Waste to Energy Plasma Gasification License Deal for Alter NRG

Tees Valley Renewable Energy Facility Alter NRG Corp., the alternative energy specialist has signed a Technology Site License Agreement worth $500,000 with Air Products, an industrial gases and materials specialist. The license agreement grants Air Products the right to use Alter NRG's proprietary Westinghouse Plasma Gasification technology at Air Products' proposed 49 MW Tees Valley Renewable Energy Facility in North East England. In early 2009 the companies signed a Joint Development Agreement that provides Air Products with access to Alter NRG's technology for five sites in North America and the European Union. The Tees Valley Site License represents the first of the five licenses. The company said that the Site License represents another step for both companies toward the construction and commissioning of a 950 tonne per day facility which will convert pre-processed waste to baseload power through a combined cycle power configuration. A combined cycle power configuration, as intended for installation at the proposed Tess Valley project, has the potential to generate 50% or greater power output than capturing waste heat (as done for incineration) given the same amount of waste. Alter NRG said that it has already completed gasifier related engineering services to support Air Products' preliminary engineering work and conducted gasification tests with waste for Air Products at Alter NRG's demonstration facility near Pittsburgh, PA. The results of Air Products' engineering work and the success of the gasification tests led to the Site License Agreement. In July this year, Air Products publicly announced the proposed Tees Valley project stating "The UK continues to dispose of large volumes of waste to landfill, some of which could be converted to energy using technology such as advanced gasification. The technology that Air Products is proposing to bring to Teesside provides a safe, reliable alternative solution to the disposal or incineration of waste, with over 90% of the waste arriving to the site being diverted from landfill and used as a renewable energy resource." Mark Montemurro, President and CEO of Alter NRG, states "We are very pleased to see one of our key customers moving forward. Upon successful completion this provides a template for more energy-from-waste facilities that benefit communities by significantly reducing their waste footprint and while also creating renewable energy. Air Products is a world leader in industrial gases with strong engineering and execution capability. Working with them to create a combined cycle energy from waste facility is a major milestone for Alter NRG."