Word: coaling
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There was real promise here, Keller said. Ash and sulfur are the principal pollutants in coal. Without them, the remaining fuel would burn clean, unlike the dirty coal used by many big utility plants in the U.S. If the process Keller was describing could be duplicated on a mass scale, it would provide an attractive alternative...
...passed the Clean Air Act. Another year would bring the Arab oil embargo, long lines at gas stations and an unnerving sense that the industrial Western world could no longer count on endless supplies of cheap oil. Meanwhile, under American soil lay a quarter of the world's coal supply -- easily enough to power the nation into the 22nd century. If Smith and Keller -- two smart, practical fellows who cared about the environment -- could develop a process to burn coal cleaner and at a price that was competitive with Middle East oil, they could help fill a national need...
...mechanics and science behind Otisca are clear and simple. Its advantages in terms of transportation and use in various engines, including diesels and turbines, put it in direct competition with oil and gas. Coal's chief disadvantages are that it is bulky and dirty. Sulfur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) have been indicted as principal villains in the formation of acid rain. More than half the nation's electricity is produced by power plants that burn coal. By running finely ground coal through a chemical bath (currently pentane, a hydrocarbon similar to butane), the Otisca process separates...
...word otisca, meaning "water that has gone away," as a name for their process and their company. They worked nights in a garage on a back road southeast of town, won the patent rights and sold the idea to local investors who shared their conviction that a clean-burning, coal-based fuel was potentially an economic gold mine. They interested possible customers -- big customers like Florida Power & Light, American Electric Power, General Electric, General Motors -- and they raised nearly $8 million through a sale of preferred stock...
...couple of hundred dollars, and we rented a garage down in Lafayette for 30 bucks a month that we could use after 7 o'clock at night," recalls Keller. After the auto mechanics left, the pair would hook up the pipes and tubes and tinker into the night. Their coal came courtesy of Keller's brother-in-law Fletcher, who got it from a Union Carbide plant south of Charleston, W. Va., and shipped it up in feed bags to Syracuse on the Greyhound...