Local Company May Become World Leader

In Mercury Elimination Technology

Sandy Hook-based Environmental Energy Services, Inc (EES) is poised to help scrub the planet of toxic commercial mercury emissions. The company reported this week that successful field tests in North Dakota and Michigan are continuing to build a case for a new, cost-effective technology that is capable of eliminating hazardous mercury emissions from coal fired furnace plants.

The local firm expects to become the first to deploy the technology on a commercial scale, according to a release issued April 14.

A leading provider of fuel treatment programs for utility companies operating oil and coal-fired boilers worldwide, Environmental Energy Services (www.eescorp.com) expects current tests on a 500 MW coal-fired boiler burning bituminous coal will confirm previously collected data showing the technology’s mercury removal effectiveness.

“The hundreds of millions of dollars the coal industry is required to pay in failed emission control costs has gone on long enough,” says Mark Pastore, vice president/technical development for EES. “Deploying a much sought-after mercury control solution on a commercial scale is the final step in EES’s plan to present the coal industry with a more holistic approach to combustion enhancing and emissions reducing chemical treatments.”

Mr Pastore says EES is beginning to introduce the technology to its existing customer base and simultaneously ramping up the company’s sales force in anticipation of a widespread domestic and international marketing effort.

All coal-fired furnace plants in the United States need to control their mercury emissions in order to eliminate the high risk and health problems associated with mercury pollution. Mercury remediation at coal plants represents a large potential market nearing hundreds of millions of dollars.

In a government report issued in 2005 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), mercury emissions from the nation’s 1,100 coal-fired power plants were unregulated. These facilities emitted some 48 tons of mercury each year, accounting for about 40 percent of the nation’s mercury pollution, according to the EPA.

Exposure to mercury, usually through eating contaminated fish, can cause permanent neurological damage in humans and reproductive harm in wildlife — 45 states now have fish consumption advisories for mercury. Young children whose brains are still developing, and women of childbearing age are most at risk.

The EPA says one in six US women already have levels of unsafe levels of mercury in their bodies, putting an estimated 630,000 newborns at risk each year from the adverse effects of the toxic metal. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA was directed to develop a floor for its regulation based on emission reductions achieved by the top performing 12 percent of utilities.

The mercury emission control technology EES is testing was developed by Solucorp Industries. Solucorp’s patent pending technology eliminates hazardous mercury contamination at the source from coal-fired furnace operations; safely eliminates more contamination than any other technology; and treats and renders nonhazardous the fly-ash created by coal-fired furnace operations.

Specifically, Solucorp’s IFS-2C technology reduces inlet vapor-phase Hg(0) (elemental mercury) while preventing mercury reemissions and preserving gypsum purity. As Solucorp’s North American marketing arm for its new mercury remediation technology, Environmental Energy Services is deploying its national sales network to actively promote IFS-2C to regions requiring efficient solutions to mercury emissions concerns.

EES expects to conduct several more full-scale demonstrations in large-scale coal burners later this spring and summer ahead of commercial sales of the IFS-2C chemical reagent this year.

The local company states that the effectiveness of the IFS-2C technology in reducing total mercury and preventing Hg(0) reemission has already been successfully demonstrated at Michigan South Central Power Agency’s Endicott Station coal-fired energy plant near Litchfield, Mich. Solucorp’s mercury emissions controls technology testing was originally sponsored by United States Department of Energy (DOE) and a consortium of power plants by the Environmental Energy Resource Center; North Dakota (EERC).

“As you can image, the huge money the coal industry pays in mercury emissions fines has made them eager for a solution,” said Solucorp President Noel Spindler. “The EES demonstration currently taking place sets the stage for commercialization of the IFS-2C technology for use in coal burning power plants.”

Once finalized, the Solucorp mercury control technology will be added to EES’s already highly advanced turnkey injection systems and diagnostic services. It will create the most cost-effective and reliable fuel treatment services that can be tailored for individual coal plants to enhance operations, reduce maintenance, and decrease emissions of detrimental pollutants.

Environmental Energy Services’ core business is with oil-fired utility boilers, though the company has also developed a system to service coal-fired boilers. Initial trials have shown that CoalTreat™ reduces slagging, improves heat transfer and increases plant generation efficiency. EES is also working on a mercury control technology and a performance combustion catalyst that increases efficiency of fuel while reducing carbon emissions.

The company has an active relationship with Connecticut Innovations (CI), the quasi-public organization driving technology innovation in Connecticut through a variety of investment funds and programs.

Last year, EES announced a multiyear contract with Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) to manage the fuel treatment process for the entire boiler fleet at FPL’s oil-fired power plants in the state of Florida. That contract award followed a review and subsequent consolidation of combustion engineering companies that handled fuel treatment at FPL properties.