Don Dunlop, a chemical engineer with a doctorate and 50 years' experience, believes he has solved the problem of removing water from coal while keeping the fuel from spontaneously catching fire.
Don Dunlop, a chemical engineer with a doctorate and 50 years' experience, believes he has solved the problem of removing water from coal while keeping the fuel from spontaneously catching fire.
There is so much water in coal, up to 30 percent, that removing it could save millions of dollars in shipping costs. Those 100-car coal trains snaking out of the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana could carry a third more coal at no additional cost.
Dunlop wants to build a 100,000-ton-per-year plant using his fluid bed drying process in Eastern Montana.
"The jobs are high-paying jobs in coal mining and coal manufacturing. Getting more tonnage out of Montana is essential to improving its financial place in America," Dunlop said. "It's so coal-rich."
And the stakes are huge.
Powder River Basin coal Each year, about 400 million tons of Powder River Basin coal are mined. The coal is prized for its low sulfur content, but its BTUs are also relatively low. A BTU, or British thermal unit, is a measure of the heat a fuel can produce. If the new technology can be commercially developed, it could boost some coal's BTUs by as much as 35 percent.
Increasing the heating quality of Western coal would make it more valuable in distant markets where high-quality Eastern coal is selling for up to six times more than Power River coal.
In addition, depending on the type of coal, Dunlop said his process can remove 65 percent to 90 percent of the mercury, which would be a major environmental advantage.
Traditional methods of using high temperatures or high pressure to dry coal haven't been economical. Plus, after being dried this way, the coal pile tended to catch fire spontaneously.
Dunlop said he turned to his first love, chemistry, to solve this problem. He's such a believer that he and his daughter, Diane Wyss, have put seven years of their lives and plenty of family money into Fuels Management Inc., commonly called Cowboy Coal.
"We've only taken expenses and our family has put $2 million in this, so we're ready to start taking some money out," Dunlop said.
So far, small-scale test burns of lignite and half a dozen other types of coal over seven years at the Western Research Institute in Laramie, Wyo., have been successful.
The Institute's Vice President of Energy Production and Generation Vijay Sethi has performed some 30 tests, including those for the U.S. Department of Energy, which wrote a positive paper on the Cowboy Coal process.
"This technology is a late-comer, but it has all the advantages one would look for in a technology," Sethi said. "It is simple. And it is likely to be cheaper than anything we know."
Leon Kenyon, a colleague and friend of Dunlop, is working as a technical consultant.
"They have unbelievable optimism and persistence," he said.
Dunlop's process Dunlop's process involves mixing air heated to around 600 degrees with recycled gas in one reactor, then running the coal particles through. This neutralizes the explosive elements in the coal.
"It removes the most active oxygen in the coal responsible for spontaneous combustion," Kenyon said.
In addition, the coal is ground into small chunks and then processed and heated in a bubbling chemical reaction. The process is effective because it uses all three heating methods: conduction, convection and radiation.
Power River coal typically contains 25 percent to 30 percent water, so it is a challenge. The latest tests involve WyoDak coal from a mine near Gillette, the toughest kind to improve.
"It has the highest water and the lowest heating value, so that's where you can make the greatest improvements and make the most money," he said.
Al Jones, a Billings-based development officer for Montana's Department of Commerce, recommended that Dunlop apply for coal tax trust funding.
The science and the patent To understand what Dunlop has done, you could dust off high school chemistry books and spend a few months trying to figure out the complex process.
Or you could listen to Dunlop describe it easily in plain English.
"It's a pipe with a grid on the bottom and holes in it. There are two compressors and a conventional coal handling unit. There's nothing new in that," he said.
Hasn't he just given away his trade secret especially since the diagram is on the company's Website?
"No, we patented it," Dunlop said. During a stint as energy policy advisor at the U.S. Interior Department, he learned his way around Washington, D.C. With several patents to his name, Dunlop is used to having existing inventions overlap his application for a new idea. One sign that he was on the right track on Cowboy Coal was the lack of obstacles.
"We got a patent the first try," he said.
Dunlop and his wife, Maxine, live in Miami half the year and in Red Lodge half time.
His daughter, whose daytime job is working for the National Indian Gaming Association in Washington, D.C., has been marketing her father's process for six years.
"This is a very interesting and unique opportunity. It's fun," she said. "We're going down a long line of people who've tried this and it didn't work and there was a lot of government money spent."
For the first three years, the family tried the traditional route of seeking government grants.
Last year, prospects looked good for getting a Department of Energy grant approved. The money usually is awarded in January, but in 2004, it was awarded early.
"We put in for a DOE grant and all the money went to battleground states just before the election," Wyss said.
So she started selling the idea directly to the coal companies that would benefit from higher BTUs. Fifty companies and a handful of venture capital folks later, Cowboy Coal is generating interest.
The tests have gone well so far, but the road to commercializing this process is a long one. This process works with a small-scale reactor that is a foot in diameter.
Now more tests of different types of coal and at a larger scale must succeed.
Carrier Vibrating Screen Corp. of Louisville, Ky., which makes processing equipment and offers consulting services for the coal industry, is going to test a reactor of 4 1/2 feet instead of 1 foot. That means the reactor will be 20 times larger.
If this phase works, Cowboy Coal will need 15 months for permitting and to build a 100,000-ton-a-year demonstration plant.
Cowboy Coal has been offered several building sites in the Billings area and in other Eastern Montana counties, Dunlop said.
After a series of meetings in Billings and at the Bozeman energy conference last week, Cowboy Coal has two venture capitalists interested in the project and expects to have a decision by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, the research and marketing efforts continue.
"You have to understand there's going to be a lot of nos," Wyss said. "You just need one yes.'"
For more information on this company and process, go to: www.fmifuel.com or www.cowboycoal.com.
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
