Clean coke: Part II

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Terra Systems, Inc. is a development stage company focused on advancing clean and renewable energy technologies and products. TSYI will begin processing coal from various local coal producers, using their patented Pneumatic Accelerator System technology by May, 2008. This will provide product to the new clean coking facility as well as the marketplace. TSYI has partnered with Combustion Resources to launch their patented process of upgrading specialty and waste carbon products into a clean coke.
TSYI has combined their Pneumatic Accelerator System technology with the CR clean coke technology to provide a very high margin coke product that supplies a $50 billion coke industry. The upgrading of waste coal fines and other coal feedstocks provide environmental and economical benefits to individuals, communities, industrial coke users and the shareholders of TSYI. Terra Systems, CR and the Western Energy Training Center are in the final stages of finishing the installation of the PAS system to accept coal from various local coal supplies and output feedstock to the pilot facility at the WETC in Helper.
The pilot facility at WETC should be complete and operational by the end of July, 2008.
The Nominal Value Coal Recovery Process will utilize part of its product to provide the feedstock and pre-processing for the plant and sell the remaining upgraded coal product to industrial consumers. Contracts already exist for all of the upgraded coal product produced from the coal recovery process. Customer orders for clean coke briquettes to be test burned in the end user furnaces already exceed the production capability of the pilot facility.
Upon successful completion of the pilot facility and testing at end user furnaces, TSYI plans to build four full scale clean coke facilities in the western US by 2010. Requests for clean coke briquette production from the four facilities also exceeds the finished capacity of those facilities and validates the extreme demand from the $50 billion worldwide coke market.
The WETC and CR secured grant funding from the state of Utah to help build a full scale clean coke pilot facility, with the purpose of developing a solid training curriculum and process control methodology. This funding was received through the Centers of Excellence program to assist the College of Eastern Utah and WETC to commercialize this technology.
TSYI secured the exclusive licensing rights to the clean coke technology and has partnered with WETC in constructing and operating the pilot facility. The pilot facility will utilize a small portion of the coal product generated from the waste coal recovery process and generate a positive cash flow. The product generated from the pilot facility can be sold at market price to end users. The use of this pilot facility in support of workforce training, continued research and development, process control methodology, operational procedures and engineering design of full scale facilities will be invaluable to the rollout of the four full scale facilities scheduled through 2010.
WETC is a key part to training this next generation workforce. Bob Topping, director at WETC and MEP has been very instrumental in assembling academia and industry to develop a process methodology to support this growth in rural Utah.
Regional, national and international industry demand for specialty carbon products utilized in high-temperature furnaces continuously exceeds supply.
Recent environmental related activities focused on the atmosphere, will continue driving stricter guidelines in plants utilizing coal and coke products. The pilot-scale facility will manufacture high-grade carbon briquettes, developed from coal fines and other low-quality mining by-products.
The briquetted product can be used by metallurgical and specialty carbon-reductant fuel users. These fuel users require large runs of briquettes to test in their facility prior to switching their current fuel source to the new clean coke. The pilot facility will provide and sell sufficient finished product to conduct these full scale tests. Once the full scale clean coke facilities are operational, the pilot facility can be modified to produce new test product without interrupting the operation of the full scale facilities.
The US is currently producing less than 10 percent of the world market demand for coal coke products. Many of the current producers of coke in the US have captive customers and require additional imports to meet the captive customer demands. Most of the coke product is supplied out of the Asian markets, as the production capacity of the US continues to decrease.
The decline in US production has caused the price of higher grade coke to double over the past five years and forced the US industry to consider alternative and oftentimes less desirable fuel sources. The production of clean coke products in the Western US could not only supply local requirements but address the increasing world demand.
The PAS technology developed by TSYI is modularized and can be moved to various facilities to recover waste coals or other feedstocks.
Smaller runs of “green” test briquettes were produced through the first phase of the pilot facility in late 2007. The green briquettes hadn’t been run through the briquette furnace to provide the structural strength of the briquettes, but were processed in end user furnaces to see preliminary results.
These results exceeded expectations and generated a strong industry demand, based on their physical burn characteristics. There are several end users who are banking their facilities future viability on the success of a clean coke solution. They can’t meet the current environmental regulations without this alternate fuel source. They have already contracted for the first runs of the briquettes through the fully functional pilot facility.
Terra Systems has secured an agreement to utilize a facility on Ridge Road to produce clean coke. This facility just outside of Price is the old Synfuels facility. The plant will be called the Terra Systems Ridge Road Facility.