New York Startup On Track To Tackle Coal Ash Quagmire
Ash Improvement Technology (AIT), a start up based in the New York City area announced recently its closing on Series A Financing from a group of Private Investors to take on America's 130 million tons per year coal ash problem.
Mountains of waste from coal fired Power Plants are piling up every year as over half of it can't be recycled into beneficial applications.
The Kingston, Tennessee ash spill in December 2008 made the public aware of the risks associated with storage of coal combustion products, prompting the EPA to work on a regulatory overhaul. An October 2009 draft proposal got stranded on the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs' (OIRA) desk for six months, spurring heated debate and an unusual large number of meetings with industry stakeholders. New regulation could be costly to the Energy Sector. EPA estimates the incremental costs at $600 million to $1.5B per year, but industry insiders have evaluated the burden to be as high as $12bn/year for an industry that still produces 48% of the Electricity consumed in the US.
Innovation as a solution
Unlike climate change and CO2 emissions, which have gained enough attention to attract more private investment in recent years, coal ash has not drawn nearly as much investor interest.
AIT developed its technology relying on universities and goodwill, operating within the limits of a small budget. While new regulation is still being debated, AIT's novel approach provides a cost-effective solution to transform waste ash into a cement substitute.
This new process is based on materials called sorbents, which are applied on site at coal fired power plants and hence don't require setting up costly off-site treatment plants. The residue collected in the power plant's existing collection systems can be sold immediately for beneficial use without further treatment.
"AIT's solution keeps costs much below the current and future disposal costs spent in storage or landfilling, not to mention the benefits from safeguarding a cleaner environment", says Marc Zacharias, AIT's CEO.
The benefits not only lie in less coal ash being landfilled. You can also count on a reduction in CO2 emissions. Each ton of treated ash that is used in lieu of cement saves the world close to 0.85 tons of CO2 emissions. "The potential is huge", says Wayne Fried, the company's Chief Technology Officer and original inventor of the technology. "If all coal ash that is landfilled in the US today were to be used according to our process, the US' CO2 emissions would drop by sixty million tons every year, the equivalent of taking 10 million cars off the road, or one sixth of all cars registered in the fifty States".
AIT's new infusion of funds will be applied towards making the process available commercially during the second half of 2010, as well as to translating the CleanCem technology to other types of power generating units, such as waste to energy facilities, which burn solid or other waste products to generate energy.
About AIT
Ash Improvement Technology LLC is based in the New York, NY area. AIT develops solutions to convert waste ash into beneficial products used in the construction industry. The application of AIT's patent pending CleanCem process avoids disposal of ash altogether, and transforms an environmental liability in a source of revenues for owners of power plants.
SOURCE: AIT