Glass Melting Technology: A Technical and Economic ... - OSTI

The major goal of the plasma program, to produce a high quality glass, must not be
compromised since this is a key requirement of the project. Our ability to acquire data to show
the high quality nature of the glass is very straightforward with marble-making and fiber
forming from these marbles. Any cullet form other than marbles will necessarily impart more
risk to the program objective, so we are approaching this decision with a great deal of caution.
A major decision must soon be made about eliminating the marble milestone from the program
or securing additional funding.
A market study is being conducted. The scope of work includes the identification of glass
industry segments and companies that will find economic advantage by using the assumed
attributes of the plasma melting system. In addition to the market study, a technical and
economic analysis (TEA) is being performed to compare the projected operating and
maintenance costs using the plasma melting system to the costs of the current systems used by
the cost share partners. This TEA is built upon several assumptions that will be validated by the
next six months of work in the research program. This study will serve as the foundation for the
development of a Plasmelt business plan in Year 2 in which our goal is broad implementation of
plasma technology within the glass industry. The study will also identify any likely early
adopters of this technology, on which we plan to focus our initial efforts.
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