Oct 6 2010
ADA-ES, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADES) (“ADA”) today announced that it has signed a new contract with the Department of Energy (DOE) to continue development of clean coal technology to capture carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and industrial sources.
ADA will be the prime contractor for the $19 million project that will be administered by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) which is providing $15 million of the funding. ADA expects $4 million in co-funding and support to be provided by several major utility companies including Southern Company (NYSE: SO), Luminant and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).
The project provides funding to advance ADA’s commercialization plan for regenerable solid-sorbent technology, which is designed to capture carbon dioxide generated by coal-fired power plants. In 2010, ADA began the first field tests of this technology on a $3.2 million program co-funded by DOE, as well as several major forward-thinking utility companies, and the initial results confirmed the promising performance ADA had demonstrated in the laboratory. Once captured, the carbon dioxide could be either stored underground (sequestration) or beneficially used in processes such as enhanced oil recovery. This technology appears to offer potential cost and energy advantages over competing liquid-solvent-based technologies.
Work will begin immediately on this contract which is expected to run for 51 months to scale-up the technology to the 1 megawatt level, a key step in the technology development process. This contract will not only fund R&D on this technology, but it will also provide significant contributions to ADA’s revenues and margins over the next four plus years.
Dr. Michael Durham, President and CEO of ADA, commented, “ADA has an established track record of engaging in collaborative partnerships with DOE-NETL and our power generating customers to develop and commercialize innovative solutions to reduce emissions from coal, a low-cost, abundant and secure fuel.”