Word: oiled
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...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...
...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...
They 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...
...sought to serve many masters. Several dozen employees, burgeoning paperwork, outside investors with varying and not always complementary interests, government requirements -- all conspired to drain the fun out of it. More troubling were the shifts in market forces beyond the company's control. By the spring of 1986, world oil prices had dropped below $15 per bbl. The impetus to seek out alternative fuels withered. Florida Power & Light cut a deal with surrounding Southern utilities to buy inexpensive power from a regional grid; it successfully completed construction of a nuclear plant and signed an enticing deal to buy cheap oil...
...December 1990 Otisca reluctantly withdrew from the DOE Clean Coal Round No. 2 and forfeited its grant. Otisca still had contracts with clients to supply varying amounts of its fuel. But none of them was willing to put up the big stakes necessary to convert significant power plants from oil to Otisca Fuel...