energy Division grant and special project with the University of Southern Mississippi's School of Polymers and High Performance Materials. The project focuses on producing high performance products from agriculture raw materials to meet an unmet industrial and societal need for paints that contain no volatile organic compound emissions, and with little or no odor. The project will incorporate energy conservation farming practices in the production of the agricultural feedstock.
Conventional paint contains volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which pollute the air and give fresh paint its unpleasant odor. The new technology developed at Southern Miss will remove the VOCs from the paint, cutting the level of pollutants from, typically, 200-400 grams per liter of paint to as low as three grams.
Dr. Shelby Thames
President
University of Southern Mississippi
In developing the paint, Southern Miss researchers, under Thames' direction, developed a monomer, a chemical building block, from an agricultural product — in this case, castor oil — which is built into the chemical base of the paint. The monomer, called a "castor oil acrylated monomer," takes the place of a solvent in the formulation of the paint. That, in turn, dramatically reduces the amount of toxic pollutants given off by water-based paint into the atmosphere.
At least 20,000 gallons of American Pride paint will be used to paint one-fifth of the interior walls in the Pentagon, as well as repaint the wing damaged in the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. A soy-based paint industry and several ancillary businesses will be the projected outcome of this ongoing proejct.
Laurel Lumber
As a result of their participation in the Division's Energy Investment Loan Program, Laurel Lumber in Laurel, MS was awarded a low-interest loan for $300,000 to discontinue using natural gas-fired burners in their kilns. Instead the company will utilize a portion of the waste wood generated in the dressing process to fire a steam boiler, and the generated steam will then be used to heat the kilns and dry the lumber. This project will produce a savings of approximately $190,000 because of the elimination of the natural gas cost.
Mississippi River Corporation
The Mississippi River Corporation is a large industrial facility located in Natchez, Mississippi. This company used loan proceeds from the Energy Investment Loan Program to install heat exchangers that capture heat from process water that would otherwise be wasted. The loan was for $283,659, and the anticipated savings are approximately $1,800 per day.
The Red Hills Ecoplex and Power Project
This is one of the most innovative projects presently ongoing in the state of Mississippi. Located near Ackerman, MS, the Red Hills EcoPlex is a multi-tenant, ecological industrial park designed to minimize waste and pollution and maximize a company's profits. The Red Hills EcoPlex is designed around the concept of industrial ecology, companies within the EcoPlex will exchange by-products. One company's waste becomes another company's source of energy or another product. This concept is now being incorporated into several other energy projects that are developing in Mississippi. Industries are realizing that co-locating with energy facilities offers opportunities for reasonably priced energy, interchange of waste and general economic benefits not readily available when locating as a stand alone industry. For more information about the Red Hills EcoPlex, contact Monty Montgomery.
For more information:
Energy Division
Telephone: 601.359.6600
Fax: 601.359.6642
energydiv@mississippi.org