Unlike most companies within the automation space, Spartan is a Canadian, employee-owned company that empowers its employees, whom they proudly refer to as “Spartans”, to think outside the box and do what it takes to meet the ever-changing needs of their customers.

“Whether you’re producing oil and gas, combining molecules to create ethylenes for making plastics, mining potash for use in fertilizers, or purifying water for the city,” says President and CEO Grant Wilde, “our valves, measuring devices, and control technology are at the heart of those operations.”

Founded in 1963, Spartan Controls was established to represent Fisher Controls in Western Canada, a control valve manufacturer from Marshalltown, Iowa. Jasper Fisher, the company’s second generation of family ownership, wanted to expand and realized the most effective way to sell products beyond his regional borders would be to hire people who were invested in their own local markets. Fisher established a network of representative companies, including Spartan Controls, that would sell, supply and service the valves.

The company name ‘Spartan Controls’ was chosen by the company’s founder Bill Flegal to reflect the efficient and competitive nature of the Spartans of ancient Greece. “We’re a competitive group, and we like to win,” says Wilde. “When you think of the Spartans of history, you think about an efficient and effective culture. These values are symbolized by our name.”

Emerson purchased Fisher Controls in 1993, giving Spartan access to a broad suite of new process control and automation technologies. Emerson translates global market and technology trends into innovative products and solutions and Spartan understands the local market, provides regulatory expertise and offers responsive and flexible support to the local customer. Today, Spartan is Emerson’s exclusive representative in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and is part of a group of 21 Emerson local business partners in North America.

Spartans live and work in 14 towns and cities across its territory. Their primary facility for sales, warehousing, assembly, and service operations is based in Edmonton, Alberta. The company has numerous service and repair centers from Burnaby, to the oil sands of Fort McMurray, to the heart of natural gas production in Grande Prairie and as far east as Regina. Spartan employs roughly nine hundred people and operates over 700,000 square feet of facility space to support its customers.

Committed workforce
Spartan culture is often cited as a key advantage by customers, the companies it represents, and even its competitors. From its inception, Spartan’s leadership structured the company around the concept of broad employee ownership. They understood that allowing employees to own a piece of the company and share in its profitability would result in a more committed workforce. Everyone has an opportunity to purchase a piece of the company, and this drives a high level of dedication to customers. “We’re not employees; we’re owners, and when you have owners serving customers, there’s a higher level of attention, focus, detail, and energy,” says Wilde.

The company’s values reflect this foundation of ownership culture. Spartans are focused on establishing long-term customer relationships built on integrity and trust. From a management standpoint, Spartan leadership works to support frontline people by empowering them to be leaders and to make decisions. Particularly people who are interacting with customers are given latitude to take an active role, make important decisions and act as owners rather than employees.

Creating and sustaining value for the customer
“When we talk about customer value, it’s really how we’re wired,” says Wilde. “Our strategy is about creating and sustaining value that the customer wants. Whether it’s a simple transactional order, or a broad and complex application of control technology that gets implemented over many years, we’ve built our company on being able to serve specific customers and their needs.”

Through various representative agreements and acquisitions, Spartan has continuously added to its product line, assembling a very broad portfolio of solutions and services. This has allowed the company to provide a complete process control loop solution to its customers. Before 1971, the company was only selling components as standalone products, but that year, it decided that to better serve the needs of its customers, it would begin packaging the various parts together into complete solutions. Today, Spartan is Canada’s largest supplier of control panels and assemblies for the oil and gas and petrochemical industries. Spartan encourages its people to collaborate with its customers to come up with new solutions to meet their needs.

Environmental leadership through innovation
For the growing environmental compliance needs within many process industries, Spartan has a portfolio of implementation-ready clean technology developed to address environmental challenges such as energy conservation, reduction of vented and fugitive emissions, and increased production efficiency.

“We deliver these technologies based on very low abatement costs,” says Wilde. “They are as low as two dollars per ton of carbon dioxide — very cost effective. You can achieve environmental compliance and still have a return on your investment.”

Spartan’s customers in the oil and gas industry are leveraging its patented REMVue and Slipstream technologies for engine driven gas compression controls and are on their way to reducing CO2 emissions by over 1 megatonne per year. That is the equivalent to taking about 200,000 vehicles off the roads.

The company has also brought together a dedicated team focused on supporting customer operational excellence. This group brings together solutions and expertise to help optimize customers’ plant operations, making them safer and more reliable while performing better, resulting in more output with fewer material inputs and a reduction in energy and emissions.

“When you combine a number of our local innovations and solutions that we have been developing for 10 to 15 years now with those of Emerson’s, we can help our customers collectively reduce CO2e emissions by more than 15 MT,” says Wilde.

Industry recognition
Spartan’s commitment to its customers, Spartans and communities has not gone unnoticed. For the past 17 years, Spartan has been recognized as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies and is now considered a Platinum winner. This is an annual award given to companies that can demonstrate a clear strategy, an ability to achieve the goals that they set, financial health and stability, and a culture of commitment to the company.

Focused on the safety of its people, Spartan has also been recognized by the industry for its exemplary safety performance. It has received a Certificate of Recognition including being rated number 1 out of 190 industrial supply companies by the Workers Compensation Board.

“We recently received the Instrument Societies of America (ISA) Corporate Achievement award for the field of automation, The University of Calgary’s award for Corporate Leadership and maybe most rewarding is the United Way Division Excellence award for outstanding campaigns in charitable giving,” says Wilde.

Support for education and community involvement
Investing in future experts of the industry through support of education is another core value at Spartan. In partnership with Emerson and other principals, substantial investments have been made to provide students in post-secondary institutions with the most comprehensive suites of technology. Spartan supports key technical training institutions such as the British Columbia Institute of Technology, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Saskatchewan Polytechnic, and other leading centers of learning with over $10 million of its equipment in place.

Spartans are encouraged to be active in the communities in which they live and work. Through various community initiatives, such as a fundraising campaign for the United Way, supporting families in need during the Christmas season, and assistance for community infrastructure programs, they strive to support families and children in need.

As an employee-owned company, Spartan is dedicated to customers, Spartans and communities. Like the Spartans of the past, they are tirelessly devoted to the success of the vision they share.

The post Motivation and Innovation<p class="company">Spartan Controls</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

EnerCorp was established as the result of a joint venture between two sand management companies: Dynacorp, a Canadian company founded in Calgary Alberta in 2008, and Energes Oilfield Solutions, an American company founded in 2013. The companies operated independently until March of 2016 when the two collaborated on a project in the Permian Basin. By December of the following year, Energes and Dynacorp merged to form EnerCorp Sand Solutions.

The company has grown substantially by keeping its attention on the changing needs of the industry and its customers. EnerCorp has been able to stand above the competition and push sand management technology forward with its innovative products. “We’re a research and development company with a full line of patented products on the leading edge of sand management,” says Vice President of Business Development Bruce McKenna. “EnerCorp is by far the leader in adopting new technology, new products, and new ways to solve sand management challenges.”

Managing the sand is vital. If the flow of sand is not effectively controlled, it will erode mechanical valves and other important mechanical components. The result is costly maintenance and repairs, at best. At worst, sand erosion can result in explosions, fires, and other serious risks to the safety of everyone working at the site. As shale producers drill deeper and longer laterals, more frac sand is pumped in multiple stages in order to keep these tight formations open for oil and gas production. Even when only small percentages of this frac sand is returned to surface it can amount to thousands of pounds over various time frames. Enercorp products are designed to handle the largest amount of sand returns versus other competitors. Managing and monitoring the sand return with the most efficient technology is what separates Enercorp.

EnerCorp’s patented sand control products enable operators to flow back sand at a higher rate, resulting in much higher initial productions than have been possible in the past. Its equipment allows for much faster and much safer output throughout the entire lifecycle of the well.

EnerCorp’s products consist of three product types that are each in a state of constant evolution. All three of these lines, including the dual and triple horizontal sand filters, vertical sand cyclone, and flowback test separators, are patented proprietary products that have each significantly improved the way sand management is being done in oil fields throughout North America. These products have been widely adopted and are considered state of the art, but EnerCorp refuses to rest on its laurels.

“We’re not happy just inventing one or two products and saying ‘Here’s what we’ve got. We’re the nicest guys in the world. You should use us,’” says McKenna. “It’s continuing to strive to enhance our product line and staying ahead of the curve.” Despite the success of its products, the company concentrates on research and enhancing its equipment and is always working to push the technology even further.

The first of EnerCorp’s three main product types is its horizontal filtration solution. Dual and triple horizontal sand filters use innovative, field-tested, patented technology to filter sand particles as small as fifty microns. Competing equipment often relies on velocity-knockout to allow sand to drop out of the production stream. This process is very inefficient and ineffective. While this process allows much carryover of sand, Enercorp’s screen-based solution will remove even the smallest particles.

A major oil producer located in the Delaware Basin was having trouble with one of its separators. When a seal failed after only a few days, the company realized that sand was passing through the filtration system and accumulating in the equipment. As a result, equipment was always failing, resulting in significant and highly expensive downtime. The company installed EnerCorp’s horizontal filtration system and eliminated the problem entirely.

While the horizontal filters can handle up to five thousand pounds per square inch (psi) of pressure, the vertical cyclonic system is designed for much higher volume and higher flow rates with up to 15,000 psi of pressure.

As well as offering these products for sale, EnerCorp also maintains a rental fleet with installation and maintenance services and operator training. This means that customers can reduce the initial expense of becoming operational. The company’s rental agreements are flexible enough to allow an operator to rent high-capacity equipment to use during the early high volume production stage and then switch to different equipment for longer-term use. The company has complete training services for all of its equipment, ensuring that, whether owned or rented, the customer will be able to operate it safely, efficiently, and for a very long time.

After more than a decade in business, EnerCorp has grown to be the largest sand management company in North America, with nearly three hundred employees at two locations in Canada and seven in the United States. The company is poised to expand even more in the future.

“Our reach currently is all of North America, but we do some work in South America,” says McKenna. “The vast majority of our field service work in completions and sand management occurs in the United States. We are very successful in the Montney and Duvernay zones and we fabricate all of our equipment in Canada, but we want to continue to evolve internationally. We see a lot of opportunities abroad. We want to build more of an international base and show those producers why we’re the leader.”

A key component to the company’s success is a strongly held commitment to its values. These are reflected in the company’s commitment to research, development and an engineering team that has consistently worked at the leading edge of sand management technology to create quality of the work and a solid reputation. Every employee of EnerCorp believes in its principles and operates accordingly, driving the company to so much success.

The company has also been very active in giving back to the communities in which it operates. EnerCorp supports many charitable organizations and educational programs including the Alberta Children’s Hospital, the Ronald McDonald House of Southern Alberta, Women in Trades, the Special Olympics, and many more.

“We’re very passionate about giving back to the community and supporting various charities,” says McKenna. “Giving back is a big thing for us.”

As the oil and gas industry changes, EnerCorp will keep investing in research and development to help minimize sand problems and increase production for producers as this ever-growing industry evolves.

“Traditionally, sand is a pain, and a lot of companies struggle with it,” says McKenna. “They’ll use whatever they can to try and get by, but what we do, and what our company strives to do, is to continue to lead the industry with continuous research and development. We aim to be a full solution provider, rather than just a product provider. We need to continue to adapt to that and stay on the leading edge of what we’re offering.”

The post True Grit<p class="company">EnerCorp Sand Solutions</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

A wholly-owned subsidiary of The Broe Group, GW has a vision of expanding the American energy industry today and years into the future. “Energy cycles come and go,” states Great Western President and Chief Executive Officer Rich Frommer. “We look for opportunities every day, always with a longer development horizon in mind.”

The company operates over four hundred wells in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, centered in the eastern part of Colorado and stretching into parts of Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas. The basin is known for the deposits of oil and gas that are critical for America’s energy independence. GW is one of the top ten drillers in the United States by production volume, producing 11,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Colorado means much more to Great Western than a place to drill. GW is integral to the community and recognizes the importance of giving back through a variety of initiatives, including a $20,000 donation to the Windsor-Severance Re-4 School District. The donation was earmarked for Google Nexus tablet computers which, in the words of Superintendent Karen Trusler, “had significant impact on the education for these second graders.” Among the many benefits to students were fewer behavioral issues and distractions.

Other generous donations, such as $25,000 from The Broe Family Foundation, resulted in the creation of the Windsor Scholarship Fund, the single largest donation to the program in its history. The funds are being used to aid youth athletic and social skills, giving them new and exciting opportunities.

Set apart from other companies by its professionalism and willingness to work with landowners and local communities and sensitive to the needs of stakeholders including homeowners, GW continually works towards easing any issues that may arise.

One of Great Western’s successful stories involves creating a balance between the interests of GW and those opposed to oil and gas activity in Colorado.

Drilling wells in Windsor were initially planned for the Pace property west of County Road 13 and had to be located to nearby sites owned by Martin Lind, a well-known and respected land developer. Lind is behind Water Valley, a site of approximately 4,000 acres of undeveloped land primarily east of Interstate 25 and north of Crossroads Boulevard in Colorado.

“The project has been a struggle for a long time and one we’ve been working on literally since May of 2013,” says GW Surface Land Manager Eric Creed. “We had originally planned to develop those minerals from the property across the street from Pace with Martin Lind on his property, a future golf course. These pads were actually going to go inside his golf course in an innovative way.”

When the arrangement with Lind stalled, Great Western went across the street to a neighbor who had a large field and successfully negotiated a surface land use agreement (SUA) with him. Although SUAs are not required under any statute and often cost several hundred thousand dollars, Great Western took it upon itself to conduct business properly at its own expense, out of respect.

While out on the Pace property with a construction crew who were assigned to build the turning lanes the company would need, Creed was approached by a few residents from a nearby neighborhood upset over the possibility of anything going there. Construction soon triggered a firestorm with locals and the press.

Some homeowners were concerned about issues ranging from depreciation of home values to possible contamination of water from fracking, which involves injecting liquid at high pressures into underground rock formations to open existing fissures so oil and gas can be extracted.

Soon, a neighborhood group was formed. The Windsor Neighbors for Responsible Drilling, LLC (WNRD) was opposed to the proposed twenty-eight wells and forty-five tanks. The group created a Facebook page, hired a lawyer and sat down with the governor and director of the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), which works to ensure the responsible development of the state’s oil and gas resources.

A petition was then created to compel Great Western’s drilling activities to be 2,500 feet back from houses and waterways, instead of the 500-foot setback regulation. This would result in a total loss for Great Western and nearly eliminate the oil industry.

“People weren’t thinking about that in three dimensions, they were thinking about it in two dimensions, left and right, forward and backward,” comments Creed. “They weren’t thinking about the aquifer we sit on, which is about two hundred feet below the ground. So, if you put that into play, and start counting stuff vertically as well as on the surface horizontally, then that’s a one hundred percent loss for the industry in Colorado.”

Colorado is the seventh top-producing state for oil, with a tremendous increase from thirty million barrels in 2009 to over ninety-four million barrels in 2014. The negative impact on the Colorado energy sector if the petition was successful would have been disastrous.

Following Great Western’s filing of permits for wells on the Pace property, groups pressured local government to annex the property, which was unincorporated at the time and not part of Windsor.

Although the mayor said no property had been annexed in 125 years and wouldn’t be now, he agreed to the zoning change, with the result being that the land was now under the jurisdiction of Windsor, and Great Western was to follow an entirely different set of rules and best management practices.

What followed were a number of ballot initiatives, a campaign called Raise the Bar, and three and a half years of negotiations with Martin Lind over relocating the project again to his property. Raindance, part of the entrepreneur’s Water Valley development, already had two golf courses and lakes stocked with fish.

A massive service use agreement comprising eighteen separate documents and covering 364 pages was created which resulted in “a solution which we think works well for everybody,” says Creed. Through negotiations, even initial local opponents such as Shawndra Barry came to support the project.

In a letter supporting Great Western’s applications, she wrote: “The combination of assurances made to the impacted community by GWOC and the technological components used in this development allows me to show strong support for the drilling and spacing units and pooling applications.”

Barry added, “in my opinion, the proposed Raindance location is the best location to access approximately 2,800 mineral acres for numerous reasons, and GWOV should be commended for all of these reasons.”

“Our position was: the rules work,” says Creed. “The system works. If you just sit down with them, listen and address the concerns of neighbors and residents, the system works. It doesn’t need to be changed. You don’t need setbacks of 2,500 feet or 1,000 feet because, in this industry, we are self-policing in some respects. At Great Western, our default is 1,000 feet. So when we are looking at a new area and we put a halo on these houses, we put 1000-foot halos, and we put 500-foot halos; 500 is the law, 1,000 is our preference. So we try to find a location and where we can build a pad beyond 1,000 feet. We can’t always do that because there isn’t always enough room, but that is our default mode.”

Other anti-oil and gas opponents have been persuaded through education and information and now say that Great Western is one of the best companies in the field when it comes to complying with requests and being receptive.

“The project unfolded. It reached a place where everybody seems to be happy, and we are hoping to build in a couple of months and start drilling later in the summer or fall. It took a long time, but we pulled it off in the end.”

The post Working with Communities<p class="company">The Great Western Oil & Gas Company</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

One aspect of the company that sets Beretta Pipeline Construction apart from its competitors is its diverse abilities and breadth of knowledge, making it a true one-stop shop for anyone in need of construction services.

Indeed, Beretta Pipeline Construction’s six discrete divisions of specialty are a benefit for its clients. Because of its many areas of expertise, the company is able to meet and often exceed the needs that arise from its clients’ projects.

According to the company’s website, its divisions include aggregate, pipeline construction, civil construction, oilfield maintenance, and environmental remediation. And in order to meet demand coming from the growing exploration and development of Saskatchewan’s oil and gas sector, Beretta Pipeline Construction also has a division for oil and gas facility construction. According to a CBC article, the Petroleum Services Association of Canada (PSAC) says that there have been 1940 wells dug in Saskatchewan in 2017 alone.

As per its website, Beretta Pipeline Construction’s services also include steel and fiberglass pipeline construction, replacement, lowering and repairing, gas and oil gathering, road crossings, hot oil transmission lines, “directional drilling (as in crossing the roads, rivers and muskeg) and all spoolable pipe including HDPE, Flexpipe, Fiberspar, Flexsteel.”

The company puts a great deal of importance on safety, with safety being front and foremost with every project or job that it takes on. A significant amount of focus is placed on keeping both its staff and customers safe, and to reinforce a culture of safety, all employees take part in the company’s many safety practices.

According to a recent article in Energy and Mining Magazine, Beretta Pipeline Construction has established more than one hundred ways to promote safety for its employees, clients and the environment. Company leadership wants everyone to be safe, an attitude that benefits all.

According to its website, in keeping with Beretta Pipeline Construction’s high standards of safety, the company has a thorough drug awareness policy in place that requires drug and alcohol testing before an employee is hired and again after the occurrence of any incident in the workplace or by staff while carrying out job duties.

Because Beretta Pipeline Construction wants to go that extra mile to keep things safe, the company is also certified to teach First Aid, Transportation of Dangerous Goods, WHMIS, Heavy Construction Safety Association of Saskatchewan certified operator training and fire extinguisher safety, and Ground Disturbance levels one and two. And according to its website, Beretta Pipeline Construction is one of only a few companies of its kind to have a full time Gold Seal safety officer – certified by the Canadian Construction Association. Needless to say, the company is very proud of its comprehensive Safety Program.

According to the article in Energy and Mining Magazine, Beretta Pipeline Construction has made great efforts over the last four years and taken great strides to diversify its capabilities and expand its services. It is in the process of designing a “mobile soil reclamation system” which it aims to patent soon. In the article, Darrell Carter, General Manager of Beretta Pipeline Construction, is quoted as saying: “if we can get the necessary government approvals and get this system operational, we’ll have something no one else in the region has.”

Of all the accomplishments it has enjoyed and hurdles it has surmounted, Beretta Pipeline Construction gives most of the credit for its success to the incredibly capable women and men who work for the company. Its dedicated and knowledgeable management team and employees all have varying areas of expertise and capabilities – but their skills are maximized by the fact that most are trained to take on multiple tasks, in more than one area of the company. Employees are cross-trained so that they are able to help out wherever they are needed.

Beretta Pipeline Construction is 100 percent owned, operated and managed by a First Nation. Depending on the time of year, the company has between 50 to 180 employees (at the peak of construction season), and when in need of personnel, has access to an impressively large labour pool of skilled and entry-level workers from reserves all over Canada. The company takes great pride in its heritage and aims to generate as much revenue and employment for the First Nations community as possible, hoping to eventually expand to have 500 plus employees. Understandably, the company is very excited about the federal government’s recent announcements to provide funding for improvements to infrastructure and clean drinking water availability for some First Nations communities and reserves.

For its part, Beretta Pipeline Construction is always looking to give back to the communities in which it operates, donating both time and money to local charities and sports organizations.

As the company continues to grow and expand, Beretta Pipeline Construction will continue offering excellent service while creating jobs and opportunities for First Nations communities throughout Canada.

The post Safety and Community<p class="company">Beretta Pipeline Construction</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Neil is very passionate about this business and has been involved for his entire career in the industry, having started two other ethanol companies before Pacific Ethanol. One of them, Kinergy Marketing, even became a part of the current entity. He graduated from college in 1981, with a major in government and an emphasis on energy policy.

“That was after the oil shocks, and I travelled to the Middle East knowing that we needed to move quickly to displace oil. I started working for the Department of Agriculture in Sacramento, helping farmers use renewable fuels,” says Neil.

A combination of geothermal, hydroelectric power, wind power, methane digesters, and small amounts of ethanol were being used to help the farmers, and this process gave Neil an idea. He realized that ethanol production was just getting started and could eventually replace oil and gas in the U.S.

“I have committed my entire professional career to making this happen,” says Neil. Pacific Ethanol is part of an industry that now has more than two hundred ethanol plants throughout the country. But Neil’s foray into the industry began much earlier.

Parallel Products was the first ethanol production company in California and was co-founded by Neil in 1984. It converted waste products from the food and beverage industries into ethanol. It was a real niche business, working with trucks of waste that would come in from companies like Anheuser-Busch. Eventually that morphed into taking packaged goods that were unsellable due to bad marketing or being damaged in transit.

“We were de-casing one million cases a month that would otherwise be considered consumable beverages, recycled all the containers and converted all of the liquid into fuel-grade ethanol,” says Neil.

Parallel Products was sold in 1998, and in 2000, Neil founded Kinergy Marketing to distribute ethanol in the western United States.

Oxygenates are fuel additives that raise the oxygen content of gasoline and are required to be added to gasoline to reduce tailpipe emissions. For years the oil industry’s oxygenate of choice was methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE).

The oil industry found, when added to fuel, MTBE would also meet federal air quality requirements. However, when MTBE was found to be contaminating drinking water, it was banned in California in 2002 and eventually was banned throughout the U.S.

Ethanol is another oxygenate as well as a clean burning fuel that met the earlier federal air quality requirements.

“This was a huge growth boost for ethanol, as it was now the only product that could be used to meet air quality requirements. I founded Kinergy Marketing right when MTBE was being phased out of gasoline,” says Neil.

This spurred growth in the ethanol market. With Neil’s well established relationships with suppliers in the Midwest, Kinergy brought ethanol from the Midwest to California and the other states in the Western United States, where it then distributed the ethanol to oil companies, making for a smooth transition from MTBE to ethanol.

Other than Parallel Products, there was no other entity in the state of California that was producing ethanol at this time of growth. In 2003, Neil, along with former California Secretary of State Bill Jones, founded Pacific Ethanol.

“Bill is a long-time farmer and rancher in the Fresno area. I had the ethanol expertise and a name in that world. He had good name recognition statewide and understood the local agriculture and political landscapes. Together, we formed Pacific Ethanol to take advantage of this market opportunity,” says Neil.

At that point, all the ethanol had been produced in the Midwest and consumed there. With the change from using MTBE, suddenly ethanol was being distributed throughout the entire country. Pacific Ethanol was the first company to move manufacturing to the markets where the end product would be used, rather than producing ethanol in the Midwest where the corn was growing.

There is now a huge ethanol market in California, and what many people do not know is that when corn is made into ethanol, the by-product is a high-quality product called distillers grain that is fed to beef and dairy cows. “The corn is turned not only into ethanol but high-protein feed. In addition, producing our own ethanol and combining it with the oil that we produce in the U.S. to become self-sufficient is a lot better than supporting oil imports from the Middle East,” says Neil.

California has the largest dairy industry in the U.S.; it also has the largest concentration of dairy cows in the world, so corn was already coming to California as feed.

“We just decided to come into that market and got the opportunity to take the corn, remove the energy for conversion into ethanol, and concentrate the balance of the corn into high protein feed. The model is wherever there are lots of cows and cars, that’s where we built the ethanol plant,” says Neil.

One plant was built in Idaho, one in Oregon, and two in California. These four plants have a combined capacity of over 200 million gallons. Kinergy Marketing was purchased by the new company that Neil founded and was integrated into the production side. It was unique to incorporate a significant marketing and distribution company with a production company, and it was also rare to find an ethanol producing facility outside of the Midwest. Pacific Ethanol went public in 2005.

The industry was supported for its agricultural economic development, energy, security, and environmental protection. These and other reasons drove additional policies that in 2005 and again in 2007 resulted in the federal Renewable Fuels Standard. These went beyond simple air quality regulations.

“RFS requires oil companies to be increasing amounts of renewable fuels (ethanol, biodiesel and others) into the mix nationally. That’s been a huge policy driver, and the corn farmers have stepped up by producing incremental corn. Producers have done the same by expanding ethanol production,” says Neil.

A relevant strength of the California market is the carbon pricing built into the gasoline markets in that state. In 2007, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger directed the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to create California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). This program was created to encourage the production and use of cleaner, low-carbon fuels to address climate change, lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the state’s dependence on fossil fuels.

The initiative aims to decrease the carbon intensity of California’s transportation fuels. These reductions include vehicle emissions as well as all related emissions from production, distribution, and fuel used for transport. Pacific Ethanol has invested in many low carbon technologies to reduce the carbon intensity of the ethanol it produces. For instance, Pacific Ethanol took what was arguably already a clean grid in California and built a five-megawatt solar powered system which has zero CO₂ emissions for production of electricity, making it the first ethanol company in the world to incorporate a commercial solar system in a plant.

“If you look at the cost of producing ethanol, the number one expense is the price of corn, followed by the cost of energy, and finally, labor. Energy is a big deal. Natural gas and electricity can affect the bottom line,” says Neil.

In California, the sun shines, generating electricity, so Pacific Ethanol’s electricity requirements are being taken care of while it saves $1 million per year in its electricity costs and gives itself a lower carbon score after installing 5 MW of solar electric production at its Madera, CA facility.

“It’s about the value generated in the lower carbon score and the ability to charge a premium price because of that. The solar system just went online and it is operating at its full capacity, though of course at lower total production during the winter months,” says Neil. When the sun is shining during the summer, it will displace forty to fifty percent of the electricity used.

Initially, the plan was that by 2020, California refineries must reduce the carbon intensity of their fuel by ten percent. CARB recently extended goals to 2030; by that date, it wants to lower the carbon intensity by twenty percent. If you look at what it takes to reduce carbon intensity, these are significant numbers and will shift the way fuels are made and distributed in California.

Adding ethanol is what refineries have been using to meet these requirements. “We are thirty percent to forty percent lower carbon than gasoline, and the refineries buy our ethanol, blend it at ten percent with their gasoline, and that generates the credit. The same is happening on the diesel side, with biodiesels, renewable diesel, and cars that are becoming electrified with plug-in hybrids,” says Neil.

Biogas from dairies is going into compressed natural gas vehicles, resulting in world-leading policy for carbon reduction in transportation. Ethanol plays a very significant role. Pacific Ethanol saw this early on, especially when standing next to Arnold Schwarzenegger as he directed the California Air Resources Board through an executive order to establish the world’s first low-carbon fuel standard.

“This has been a part of our vision. We saw this policy was critical and wanted to develop new policies to supplement policies developing at the national level. The policies had to be more appropriate for our business model,” says Neil. Oregon, British Columbia, and states in the Midwest have adopted or are considering low-carbon fuel standards.

Another example of low-carbon initiatives at Pacific Ethanol was incorporating some membrane technology that reduced its natural gas use by five percent, and it is looking at mechanical vapor recompression (MVR) that could cut natural gas use in half. Natural gas has been relatively cheap, but it has been used more in the ethanol plants than electricity, so reducing its use would make sense. All these initiatives require significant capital.

“We wouldn’t have any reason to invest in these technologies if we were not able to monetize the carbon reduction, and that’s where the low-carbon fuel standard plays a big role. By extending that investment horizon to 2030, we can make larger, more fundamental investments to lower our carbon score. The program is giving us the incentive and security to do it. It’s a policy that is resulting in significant innovation and technological change,” says Neil.

This is an achievable goal, but the U.S. is still importing oil. Ethanol production is a huge issue for the Midwest because corn and soybean crops are grown there and are a huge driver of the economy. It is one of the only growth stories for corn farmers as they are getting more efficient in the production of corn and need new markets. Ethanol support is critical, and if you look at presidential politics, being able to gain the support of the Midwest in the Iowa caucus is a critical component of a successful national campaign.

“Since ethanol is a threshold issue, it makes sense politically that you should be in support of ethanol if you are a true patriot,” says Neil. Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline and fifty percent cleaner.

Early on when Trump was campaigning, he made significant commitments and promises to the ethanol industry. One of these was to liberate the market to higher ethanol blends. On the same day as Neil’s FOX interview, October 9, 2018, an anticipated announcement came out from the federal government that directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to change the rules and regulations to allow for the year-round blending of E15 – the fifteen percent ethanol fuel.

Now, the industry is producing a great deal of ethanol and exporting it at a rapid pace. “As I also mentioned in the interview, with the trade wars, China is becoming a great new market opportunity,” says Neil.

Nearly half of all gasoline in the world is consumed by the U.S., so there is also a great need for all this ethanol at home. The move could result in a thirty percent ethanol blend. Ultimately, what car companies want is to design much higher compression engines that require a higher-octane fuel that only higher blends of ethanol can deliver.

The main challenge is the largest, most powerful single special interest in the world: the oil industry has resisted yielding market share to the ethanol industry but with policy support and because of the positive attributes of ethanol, the oil industry has adapted the way it makes gasoline.

“They produce gasoline that frankly is off spec from an environmental and octane standpoint, until they add the ten percent ethanol. After incorporating the ten percent blends the refining industry drew a line in the sand to say, ‘That’s it, no more market share for you. We have had one hundred percent for over one hundred years, but you can only have ten percent!’ It’s an interesting story from an overall energy perspective,” says Neil.

The oil industry is not happy about the E15 announcement. The American Petroleum Institute (API) voiced its opposition to the proposal, saying the fuel “has been shown to damage vehicle engines and fuel systems, and most cars on the road today are not designed to run on E15.”

“It is patently false and serves to confuse consumers, which slows our efforts. Politically, they are so powerful and are big supporters of Trump, who wanted a deal to be brokered. All we are asking for is equal and fair access to the market,” says Neil.

With open access, consumers buy a product that is cheaper and better. After the sessions were completed, oil companies were asking for more restrictions to keep ethanol out of the market and destroy demand for the product. Prior to the midterm elections, the president backed ethanol. The oil representatives are now deciding what legal recourse they have and are threatening to go through with litigation. The fight is not over.

Solar, hydroelectric, and other sources of renewable energy have not been as successful as ethanol in getting ten percent of the hydrocarbon market. This is a reason to celebrate for Pacific Ethanol, but more can be done. “The hard work continues, but we will get there because of the elegance and the advantage of ethanol to the many farmers, consumers, and the environment,” says Neil.

The post Demand-Driven Innovation<p class="company">Pacific Ethanol</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“We are at a crossroads and are redefining the company as we move forward into the new realm. There will be no more Feed-in Tariff program. Solar has been pushed into the market by the market drivers, as opposed to a policy with respect to a standardized offer program, so it’s going to be very interesting as solar needs to stand more and more on its own,” says Azeem.

The microFIT program for installations of fewer than forty solar panels was put in place by the Ontario provincial government to promote the generation of electricity from renewable sources. Many people are in favour of adopting clean energy like solar but are unable to afford to invest in a system. Ontario’s program helped with that.

“Every year, there is a digression in the feed-in tariff rates; the rate the government offers has lowered each year. When that happens, people have no incentive financially to participate in the program as it is not as lucrative. We will keep the numbers at the same rate as last year through some creative processes,” says Azeem.

Now that the government program is ending, Grasshopper has developed its own: the Grasshopper Guaranteed Funding Program.

The Guaranteed Funding Program offers up to $30,000 toward installing a solar power system to homeowners with a qualified roof. Grasshopper Solar pays for installing the system as well as its maintenance. It will hopefully enable more people to qualify for solar power and is a noteworthy change for the company this year.

The educational campaign taken on by Grasshopper has been difficult. People are still uninformed about solar power options, and some still believe that solar may decrease property values.

“We have to continue our efforts by tirelessly educating customers through different channels. Yvonne (Yvonne Villeneuve, marketing), has been championing that with various videos, and reaching out to a host of realtors, helping them to understand the value of solar,” says Azeem.

Ontario’s not-for-profit Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) is an independent corporation that assesses the value of all properties in the province for tax purposes. MPAC will be examining all property transfers that have a Grasshopper solar energy system to see if the system affects property values. So far, about two hundred such properties have been sold.

“We rarely had a situation where the sale is incomplete or something happened as a result of solar. In fact, that never happened,” says Azeem.

MPAC’s current stance is that rooftop solar panels do not affect the assessed value of a property or its taxes. In the future, Grasshopper hopes that MPAC will see that solar adds a specific value to the property. It will take time to implement this as enough data and analysis must be performed.

“The short-term goal is with MPAC validating the fact that solar has a value. The impact of this is long-term because we are in twenty-year contracts,” says Azeem.

When we last spoke, the company was planning a solar program to be made available to commercial and industrial properties in which Grasshopper would own, install and maintain the infrastructure. Properties that sign up would see the benefits of solar power without any of the risks of investing in it. The project is now operational, and Grasshopper has been installing quite a few commercial projects. By the second quarter of 2018, there should be an estimated $250 million in operating assets, making this the largest project of its kind in Canada.

Throughout the summer, Grasshopper is preparing to go on the road with barbecues and parties to attract whole neighbourhoods and educate residents on the merits of solar power. The hope is to get mayors and city representatives invested in face to face conversations.

“It’s a very real thing we are doing. We are the largest residential company in Canada. We want to have real conversations and talk to people about their concerns. We want people to build a better life by helping them save money on their hydro bills. We are currently planning that road show,” says Azeem.

Grasshopper is actively looking to expand into the Northeastern U.S. as well as California, and Azeem believes that Grasshopper can bring a lot of value to these areas. The solar energy sales model is certainly going to change because now it will be financed via consumer credit rather than government incentives. There are no standard programs, but rather power purchase agreements (PPAs) and lease contracts between electricity sellers and buyers.

“The value of operating it from the engineering procurement construction (EPC), with asset management on the back end, will remain fairly consistent. But, the way we originate and develop projects will be different and somewhat of a logistical nightmare,” says Azeem.

The challenges may vary, but they have not increased. The main thing to note is that the market in the U.S. is significantly larger and energy prices are also higher than in Ontario. This translates into more motivation in particular areas to explore alternative energy options, with the expectation that the U.S. will move quickly on solar.

In the past year, there has been a substantial price drop in the cost of solar panels. “When we spoke last year, panels were going for seventy cents per watt. Today we are able to get a similar panel for forty-five cents per watt, which is about a thirty-five percent to forty percent decrease in pricing of the solar panels. It’s tremendous to see this happen,” says Azeem.

New policy is currently being discussed, especially in Ontario and the U.S., that should make solar more accessible. In fact, Azeem is in talks with the Ministry of Energy about what is known as community solar or virtual net metering. This involves generating electricity on commercial rooftops, near a community of people who can sign up for shares of solar power without the panels being mounted on their homes. Subscribers receive credits on their energy bills of the amount generated by their share of the installation.

“There is a lot of work going into crafting that policy, as it essentially allows anybody to participate and brings in economies of scale. This will further reduce the cost of solar with that policy construct,” says Azeem.

For the future of the industry, the community solar idea shows tremendous promise because many energy consumers who will be hardest hit by rising energy costs live in condominiums, smaller homes or townhomes, where solar power installation on the rooftops is not possible.

“By creating this construct with the community solar, that discrimination in the way that happens goes away. It’s a very important measure that the government needs to be looking at, and we need to be talking about as an industry. We want to try and bring this to fruition for everyone in Ontario,” says Azeem.

The post Bring Solar Home<p class="company">Grasshopper Solar</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

“Solar has now become an energy source with a lot of breadth and we represent all segments of the industry,” said Dan Whitten, SEIA’s Vice-President of Communications. This includes residential, commercial, large scale/utility solar companies, financiers, along with companies in the community solar space.

Minnesota and Massachusetts are great examples of how smart policies can translate into broader adoption of community solar, bringing the advantages of this cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy source to people who rent, those with a shared roof, low-income families, and businesses large and small.

In fact, community projects are a burgeoning part of the industry and directly correlate with the values and mission of the industry. As Whitten noted, “The concept of solar energy – providing electricity to anybody and making it possible for people to make their own electricity choice, not being stuck with whatever electricity a monopoly provides for you – it’s sort of a concept that has motivated people to develop solar since the beginning.”

SEIA was established in 1974 to promote solar as a viable alternative energy source with fewer emissions than legacy fuel sources. The organization serves as the collective voice of the industry in Washington to advocate for policies that promote greater access to and acceptance of solar. As Whitten said, “At that time, it was just coming into public consciousness and it was considered more of a concept than an actual competitive product in energy markets, but there was a lot of appeal.”

Now, there are new ways to invest in and take advantage of solar energy. While SEIA was founded by people who used solar for heating, the development of photovoltaic solar panels significantly expanded its use and application.

“They were definitely visionary leaders because now, forty years later, it’s emerging as one of the top new sources of electricity in the country,” said Whitten. The introduction of an investment tax credit and falling prices both helped increase the rate of adoption.

“Back then, it might not have been conceivable that solar was going to immediately compete with king coal, nuclear and later natural gas and it has, and it’s particularly ramped up over the last ten years,” said Whitten.

Polling data shows that nearly 90 percent of people support solar, but more needs to be done to translate that soft support into active support. “Our job is very much about education. We know from polling that when people are educated, they have a much more favorable outlook on solar than when they are not,” noted Whitten. He acknowledged that, “Solar is the number one energy source that people want their utilities to provide. Attitudes are positive but actions need to be stronger to make change happen.”

SEIA actively educates the public about how solar can work for them, their business and their community. One of the ways this can be achieved is by focusing on the wins that solar has had over the last several years.

One of the greatest wins is the fact that market leaders like Walmart, Target, Amazon, Facebook and Google have all made massive investments in solar and are benefitting greatly from it. “If they can save money, everybody else can too. Companies large and small and people can benefit from investing in solar,” Whitten explained. “Individuals need to make that commitment and not only will they feel good about what they’ve done but they’re actually going to see economic returns.”

SEIA takes a multifaceted approach to the advocacy and advancement of the U.S. solar market. Further to its efforts to educate, its initiatives and advocacy center on four key pillars: social awareness, trade, technology and environment, finance and tax and solar policy. The organization has earned itself a seat at the table with decision makers and energy leaders who are working together to define the future of energy grids in the country to ensure future energy needs are met.

SEIA’s vision is to represent solar and help it become the single largest source of new energy generation in the United States over the next decade. To do that, the organization will need to defend the Investment Tax Credit, advocate at the policy level for fairness to increase access to the grid and continue to educate the public.

The organization’s goals include: achieving the installation of at least 100 gigawatts of solar electric capacity in the United States by 2022, with solar representing 15 percent of the country’s annual electricity generation by 2030, as well as being the largest source of new electricity generation annually. To achieve this, solar will need to be installed on four million rooftops in the United States by 2022 and by 2050, it would like to see at least 300 gigawatts of solar thermal installed as well. This, paired with effective and smart solar heating and cooling policies, could create jobs, provide economic stimulus and better serve the environment.

The organization’s goals are ambitious but realistic and will only be achieved when solar is no longer regarded as a partisan issue. “Solar is not going to win favor in policy circles if we don’t have bipartisan appeal,” said Whitten, and if the midterm election results in the United States are any indication, the political sphere is still rather divided on solar.

Whitten noted that while ballot initiatives were rejected in Arizona and Washington, there are a handful of new governors that are pledging 100 percent renewable energy portfolio standards. Nevada adopted a renewable energy portfolio standard of 50 percent which has been met with great optimism.

“It used to be that California was sort of the lone beacon leading the way in solar but now what you have is the Midwest states, like Michigan and Illinois, showing great enthusiasm for solar. Texas is going to be one of the fastest-growing solar states in the country. And in the Southeast, South Carolina is making big commitments to solar and North Carolina is now the second largest solar state in the country,” Whitten said.

While there have been many wins, the solar industry is facing a number of challenges, from tariffs and competition with traditional energy sources, to a rapid rate of innovation that has changed the market landscape. “Our electricity system has evolved in the last five years faster than it has in the last 150 years and I think you’ve got some old line organizations trying to maintain the status quo, spending lots of money to undermine the inevitable growth in solar,” said Whitten. “They see the future and they know their old business models are in jeopardy.”

While there are conflicts at the policy level both in the state and federal government and with other energy sources, SEIA takes a collaborative approach, working with stakeholders and competitors alike with regards to grid modernization, electricity delivery, time of day usage for different fuel sources, and storage.

“We need to keep working with policy makers, decision makers. Some of it is pretty complex; this stuff is not simple and it involves expertise (electrical engineering, legal, policy, logistics, etc.) and we need to get in there with these organizations making these decisions,” said Whitten.

Indeed, solar can serve to enhance energy and national security in the United States. It can diversify energy resources from which to draw, and it can strengthen the country’s energy infrastructure and resiliency. SEIA is committed to working with utilities to promote competitive market structure. It is also a leader in terms of diversity and inclusion.

“Our CEO Abby Hopper came into her role almost two years ago, setting diversity and inclusion as one of her top priorities, and part of the reason for that is she’s a successful woman who has achieved a lot and looks around and sees a lack of diversity in this industry and in some of the other industries she’s worked in and she was determined to do something about it,” explained Whitten.

SEIA hosts events dedicated to women’s empowerment and continuously looks to improve internal practices to ensure diversity and inclusion in the organization. This starts with its hiring practices. “It’s a challenge to change an entire culture and you have to go the extra mile to make sure that a good pool, a diverse pool of candidates is applying for your jobs and is aware that you have openings. It’s going to be a long process before we get to where we want to go but we are focused on it,” said Whitten.

SEIA is expanding its data gathering efforts to better understand where the organization and the industry is in terms of diversity which will better enable it to address the issue in a more targeted and meaningful way.

“We think of this as a virtuous cycle. We think that if we can start to get a bigger foothold that investment will pick up, jobs will pick up, the economy will pick up, more Americans will have access, we’ll develop a more diverse customer base and we will grow as a subject that people study in colleges across the entire country,” said Whitten.

As solar gains greater recognition in the market, as prices continue to come down and storage options improve, there will be a greater rate of solar adoption by individuals and businesses across the U.S.

More jobs will be created, the grid and the economy will be strengthened and diversified, the environmental outlook will be greater, and behind all of this, SEIA will continue to be the force advocating for a bright future with solar.

The post Advancing an Industry that is Energized with Opportunity<p class="company">Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Decades ago, reliable electricity was a luxury. It was slow to catch on, and people continued to heat and light their homes with fireplaces, coal, gas, or candles for decades after the introduction of electrical power. However, homeowner and business demands kept rising as new appliances such as dishwashers and electric-powered refrigerators were introduced. Eventually, it became something to take for granted until disaster strikes.

Human beings learn our lessons through adversity, and few predicaments are as challenging as natural disasters. Just the past few years have seen massive losses of life and billions of dollars in damage caused by hurricanes Florence, Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Matthew, to name just a few.

One of the costliest and deadliest was October 2012’s Hurricane Sandy which slammed the Caribbean and the East Coast of the U.S., killing 285 people and causing an estimated $62 billion in damage in America alone, with another $315 of damage in the Caribbean. Hurricane Sandy also left hundreds of thousands without power for days in New York and Canada, causing nuclear reactors to shut down and companies to close, resulting in at least $30 billion in lost business.

Following Hurricane Sandy, demand for standby generators soared, as homeowners purchased smaller units run on gasoline or large units powered by natural gas.

The generator market represents a multi-billion-dollar annual industry and serves as a reminder that our once-trusted electrical grids are aging and not as resilient to natural disasters as we believed. Just as homeowners purchase external generators in the wake of hurricanes, typhoons, earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters, businesses are acutely aware of the need for dependable sources of electricity.

This leads to questions about the best sources of power. Should our grids be powered by nuclear power or wind or natural gas? Should we continue to invest in oil and gas or transition to greener sources like solar? Likewise, is one grid the answer? September 2017’s Hurricane Maria’s 170 mile-per-hour winds not only devastated Puerto Rico but its already fragile transmission system, leading to heated discussions about the need for microgrids, subsystems that can be disconnected from the public system and operated on their own temporarily.

When electrical grids have a catastrophic failure, they need to be rebuilt. Power must be restored gradually – or in the case of Puerto Rico, painfully slowly as rebuilding continues – yet businesses need to remain open.

From fridges and freezers in local convenience stores to heating and cooling multi-storey office buildings and manufacturing facilities, power is vital. Realizing this, more businesses are investing in energy storage.

According to research from the U.S.-based global management firm McKinsey & Company, energy storage will continue as prices continue to drop, with estimates that technological advances will see worldwide energy storage approach about 1,000 gigawatts in the next twenty years. A single gigawatt provides energy for approximately 700,000 homes for a year.

“Many people see affordable storage as the missing link between intermittent renewable power, such as solar and wind, and 24/7 reliability,” said McKinsey & Company in The New Economics of Energy Storage, which called energy storage a preferred technology. “Major industrial companies consider storage a technology that could transform cars, turbines, and consumer electronics.”

As prices of energy storage continue to decline and better products such as longer-lasting lithium batteries become more prevalent, it is good news for businesses of all types that require reliable sources of power. Efficient energy storage devices will benefit many industries, particularly grocery chains which – according to the United State Environmental Protection Agency – already spend forty to sixty percent of their total energy bills on keeping fridges and freezers operating.

Even though renewable energy such as solar cells and wind turbines are showing promise, businesses cannot depend on these sources entirely, since they are subject to the whims of nature. Lithium-ion batteries, however, are growing in use, led by the development of electric cars.

Although well-intentioned, the push across Australia to achieve seventy-three percent of its power from renewables by 2021 has led to blackouts, including one in 2016. In South Australia, the Hornsdale Power Reserve was completed in late 2017 by Tesla. The massive 100-megawatt project is the world’s largest lithium-ion storage system and will fill-in electrical gaps to regulate power.

In the United States, the energy storage sector is growing rapidly. Last year, the most recent quarterly report U.S. Energy Storage Monitor from research and consultancy company Wood Mackenzie stated that battery installations totalled 311 megawatts and 777 megawatt-hours with especially significant growth in the last quarter.

Although the industry broke records in 2019, insiders expect it to double this year and triple in 2020. This trend will undoubtedly continue, as energy storage becomes more powerful and less expensive. While sources such as lithium-ion are growing in popularity, they do have some downsides, including a maximum lifecycle of about seven years.

Other technologies, such as the vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB), which was first explored back in the 1930s, are being revisited by CellCube Energy Storage Systems Inc. of Perth, Australia. CellCube’s VRFB systems can provide energy for over two years with no issues, boasting advantages over their lithium counterparts, as they have a lower fire risk, deeper cycle, and the ability to charge and discharge at the same time.

Recent natural disasters have revealed the frailty of older, centralized electrical grids. And as the push to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels continues and the move towards greener sources increases, the need for stable energy to power business worldwide will continue.

The post Power Hungry<p class="company">Investing in the Future of Energy Storage</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Thirteen years later, these two companies were finally amalgamated to become what is known today as Nordic Minesteel Technologies (NMT). As the company continued to grow, it also acquired Specialized Maintenance Equipment (SME) in 2016 and assets of German company Schalke Eisenhütte Maschinenfabrik (Schalke) just last year.

The steady growth and expansions are not the only way to visibly measure its successes. Around the world, the company has taken part in joint ventures to build its footprint while helping to expand the mining industries of countries like Mongolia and Russia. As it has grown over the years, its company culture has flourished into a diverse and inclusive environment, like much of the global mining industry, which thrives on a healthy attitude of collaboration and invention.

Success has come from a deep understanding of the underground mining market, with the biggest challenge facing NMT being maintaining a consistent workflow. This can be difficult with the underground mining world in a constant state of flux. However, the uncertainty has not slowed the company down, and its recent acquisitions of SME and Schalke have allowed the company to diversify, expanding into surface mining as well as bringing on new technology for its underground efforts.

With Schalke under its umbrella, the company has added to its impressive assortment of material and personnel haulage systems, creating a one-stop shop for reliable, continuous, automated, smart rail systems. The acquisition of SME has paved the way to enter the open pit maintenance industry with fast, safe, advanced, heavy-duty equipment. This new range of products is joining the established line of mining products and haulage systems such as rail cars, loading pockets, skips, cages, and shaft steel. Nordic Minesteel prides itself on custom-engineered solutions and offers various levels of automation that focuses on vertical and horizontal haulage.

Creating new products is something very much on the forefront of company goals, and while the specifics of its newest product, the Titan220, are still somewhat under wraps, they will not be for much longer. The Titan220 will be fully unveiled come May 2019 as part of a new heavy-duty equipment line that allows off-road haul truck maintenance to be done faster, safer, and smarter. SME has taken its time to work with industry experts to develop the Titan220 using the latest battery technology.

Continued expansion is one of the goals on the forefront of NMT’s plans. By integrating all recent acquisitions into the parent company culture, it will be able to further focus on creating state-of-the-art technologies. As always it will maintain a healthy appetite for new product development which is seen as one of the most important facets of the company. These will include projects focused on safety and originality that will change the industry and increase its market share. As it continues to improve upon its own products it thrives on the moments where it is tasked with developing something altogether new to the industry.

While working closely with the Centre for Excellence and Mining Innovation (CEMI) in Sudbury for nearly two years, the company was able to develop a new concept known as ‘The Shield.’ With this new concept, ground support, drilling, and loading can happen concurrently, which dramatically speeds up the tunnelling process. This not only accelerates the time of tunnelling, but it also provides protection for production drilling, drift rehab, and emergency situations. This is the type of job that it prides itself on undertaking and accomplishing so spectacularly that a new form of mining process is born as a result.

Seeking situations that allow NMT to display its creative prowess is part of its philosophy of being a solutions provider. It takes the information it gets from clients and then works closely with them to come up with a solution that is specific to that job. In one instance, a client was being challenged by wet muck that was building up in its underground mining operation that was hindering the client’s ability to safely perform routine maintenance.

Working alongside the client, NMT built safer chutes that were capable of accommodating this messy by-product. Another, more broad solution was the creation of special unloading stations to help with the transport of heavy ore which can be prone to spillage during mine cart transportation.

Right now, around the world, Schalke Locomotives, Specialized Maintenance Equipment, and Nordic Minesteel work together to provide clients with these personal and very specialized solutions to mining needs. Each of these companies is working hard to get the point across that they work with each other to improve upon the mining industry.

As the company grows and expands upon its capabilities, it is certain that the mining industry – underground and surface – will continue to see a pattern of distinctly new ideas. For the past twenty-six years, NMT has been proving that there is no challenge that cannot be overcome. Going into the future, it will be these innovations and desire for problem-solving that allows it to stand out above the crowd.

The post A History of Proven Expertise<p class="company">Nordic Minesteel Technologies</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.

Ecowaste began in 1971, overseeing the operations of a 160-hectare solid waste landfill in the City of Richmond, British Columbia. Next to the original landfill, it purchased an additional 160-hectare lot to deal with leftover construction material.

As time went on and the recovery of recyclable material became a more prevalent idea, the company started to introduce more recycling operations into the mix. Recycling certain materials – like converting yard waste into compost, concrete into aggregates, and wood into biomass for energy – have all become integral parts of its business.

“Ecowaste’s purchase of Urban Wood (Urban Wood Waste Recyclers) and Smithers Enterprises assets and the conversion of the facility in New Westminster provides Ecowaste with a couple of key growth opportunities. We have relied on both Urban and Smithers in the past to process the separated wood received at Ecowaste into biofuel. Their C&D (construction and demolition) materials recovery facilities were instrumental in the region in capturing C&D materials and processing biofuel and processed engineered fuel, and they have been the leaders in the region for creating biofuel,” said Tom Land, Chief Executive Officer of Ecowaste. “Between expanding our services at the New Westminster facility as well as our own expansion to process wood recycling at our Richmond facility, we are looking forward to building on what they have provided to the region and further refining and growing the biofuels portion of the business.”

The recent acquisitions have seen Ecowaste grow to a point where it is looking into building a highly automated material recovery facility. Traditional construction and demolition material recovery facilities are reliant on people working on a sorting line to pull and sort material as it passes them on a belt.

This is a dirty and sometimes dangerous job, and quality control can often be a challenge. Most of this work can now be done by a few people operating heavy machinery at the start of the process and then sorting technology that breaks the material down by size, weight, and finally by material with a few people used on the backend of the process for quality control. This results in high-quality material for wood-based alternative fuel end products, as well as other materials that have the highest reuse or recycling value.

The company also created, through local company SYLVIS Environmental, a unique treatment system that uses a plant and grass system to clean leachate – water contaminated after contact with waste. This final wastewater treatment stage, known as polishing, uses the leachate to irrigate areas where plants uptake any remaining nutrients and contaminants before the now-clean water is discharged to local stormwater outfalls. The resulting biomass from the plants is harvested and either composted or turned into bales that are then used for various sediment control processes throughout the site.

An active landfill gas extraction system, composed of vertical landfill gas wells connected to a header system, extracts the landfill gas generated from decomposition. The gas is then conveyed to a flare and destroyed. Currently, the company is working with the local utility to find a way to convert this gas into pipeline quality gas that would augment the natural gas supply in British Columbia.

These commitments to some of the more ingenious sides of recycling and the ability to utilize much of the recovered materials on its own site put the company in a league of its own. It intends to stay ahead of the pack while setting further examples of what is possible by minimizing the amount of waste going into landfills.

Ecowaste has always been run pretty lean with an emphasis on the core businesses of landfilling and recycling construction and demolition materials. Staff are innovative and find creative ways to deal with new materials and volume changes while other aspects of the company have relied heavily on contractors, such as GNH Consulting, to provide temporary, non-core services. This can include large-scale earth moving and engineering.

PGL Environmental Consultants has done much work for Ecowaste in helping achieve high standards of environmental performance by providing oversight of the work being done in developing the property into quality industrial land for future tenants. Safety is also a major focus, and the company works hard to ensure the staff, contractors, and customers embrace the utmost level of safety in regards to all operations.

“Something else that is very transformational is we are on the cusp of closing almost half of our landfill holdings and creating an industrial park on it. This has been a fairly long-term project that we have been working on since 2012, and we are now right on the cusp of putting up our first building. This is very unique in the world of landfills, where most disposal facilities are capped off with soil and not being used,” said Land.

Typically for a capped landfill, the area will go unused for upwards of thirty years, so Ecowaste has decided to take on this project to make use of the space. Preparing the area and stabilizing the land to construct large buildings has taken a lot of research and engineering but the company was well poised to take on the project as the landholder.

Industrial growth in the area has been constrained by a shortage of land, and with this project, a new era of repurposing landfills could begin. Since the site is still technically a landfill, the company is obligated to oversee it and its environmental condition for the next fifty years. By following through with the construction of the buildings and then leasing them out to clients for this new business park, Ecowaste will continue to manage the state of the former landfill.

“There is very little industrial land remaining in Richmond and the Metro Vancouver region and certainly not much of the scale offered by our site. With that in mind, we created a plan to top up and level the south landfill area so that large floor plate industrial buildings greater than 100,000 square feet and as large as 1,000,000 square feet could be constructed. This required building a bridge to access the site and installing all services and roads in preparation for the construction of the industrial park,” explained Land.

“Over the past five years, we worked towards making this a reality, and our first building is scheduled for construction this year with our first tenant to occupy the building mid-2020. There will be a total of twelve industrial buildings on the industrial campus build over the next ten to twelve years,” said Land.

Going into the future, the company hopes to continue its move into more varied types of recycling. From creating alternative fuels to repurposing unused land, Ecowaste is leading the charge into a greener future.

The post Toward a Greener Future<p class="company">Ecowaste</p> appeared first on Resource In Focus.