Word: coaling
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...1970s were promising years. Soaring oil prices prompted industry to search seriously for alternative energy sources. Otisca's first pilot project was done with Island Creek Coal Co. -- a 15-ton-per-hr. operation in Bayard, W. Va., at the headwaters of the Potomac. Smith and Keller also did some early business with General Public Utilities in western Pennsylvania, until the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster thoroughly distracted GPU's management...
...didn't make any money to speak of. But on the side, Smith invented a process for extracting oil from tar sand and sold it to Amoco for $1 million. American Electric Power, one of the more enlightened utilities, signed on to build a 125-ton-per-hr. Otisca coal-cleaning plant in Beverly, Ohio. AEP, which serves seven Midwestern states, and by itself produces 3% of the nation's electricity, budgeted $6 million for the project. "We went from a bare field to a fully operational plant within 20 months," recalls Smith proudly. The product of the venture...
...disastrous. Smith, who managed the project, chafed at the complex corporate oversight the giant utility placed on the operation. Even small changes in the engineering required approval by as many as five separate authorities, he says. Company auditors questioned his cost accounting. And though the plant was producing the coal on schedule, AEP managers were dissatisfied with the comparative costs they were achieving...
...discovered that he had installed the wrong kind of compressor to recover the Freon, then argued with AEP over how to fix it. "I tried to save it too long," admits Smith. "I think their confidence in me waned tremendously." AEP lost interest and moved on to testing other coal-cleaning technologies...
...experience was not a total loss. During the early '80s, Keller was able to advance the cleaning efficiency, and Smith made the switch from Freon to pentane. The Department of Energy began taking an interest. Through its Clean Coal program, DOE was awarding matching funds to private-sector coal- powered projects that demonstrated an ability to both meet new environmental standards and compete economically...