Owner of Maine's Katahdin paper mills Cate Street Capital pays US$20M to Scotland's Rotawave Biocoal for North American rights to technology to manufacture biocoal
Audrey Dixon
BANGOR, Maine
,
December 1, 2011
(Bangor Daily News)
–
The New Hampshire-based owner of two Katahdin-region paper mills has purchased for more than $20 million the North American rights to the technology to manufacture biocoal, a huge step toward adding the production of treated wood to the mills and creating at least another 50-75 jobs in the region, officials announced Thursday.
Cate Street Capital subsidiary Thermogen Industries LLC secured exclusive rights from Scotland-based Rotawave Biocoal to manufacture a type of machine — called Targeted Intelligent Energy System, or TIES — that makes biocoal, or torrefied wood, a Cate Street spokesman said.
TIES is a biocoal production system that uses microwave technology to produce energy-dense pellets from wood that can be used in coal-fired power stations. Cate Street has described biocoal as a sustainable and practical energy source that offers an inexpensive way of converting electric power stations that burn coal to burning biocoal.
Cate Street believes the federal government will effectively force electricity manufacturers that burn coal to seek alternative fuel sources when it unveils stringent new air-quality standards in the next few years.
Thermogen plans to produce 100,000 tons of biocoal annually by the end of 2012, eventually increasing that to 1 million tons.
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