Subscribe to our 

Here is a preview of two major statistics from our State of the Industry 2009 issue.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Summary of Shipments of Pumps (2007), industrial pumps increased in value 8.1 percent, finishing 2007 with $4,847.6 million in sales. Compare this with the numbers from 2006, which reported a 1.7 precent gain in sales of industrial pumps between 2005 and 2006.

Centrifugal pumps, the biggest market within industrial pumps, increased by 11.4 percent in sales over the previous year, ending the year with $2,401.4 million. In 2006, the increase in sales for centrifugal pumps between 2005 and 2006 was only 0.2 percent.

Take it all with a grain of salt, of course. These are the numbers for 2007, not 2008, so we do not have a measure of the current sales in pumps. It should make our State of the Industry 2010 a very interesting issue. For more of these statistics, keep an eye out for our January 2009 issue.

Today ExxonMobil broke records with the highest profits ever for a U.S. company–making $14.8 billion in the third quarter and posting $37.4 billion for the year so far. That’s great news for the oil and gas business (other o&g companies like BP, Shell and ConocoPhillips have also posted higher profits for the third quarter), but may not continue in the near future given the current price of oil.

While the recent lower price per barrel of oil has been great for consumers, the low price means less money available for research & development in deep offshore drilling and oil sands. That means that in the future, we’ll still be facing decreasing fuel supplies. The lower price at the pump means people will not be inclined to limit travel as they were when the fuel price was more than $4/gallon, which will also decrease fuel supplies. Lower fuel prices also mean less time and money invested in alternative energy sources and greener transportation options.

Let’s not get too complacent when it comes to investing in energy. Just because gas is $2.50 or less per gallon, let’s make sure that we are investing in fuel supplies and energy alternatives for the future.

In an October 4, 2008, article in the Houston Chronicle, author Terri Langford revealed that bringing the pumping stations in Galveston, Texas, on-line after a storm was not a consideration in the extensive disaster plan that the city presented in February 2008. (Read the full story here.)

The pumping station failure in Galveston after Hurricane Ike was due to several factors, Langford elaborated, including the fact that the pumps were powered by natural gas, which was shut off prior to the arrival of Ike. Moreover, elements of the pumping station were outdated, including a main water tank from 1888 and almost 50-year old gas powered pumps.

In response to the pumping station failure in Galveston, Michael Howe, the executive director of the Texas division of American Water Works Association in Texas, said, “The public simply assumes that the water will always be there and the wastewater will go away.” Recent natural disasters, and past catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina, have shown that our municipal systems are still limited when it comes to preparation readiness. The public may stop assuming that the water will be there and the wastewater will go away after disasters if preparation does not improve and aging infrastructure is not updated.

As a native of Houston, Texas, I was closely watching how the city fared from Hurricane Ike. Overall, the damage has been unbelievable.

Overwhelmingly, pump stations in the area have not fared well. On Saturday, hours after landfall, a pump station in Houston failed, which meant that most of the city was without water. While the pump station seems to be up and running again, the water situation has not improved for all residents.

In Seabrook, Texas (about 35 miles southeast of Downtown Houston), the situation is even worse. Here’s the report from the website of KHOU TV, the CBS affiliate in Houston:

“City Manager Chuck Pinto said that not only is the city without electricity, but that its sewer system is in critical condition. He said the entire system failed and worries about the potential health hazard because floodwaters have deluged the sewer lines.

Pinto worries that the city may have to build a temporary sewer plant just to get the system up and running again.

For that reason, Pinto said they want residents who fled the city in advance of the storm to stay away until the city can get the sewer issue resolved.”

A temporary sewer plant is not a short-term project, so Seabrook is in dire straits.

I learned several new facts on wind energy this week from Kevin George, national account manager for wind energy at SKF USA LLC. First, I had no idea how large wind turbines actually are. The blades themselves are 40 to 80 meters in length (131 to 262 feet). The body that houses the drivetrain attached to the blades weighs 60 tons (the gearbox alone weighs 15 tons), and the tower is 100 meters (or 300 ft) high.

Ideally, each turbine has a life of 20 years, but they have not been around long enough to test that theory out. In fact, that theory is limited by the fact that gearboxes are failing every 5 years and generators inside the body are failing every 2 to 3 years.

Those failures are one of the biggest problems facing the wind industry right now. After all, while maintenance can be routine at plants, routine maintenance on a wind turbine is much more difficult (not the least of which is traveling up the tower to reach the body). Providing the right lubricant to the different parts in the turbine’s body is a highly involved process. The industry also faces extreme environmental challenges, as the turbines are located in remote areas with variable winds. If it rains, the turbines are not protected.

Since the turbines are still under OEM warranty, many in the industry are choosing to run to fail instead of setting up predictive maintenance practices. Running to fail has catastrophic results, as seen in this video of what happens when a wind turbine explodes:

Wind Turbine Explosion

Condition monitoring systems will need to play an important role in moving the industry forward, as they provide the kind of predictive maintenance the industry needs to avoid catastrophic failure. The industry also needs advanced bearings, seals and automatic lubrication systems to withstand the extreme conditions of the industry.

The possibilities for wind energy as an energy source are exciting, but the industry as a whole still has room to grow. Innovations in the field are badly needed and would have widespread impact.

Some good news from New Orleans–while pumps were at the center of numerous stories related to flooding from Hurricane Katrina, it looks like the pumps currently in place are keeping up with the water from Hurricane Gustav. Read the full story from Reuters here.

According to Floridatoday.com, floodwaters from Tropical Storm Fay have overwhelmed lift stations in Florida’s south beaches:

“The South Beaches system serves about 22,000 accounts or an estimated 50,000 residents south of the Pineda Causeway.

It includes more than 300 miles of neighborhood pipes that rely on gravity to push sewage to about 80 pumping stations, which then pump the waste through pressure mains to a treatment plant in Melbourne Beach.

Water leakage into the pipes, exacerbated by flooded streets and yards, has at least doubled the normal volume of water pumped to the treatment plant to a rate of more than 12 million gallons a day. . .

But the pumps can’t do their work fast enough to keep some sewage from escaping through manholes or backing up into homes in low-lying areas of the barrier island.”

According to sources in the article, the area is in the process of updating aging infrastructure, but Fay has overwhelmed even the improvements made to the system.  

Read the full article here.

The recent economic news in the United States has not been encouraging. The failure of Bear Stearns, the collapse of IndyMac Bank. . . even the purchase of Anheuser-Busch by Belgian company InBev. The news is grim.

However, an article from Reuters last week provided some encouragement for the process industries. Familiar companies like Eaton, ITT, SPX and ABB are set to post positive gains in these tough times. Increased activity overseas and the devalued dollar certainly help. The demand for energy also means significant industrial activity, which helps these OEMs.

One state is also benefitting from increased energy demand. NBC Nightly News recently ran a story (see the video here) about how the increased energy demands have bolstered the Texas economy. For the first time, Texas surpassed Virginia as the state with the number one economy in the United States. (Anyone who has been to Houston recently can testify to how much it has benefitted from this new oil boom.) It’s good news for Texas . . . and since I was born and raised in Texas, I was especially excited to hear the news.

On the downside, of course, nothing is permanent. The rising gas prices have decreased the U.S. family purchasing power and, consequently, will decrease U.S. demand for oil, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke commented yesterday. Riding an energy wave, Texas won’t be number one forever. However, we can still maintain hope in the process industries overall, as international demand and the necessity of the process industries mean continued business for our industry. This hope and the recent news from industrial companies provide a nice silver lining in an otherwise grim economic picture.

Just a reminder that our first LIVE webinar is tomorrow at 1 PM Eastern time. Co-sponsored by ITT Goulds Pumps and these SPX brands: Waukesha Cherry-Burrell, Johnson Pump and APV, the webinar features Dr. Lev Nelik, P&S Contributing Editor and author of our popular Pumping Prescriptions column. Dr. Nelik will speak on “Centrifugal and Rotary Pumps: Introduction & Definitions.” Click here to register.

Are there any articles you’ve clipped and referenced again and again? We would love to hear what you have found to be the most useful information over the past few years.

In the same vein, what information haven’t you found that you’ve been wanting to know? We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts!