Doing the Impossible, and a Trade Trip
By Tech Bytes ANDREW WEBB Of the Journal
Even after the water has spent 30 million years soaking in crude oil, salts and other compounds miles below the earth’s surface, and has been belched out in a natural gas well, Albuquerque’s Altela Inc. can make the water clean.
Now the Environmental Protection Agency says the Albuquerque company can pour this water right into the city of Farmington’s sewer. From there, it goes to the city’s treatment plant, where it will offset water claims and help replenish subsurface fresh water aquifers.
“Every gallon we put down there is a gallon the city doesn’t have to pull from the San Juan River,” says Altela founder and CEO Ned Godshall.
Altela’s Farmington Treatment Facility, at a gas well operated by Merrion Oil and Gas Corp., was built with state funds issued in 2004 and 2005 to support water purification and conservation projects proposed by private companies and local governments.
Altela’s system, which fits into customized truck shipping containers, has been in operation near Farmington since March.
The company was founded to solve a vexing problem for oil and gas producers — what to do with the thousands of gallons of brackish, polluted water produced by wells every day as a byproduct of extraction.
In most cases, that waste is trucked, at high cost, to disposal sites where the water is injected back into the ground.
Altela’s AltelaRain system, based on technology developed at Arizona State University, can desalinate and purify that water at very low cost, often using waste energy produced right at the wellhead.
The system leaves about 90 percent of the water clean and drinkable. The remaining superconcentrated 10 percent is disposed of by conventional means.
One Altela system can process up to 4,000 gallons of water per day.
The venture capital-backed company has already received a state surface discharge permit for the purified water.
The technology will also allow wells to last longer, increasing domestic energy reserves, said T. Greg Merrion, president of Merrion Oil and Gas.
“This new technology lowers our costs, while at the same time creating a new water supply in New Mexico and decreasing waste that must be hauled away and disposed of,” he said. Officials from Altela, Merrion and local and state governments are expected to be on hand this Thursday for an official unveiling and demonstration of the device.
Godshall said Altela plans four similar treatment facilities at nearby wells on the Navajo Reservation. Purified water produced there will be given free to the Navajos, he said.
Altela employs 23.
CVI PURCHASE FINALIZED: Albuquerque’s CVI Laser has officially entered the ranks of Albuquerque’s largest privately held companies.
The 35-year-old company on July 24 announced it had finalized the aquisition of Carlsbad, Calif.-based Melles Griot, formerly a subsidiary of South African materials and scientific equipment firm Barloworld.
The purchase gives CVI access to Melles Griot’s markets in Europe and Asia, and expands its product line to include camera components, health care technology, and complete laser systems.
It will also boost CVI’s employment from 500 to more than 1,000.
“We are extremely excited about the opportunities this acquisition creates for our customers, employees and shareholders,” CVI Chief Operating Officer Stuart Schoenmann said in a news release. “We will organize the company around our two fundamental business units, lasers and optic and photonic products. We are looking forward to bringing to market new products and services based on the synergistic capabilities of the two companies.”
MIOX JOINS “CLEAN TECH” TRADE MISSION TO INDIA: Miox Corp. CEO Carlos Perea was among 17 major industry players, including GE and DuPont, to attend a recent one-week Clean Energy Technologies Trade Mission to India and China.
The Albuquerque water purification company was the only water- sector business on the trip.
The executives on the trip met with government and corporate representatives in the two rapidly growing countries to explore entering their environmental technologies markets.
Andrew Webb covers technology for the Journal. You can reach him at 823-3819 or awebb@abqjournal.com.
(c) 2007 Albuquerque Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.