By David Hill, Executive Editor

Later this month regional winners for the 2009 Clean Tech Open competition will be announced. Semi-finalists from the Rocky Mountains are competing for three regional prizes of cash and services worth $50,000. Similar competitions have been taking place in California and the Pacific Northwest, with the twelve regional winners facing off in a national competition in which they’ll be  vying for the Grand
Prize of $250,000 in cash and services.

A total of 64 early-stage start-ups in the Rocky Mountain region participated in this year’s competition from a variety of clean tech categories: companies as varied as those creating biofuels from waste to transportation companies working to create more efficient engines. As an important business competition, the Clean Tech Open has already helped more than 120 entrepreneurs launch companies and subsequently raise over $125 million in external funding since its inception in 2006, so it comes to the table with solid credentials.

“The Rocky Mountain region is rapidly becoming a clean tech hub and a leader in turning good ideas into green collar jobs and sustainable businesses,” says Richard Franklin, co-chair of the Clean Tech Open, Rocky Mountain chapter, based in Denver.  “This competition challenges clean tech entrepreneurs across the region to go from start-up to success with this competition.”

Now that the competition is down to a select few, all this week and next Colorado Energy News will be introducing you to the semi-finalists from our state. First up is CleanCoal Briquette, Inc.

The Start-Up: CleanCoal Briquette, Inc.
Principals: Ravi Malhotra and Vic Ahmed

The story of CleanCoal Briquette, Inc. and how it became a Clean Tech Open semi-finalist really began back in 2004 when the plant manager of a coal fired power plant in Canon City, owned by the second largest investor-owned utility in Colorado, Aquila Inc., started examining potential beneficial uses for its coal ash waste. The plant approached iCAST, (International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology), and it wasn’t long before the organization was engaging students from universities across Colorado to research various options.

Several attempts to create a fuel pellet/briquette that met Aquila’s requirements proved unsuccessful until finally, in 2006, a team of CSU–Pueblo students produced a pellet/briquette in the lab that could be tested for a variety of requirements. Still, it was another two years before the group was able to produce briquettes in a commercial setting. Later that year, iCAST filed a provisional patent for the technology and expanded it to include other coal wastes and biomass.

It eventually licensed the technology to CleanCoal Briquette Inc. (CCBI), a start-up being incubated by Renova Capital Group. The new company is seeking to commercialize the technology for production of an engineered fuel briquette composed of coal and biomass waste streams that would be burned in coal fired power plants.

President of CCBI and CEO of Renova, Ravi Malhotra, brought extensive experience in a variety of sustainable enterprises in India, Africa and the U.S. to both organizations. His partner in CCBI, Vic Ahmed, is a serial entrepreneur who has built several start-up companies from scratch. Vic is a nuts and bolts leader with the ability to crystallize the vision and foresight of entrepreneurs into specific and sizable business opportunities.

“One of the biggest challenges we face at this point is educating potential customers and investors on our business model,” says Malhotra.  “It has never been done - generating revenue from Renewable Energy Credits, Carbon Credits, Production Tax Credits, Accelerated Depreciation, perhaps Manufacturing Tax Credits, Savings in Ash Disposal Fees, etc - all of which are relatively new to the industry.”

“The exciting thing for our business is getting a project finance partner interested in building 30 plants based on our technology, and, of course, being semi-finalist in the Clean Tech Open,” says Ahmed. 
 
At this stage of development, CCBI faces the same set of obstacles as a number of other energy launches–securing equity financing and moving a commercial plant from the drawing board to operational. “Five years from now we hope to have approximately 30 briquetting plants across the nation,” Malhotra tells CEN.

“Coal plants aren’t going away, and the need to capture and reuse the fly ash generated from them is only going to get bigger. The engineered fuel briquette we’ve developed produces renewable bio-energy, reuses the current hazardous waste streams of fly ash, lowers carbon and other emissions per BTU output and provides cost savings to the power plant.  It is a real clean coal substitute.”

Contact Info:

CleanCoal Briquette, Inc.
8745 W 14th Ave. Suite 240
Lakewood, Colorado 80215
303-462-4100

ravi@icastmarketplace.com

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