Encouraging the spread of new, more efficient technologies to the developing countries will be a key to reducing the energy use and environmental impacts of heavy industry in the future. Industrial Energy Intensity Figure 1 outlines the energy consumed by various types of industries in the United States. The efficiency of heavy industries has constantly been improving due to process design changes. Industries are constantly tinkering with their processes in order to optimize the operation of their facilities. Examples of process improvements are automated controls or drive motor replacement.
Scientific breakthroughs can allow an industry to convert to entirely new operating processes.
This allowed them to cast smooth sheets of glass without the grinding and polishing energy required by previous methods of glass making. Scientific breakthroughs can drastically reduce the amount of energy required for specific processes, but may require entirely new production facilities. Along with lowering their energy consumption, heavy industries have reduced their energy related pollution emissions. Although heavy industries have decreased their energy intensities over the last 30 years, there is still a lot of room for improvement. The laws of thermodynamics can be used to determine the absolute minimum amount of energy required to do physical work.