Industry:

In industry, energy has to be expended to raise, lower, or maintain the temperature of objects or process fluids. If these are not insulated, this increases the heat energy requirements of a process, and therefore the cost and environmental impact.

Space travel:

Spacecraft have very demanding insulation requirements. Lightweight insulators are a strong requirement, as extra mass on a vehicle to be launched into earth orbit or beyond is extremely expensive. In space, there is no atmosphere to attenuate the sun's radiated energy, so the surfaces of objects in space heat up very quickly. In space, heat cannot be given off by convective heat transfer, nor conducted to another object. Multi-layer insulation, the gold foil often seen covering satellites and space probes, is used to control thermal radiation, as are specialty paints.

Launch and re-entry place severe mechanical stresses on spacecraft, so the strength of an insulator is critically important (as seen by the failure of insulating foam on the Space Shuttle Columbia). Re-entry through the atmosphere generates very high temperatures, requiring insulators with excellent thermal properties, for example the reinforced carbon-carbon composite nose cone and silica fiber tiles of the Space Shuttle.