EnerTech Environmental, an Atlanta developer of waste disposal and energy technologies, in conjunction with four Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi Corp., will open a demonstration facility in Ube City, Japan, on February 20, to market its Municipal Solid Waste(MSW) disposal process in Asia.
Ebara, Ube Industries Ltd. and Mitsubishi Kakoki Kaisha Ltd., a subsidiary of Mitsubishi, the other Japanese companies involved, will work with Mitsubishi and EnerTech to construct and operate the 20-ton per day facility.
The demonstration plant will be EnerTech’s first facility in Japan, and is the result of a year and a half of negotiations and education about the waste disposal process, said Ken Bolin, president of the company, in an interview with GlobalFax on Jan. 8.
The first contact was with a representative of Mitsubishi in Atlanta, said Mr. Bolin, and the other companies were selected and approached later in the discussions. The Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry is supporting the project, he added, and provided a portion of the start-up capital.
The facility, which has been under construction since shortly after negotiations began, will be used to market EnerTech’s patented “SlurryCarb” process to potential customers in a multi-million dollar waste disposal market in China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand.
The process was developed by Norman Dickinson, who co-founded the company with his son, Peter, and Mr. Bolin, 1992, and is a method of chemically changing garbage into a liquid fuel that is cleaner to burn than coal.
In 1995, Japan alone produced more than 50 million tons of the municipal solid waste used in the process, and the other targeted countries together exceed 300 million tons per year.
For more information, Mr. Bolin may be reached at (404) 892-9440.