Mark: In light of this debate over petrochemical pollution and its remedies, you might be interested in a company that has a new and lower cost solution. Here is today's latest blurb.
Monday March 24 6:12 PM EDT
Tests Confirm Non-thermal Process Destroys PCBs at Utility Sites
-- Commodore Applied Technologies' SET process proves an alternative to incineration
-- New process to target thousands of utility substation, pole-top
transformer sites
NEW YORK, March 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Tests conducted for the Empire State Electric Energy Research Corp. (ESEERCO) have confirmed that a Commodore Applied Technologies, Inc. (AMEX: CXI, CXIW) process is effective at destroying PCB contamination at electric utility sites.
Commodore said its proprietary SET(TM) process, which holds the only nationwide, non-thermal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) permit to destroy PCBs, offers several significant advantages. Unlike incineration, the process offers no smokestack risk and, because it is transportable, it eliminates the need to haul contaminated soil through neighboring communities to incinerators or landfills.
"There are millions of pole-top transformers across the nation, thousands of substations, and many unlikely locations contaminated by oil spills and leakages," said Kevin McLoughlin, administrator of ESEERCO's Land Use and Industrial Waste program. "A transportable unit would eliminate the risk of hauling hundreds of truckloads of hazardous waste through communities. It would be a permanent solution rather than temporary storage in a landfill."
The results are being evaluated for ESEERCO by Fluor Daniels GTI, a leading electric utility subcontractor. Mr. McLoughlin said each of the seven ESEERCO utilities would independently evaluate the SET process benefits of cost, limited liability and community impact.
Paul E. Hannesson, Commodore Applied Technologies' chairman, said, "These tests prove that our SET process is an attractive, on-site alternative to incineration. We believe that the electric utility industry is one of Commodore's many major commercial markets. The far-flung locations of substations and other contaminated sites make a transportable, scaleable unit like ours the technology of choice."
The SET process first destroyed PCBs in 1986; the first of a full body of patents was granted in 1989. The U.S. EPA witnessed PCB-destruction tests in the summer of 1995 and then issued its only non-thermal nationwide permit to Commodore in March 1996. Additionally, last September the EPA witnessed further SET tests, which destroyed PCBs in oils, at the Navy's Pt. Hueneme, Calif. facility as a part of the Clinton Administration's Rapid Commercialization Initiative, an innovative government program designed to speed the commercialization of Commodore's SET process and only nine other emerging technologies.
The company's SET process also destroys pesticides, dioxins, chemical warfare agents, certain explosives and propellants, CFCs and HCFCs.
Commodore Applied Technologies is listed on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol CXI. SOURCE Commodore Applied Technologies, Inc. |
