Wyoming Business Report - Feb 7, 2017 5pm
New coal enhancement company eyes Wyo.
Clean Coal Technologies Inc. (CCTI), having spent the last ten years developing a process that will make coal both economically and environmentally viable, wrapped up testing nine months ago and is wanting to quickly move to the next phase of development.
The process that finished testing in Oklahoma used Powder River Basin coal, which already has the lowest sulfur and ash content of domestic coals. But the BTU content is lower, in part because of the high amount of water contained in the coal.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, PRB coal provides about 8,800 BTU per ton, while Central Appalachian coal provides 12,500 BTU. This is reflected in the price difference between PRB coal at about $11.80 per ton and Central Appalachian coal, which was selling for $50.05 per ton during the week of Feb. 3, 2017.
The process recently tested by CCTI can upgrade PRB coal to more than 12,000 BTU per ton while maintaining low sulfur and low ash properties. Coal processed like this would be a highly competitive export to India, China and Japan.
CCTI is looking at both Wyoming and Montana as the site for its next-level coal enhancement process. The move will happen quickly – within the next 90 days, according to company officials.
Wyoming has heard pitches like this one before, most recently from Colorado-based Evergreen Energy Inc., whose K-Fuel effort fizzled. The Wyoming Business Report asked CCTI’s Chief Executive Officer Robin Eves what CCTI offered that previous companies didn’t have.
“A lot of companies have tried and failed to build a successful, economically viable coal dehydration plant,” he said. “It’s a three-fold problem. Anyone can dry coal – you can put it in your oven. But the Holy Grail is stabilization after dehydration so that the coal does not reabsorb water or self-combust.” This, Eves said, has been the number one problem and CCTI has solved it. Removal of the water will also make shipping the coal much more efficient – since untreated PRB coal is 23.8 percent water.
In addition, the stabilization process produces coal that is coated and does not produce dust – which has been a major sticking point in getting coal shipments to pass through the Pacific Northwest.
The second ‘fold’ of the problem is being able to scale up the process. “You cannot scale up from a tiny experimental plant to a commercially viable million-ton plant. Every single one of those companies who tried to do it failed,” Eves said, adding, “Our commercial module produces 30 tons per hour. Our scale up is 15-to-one, max. Any engineer in the world will tell you, at that proportion, it’s very simple to scale up.”
The third ‘fold’ is an economic one. “All the other plants built a pilot plant first. Then, in order to go commercial, they had to spend $100 million to scale up. Ours, to get our first commercial module in place will cost $17 million. The plants are modular, and after the first one is installed, additional ones can be added and for them, the price drops steeply.”
CCTI has been in talks with the Wyoming Business Council and with the Department of Energy, whose new mandate Eves said is “jobs, jobs, jobs. They and we believe that this technology has the capability of bringing coal back onto the global map again.”
