Tires into Energy, but No Debate
By Jim Carroll, Erie Times-News, Pa.
May 20–ASHTABULA, Ohio — Two Ashtabula-area men believe they can turn scrap tires into energy, and do it without raising an environmental ruckus.
They plan to microwave the tires and turn about 8,000 of them a day into fuel oil, synthetic gas and carbon black.
And they say they can do it emissions-free, without stirring the type of controversy that has dogged the efforts of Erie Renewable Resources LLC to develop a much-larger tires-to-energy plant in Erie.
But first, they have to prove that the new microwave technology works.
Ed Dragon and business partner Larry Colby said that proof will come in August, when a pilot plant using the technology goes online in Loudonville, Ohio.
If that works, they intend later this year or in 2009 to install about $7 million worth of specialized microwave equipment in an old commercial building at 620 W. 32nd St. in Ashtabula to lay the groundwork for commercial production.
“Obviously, I’m biased, but I certainly think this is the technology of the future,” said Dragon, a Kingsville businessman and real estate agent.
Dragon and Colby, production supervisor with Ohio American Water in Ashtabula, formed DraCol Inc., a self-described resource recovery company.
The company has been working with EnviroWave Corp. of Fredericktown, Ohio, just north of Columbus. EnviroWave developed the microwave technology DraCol plans to use.
John F. Novak, the engineer who helped develop the patented microwave process and the vice president of EnviroWave, said the company has big plans and the financial backing to support them.
The plant would buy preshredded tires with most of the metal removed and store them in enclosed silos to prevent fire danger.
A plant the size of the one planned in Ashtabula would typically have about 12 workers, and Novak said he would expect jobs to pay $10 to $20 an hour.
The 8,000 tires a day that the plant would process would yield about 9,700 gallons of a fuel oil equivalent to No. 2 diesel, about 465,000 cubic feet of synthetic gas, 26 tons of carbon and carbon black and 1 ton of steel.
“The plant pays itself back in 12 months,” Novak said.
Of course, 80 tons of tires a day that DraCol plans to process at Ashtabula is a far cry from the 900 tons of tires a day that ERE’s Port Erie Power plant could handle, but Novak said his technology can operate without emissions.
“The tires are totally broken down, and all of the by-products are fully recovered,” Novak said. “Nothing is released to a landfill, the atmosphere or to the water system.”
Dragon has already been given a letter from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency that said the Ashtabula plant would not be required to get air quality permits to get up and running.
The plant would qualify under a rule that exempts air contaminant sources at nonproduction research and development operations with a potential to emit less than 1 ton per year of any criteria pollutant.
“Based on the information you have supplied, the estimated potential emissions from the operation of the microwave-based reduction system are below the one-ton per year of any criteria pollutant threshold,” said the letter from Tony Becker, an environmental specialist with the Ohio EPA’s Northeast District.
Becker confirmed the exemption and said the agency will take another look if the plant begins commercial production.
“It looks like exciting technology, if it works,” he said.
And that has been the question.
EnviroWave is not the only company hoping to use microwaves to reduce tires.
Dinesh Agrawal, a Pennsylvania State University professor and director of the school’s Microwave Processing and Engineering Center, has worked with one of the other companies developing such microwave technology, and said it works well — in the lab.
“The question is if you can scale it up and run it economically,” he said. “So far, I have not seen anyone commercialize it fully.”
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