Word: kellers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...would be easy to dismiss Smith and Keller as just a couple of upstate kooks with a harebrained scheme. But from the beginning, virtually everyone involved -- engineers and environmentalists, utility executives and officials at the Department of Energy -- has agreed that the Otisca coal/water slurry process is a solid idea. Acknowledges W. Henson Moore, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy: "This precleaning process of theirs looked very good to the experts...
...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...
...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...
...locomotive. Westinghouse was interested in coal-powered turbine engines. So was GM, which developed an experimental coal-powered Cadillac, dubbed the Coal-dorado, that ran on Otisca Fuel. Five big companies -- GE, Norfolk Southern Railway, Eastern Fuels, Westmoreland Coal and Zurn Industries -- jointly invested $8 million in Smith and Keller's little outfit. In November 1984 Smith took a flight from Syracuse to New York City as president of a company with a net worth of minus $350,000. That afternoon he flew home president of a company with a net worth of more than $7 million. "That," he recalls...
...past, Otisca was approached by Japanese companies. "The Japanese have a ton of coal/water slurries," says Keller. "They're making it in Tokyo Bay and shipping it by the tankerload to the north islands." So why not sell out to the Japanese? "I'm very interested in having this be an American accomplishment," says Smith. "One of the purposes in my wanting to start a business was to show that the American thing can be done...