Sludge Watch ==> EnerTech Grabs $42M to Turn Sewage Into Energy

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

Here is the latest in the use of sludge as fuel for energy.  It was my 
understanding that LA stopped using their sludge incinerator (gasifier) 
because it was simply cheaper to buy a few hundred acres of agricultural 
land in Kern County and truck all their sludge to it.  There are sewage 
sludge incinerators across the US and Canada that perform well.... (look at 
Peel Region, Durham Region in Ontario, and St Paul's Minn in the US).  The 
Peel plant is now being retrofit to provide for mercury capture.  Every 
sludge incinerator should use the best pollution prevention technologies - 
including mercury capture.

The question of whether sludge will sustain a burn and render energy is a 
question of how efficient the technology is and the characteristics of the 
sludge (how much inert material is in the sludge, how dry it is, etc).  
Sludges vary from place to place, plant to plant.  Remember the sewage 
sludge pellets from Toronto and other cities...?  Not only will it sustain a 
burn all on its own, but it will go into 'self heating' all the way to 
spontaneous combustion.

see:
THE FIRE AND EXPLOSION HAZARDS OF DRIED SEWAGE SLUDGE SJ Manchester BSc 
CChem MRSC
INSTITUTION OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS SYMPOSIUM SERIES
Bibliographic details 2000, VOL 148, pages 241-254


........................................


EnerTech Grabs $42M to Turn Sewage Into Energy
The Atlanta-based company scores a second round of funding to develop 
waste-to-energy plants.
by: Rachel Barron
January 08, 2008

EnerTech's first commercial-size plant in Rialto, Calif., is expected to 
start converting
Source: EnerTech Environmental Advertisement EnerTech Environmental said 
Tuesday it had snagged $42 million in a second round of funding to turn 
human and industrial wastes into energy.

Citigroup's Sustainable Development Investments unit and the Masdar Clean 
Tech Fund led the round, and Nimes Capital and CNM contributed. The funding 
brings EnerTech's total venture capital to about $57 million.

The company said it will use the money to develop five plants that will 
convert not-so-pleasant wastes, such as sewage sludge, into renewable 
energy. Specifically, the funding will go toward engineering, permitting and 
other steps needed for the company to then go after project financing to 
build the plants, CEO Kevin Bolin said.

The plants will use a technology EnerTech calls SlurryCarb, which Bolin said 
duplicates the natural process that creates fossil fuel from organic 
material. Here's how it works: The company applies heat and pressure to 
high-moisture biosolids, such as sewage sludge, which ruptures the cellular 
structure and splits off carbon dioxide in a reaction called 
"carbonization." The company removes the water that was once trapped inside 
the cell walls and is left with what EnerTech calls "E-Fuel," a solid 
material that can replace coal or other fossil fuels to supply energy.

Bolin claims the process to make E-Fuel uses less energy than it contains.

The concept of using waste for energy isn't new. Companies and 
municipalities have been burning garbage and tapping into landfills to 
create energy for decades.

But turning watery human and industrial waste into energy poses a unique 
problem.

"Garbage will burn by itself, sludge will not," said Bolin, adding that 
efforts to turn wet sludge into energy have failed in the past. For example, 
Los Angeles dumped $500 million into two such plants in the 1980s and 90s, 
according to the Los Angeles Times, only to pull the projects after the 
sludge corroded valves and erupted into flames.

EnerTech thinks its projects will succeed where those two failed.

The company already has a pilot plant in Japan, and in April started 
construction on what it considers its first commercial-scale plant in 
Rialto, Calif.

The company raised $160 million in project financing for the plant, which is 
expected to convert 683 tons of sewage sludge, from five municipalities, 
into fuel daily when it begins operating in December.

Also on Tuesday, BlueFire Ethanol Fuels announced it had closed $15 million 
from Quercus Trust to turn waste into ethanol. The company plans to use 
cellulosic waste that would have otherwise ended up in a Southern California 
landfill.

In February, the Irvine, Calif.-based company said it had grabbed $40 
million from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a plant capable of 
producing about 17 million gallons of ethanol per year from green waste, 
wood waste and other cellulosic urban wastes.