Stephan Bernstein, CEO of GreenRoc, details the PFS results for the new graphite processing plant. Watch the video here.
@SteamingEagle - I'd not heard of Compact Syngas Solutions, however I do know some of their board from their previous positions, particularly the Commercial Director who I've done work with on ORC units for power production. He's also pushed another system, Pyrocore (well worth a look, it's good kit, just very expensive and very particular about feedstock).
The CEO is formerly of RefGas - another failed Gasification company, founded by his father, George and one that also claimed a patented process for gasification.
Downdraft gasifiers are great, as they do produce a lower tar gas (because the tars crack down through the oxidisation zone) and this is very useful where you are using biomass as a feedstock, as that will naturally produce more tars. The issue is when someone wants to put plastic containing waste into a downdraft gasifier, because the main drawback of downdraft gasifiers is ash bridging / clinker formation especially from low ash melt point materials such as, you guessed it - plastic.
One thing on their website set of a massive red flag - this quote:
"CSS’ innovative patented processes, enables us stand out from the competition, add to this our seven stages of syngas cleaning and cooling this ensures that our product gas is not just ultra clean but of the highest quality. In fact, the syngas produced by our system has been proven and accredited to be cleaner than natural gas, making it one of the purest fuels available for generating power."
The second half of that statement is patent BS - there is no way any syngas can possibly be "cleaner than natural gas" and most Syngas is completely unsuitable for use in an engine, many have tried, all have failed (when you're looking fro 8,000 hours per annum run time - not a demo plant that can run ok for 24-48 hours to show how great it is, only for the unit to be shut down the minute the clients leave the site, lest it burst into flames. Then starts a 3 week maintenance period before it's ready for another 2 day run.
Tyres are often the feedstock for those looking to use pyrolysis to create "carbon black" because it goes for something like £5,000 a tonne (not checked for a while) but the whole process ends up creating all sorts of other nasties, and I've seen half a dozes attempt, and fail. Tyre crumb can be re-used, but what I wouldn't be doing it trying to use it for fuel to create power - apart from anything else the CV is sky-high, which is bad if you're being paid gate fees to take it.
Grade C waste wood is filled with all sorts of horrible stuff, people seem to think it's clean biomass, but it's filled with all sorts of plastic coverings, rubber, nails, varnish, glue and who knows what else. I've seen Grade C waste wood analysis that came back as less than 60% biomass FFS.
Emissions? HVO / FAME will run way cleaner than Diesel, and could attract RTFC support and duty rebates to help save cost also. I need to look a lot more into this, plastics to Hydrogen I get, although I’m not au fait with the economics.
@Rollon - thanks for this, interesting stuff and all sounds great in principle - I'll have a look into how it might work in practice and in particular what feedstocks this covers.
If they'll guarantee 80%+ output at 8,000 hours per annum on MSW in a gasifier and have an insurance company back that up (Munich RE comes to mind as one of the only two I've ever seen do it, can't recall the other) I'll eat my hat - and recommend this tech to a friend of mine who's looking for tech.
1Bn shares at 1p gives the market cap of £10m which it was pre-raise, surely factoring the fundraise in we have to see 1.5p-1.6p purely based on that, let alone increased confidence that we will now see the growth to cash generation? I'm guessing the major issue is that was the view on the last fund raise, only 6 months ago.
@simms45 thanks for the info, certainly seems that the focus will be back on biomass as a feedstock (which makes a lot more sense for gasification than mixed waste) and then on specific other non-biomass (predominantly well sorted plastics) for methanation / oil production where some level of ****geneity of the feedstock can be guaranteed.
putting msw or rdf into gasification is fraught with issued for a process that requires stable reactor conditions, that variabilities in moisture content, calorific value and ash bridging can easily upset. the only reliable example i've found of att working on rdf or msw is the applications by nippon steel/hzi with their direct melting equipment, which ran at up to 1,800*c to solve the ash issue by creating a glass-like black vitreous ****. even they are predominantly focussing on grate-based incineration for msw / rdf, as evidenced by their most recent projects in taoyuan, muroran city and
kitakyushu city - the last direct melting plant was more than 10 years ago, 2013 i believe.
I’m not a “chart guy” mainly because I’ve no idea what half the lines and colours there mean, but more because I’d rather focus on the fundamentals than trying to predict future movements based on past pricing.
@BertMonkey a $90k saving on a 250KVA (assume 220kw) generator running at an average of 90% load for 8,500 hours per annum is approximately 5.3p/kWh which is not to be sniffed at, but natural gas CHP even on power only will save you double that, not to mention a significantly cleaner burn than the H2 / Diesel mix. I just don’t get it? I’m new here and wanting to learn, but a saving of 5p/kWh against diesel generation (which is c.30-35p) isn’t much to write home about.
Thanks for the post, the debt covenants issue will likely be that there are potential debt serviceability covenants that ST was in risk of breaching due to the delays, and those needed to be renegotiated to avoid triggering a default. Remember that these furnaces are apparently unique to ST and their process, therefore from a lender's perspective they've very little value as collateral, if these were HGV's or other ubiquitous assets with readily ascertainable market value, a simple Asset Based Lending facility could probably be achieved on a light to no covenant basis.
@Trytrytryagain It could be, as I said I'm familiar with the Company from quite some time ago, including a face to face meeting with the Chairman way back in 2018, I wasn't sure about the application of the technology on RDF then, and I can't find any evidence on the website (I'll admit I'm a LONG way from up to date on the RNS's etc) that they have any RDF plants up and running - the usual pre-requisite for an insurance wrap on performance. If you can point me towards the insurance company who will provide that cover, I know of a project site looking for technology and this would be a massive de-risking exercise for the developer as performance guarantees through an EPC wrap is not only nigh on impossible to find for kit other than HZI, but prohibitively expensive unless you're at massive scale (at which point you'd be using HZI anyway).
@Razza - from my experience you're told before you're provided with information that would make you inside, and can inform the BOD that you don't want to be brought inside, allowing you to trade without having said information. If the investor just wanted to dump, then he'd have refused the info (and take the risk that it would have been great news that would cause the stock to rocket) and then dumped between 3p and 1p.
Sorry I mis-typed when I put sell, it was meant to be "send". You're right that the profit level to the waste processor seemed to remain constant, however the idea is that each stage of "cleansing" removes material that can either be sent off at little to no cost (such as rubble / hardcore) or could be sold for recycling (such as glass, metal, plastic etc).
As such each stage would have a weight reduction also, so in your example level 1, you'd have something like:
Waste Company:
Receives 1,000 tonnes of MSW @ £140 = £140,000
Cleans 1,000 tonnes @ £20 (£20,000)
Removes 100 tonnes @ £0
Sells 100 tonnes £40 = £4,000 (plastics, glass etc for recycling) It's actually more complicated with PRN's etc.
Sends 800 tonnes to EfW @ £80 = (£64,000)
Net profit: £60,000. (140k - 20k + 4k - 64k)
@MyIPA - you're absolutely correct about the gate fee issue, I think maybe I wasn't clear. Essentially the W2E operator charges a gate fee for the material they receive, and the more fussy they are (i.e. the more work the waste processor has to do in providing the material to the W2E operator) then the gate fee falls, but this means that the W2E operator has less gate fees for their material (it also usually means it rises in CV, which means the same plant can process less tonnage, so you get hit twice if your'e the W2E operator) so they need to recover more from the sale of power / gas / oil etc.
Let's say that Eqtec are running their own plant, getting the waste from, for argument's sake, Biffa.
Biffa collect MSW from council contracts at around £140/tonne, give or take, then they have options:
- They can send this straight to large incineration (such as Wilton, Runcorn, etc) and pay £100-110/tonne.
- They can spend £20/tonne to process it to RDF, gain some revenues from recyclate sales, then sell that RDF to a W2E plant at £90/tonne.
- If Eqtec want a very clean waste, the work that has to be done might cost £40-60/tonne, as such the residual gate fee to Eqtec in that scenario is c.£40-50/tonne, which would in most cases completely break the economic model.
All of those figures are for example purposes only, I've no idea what the processing costs are as I've not seen them published, the gate fees are widely available (although I'd suggest a pinch of salt with them).
@MyIPA - thanks for the info. Unfortunately it's a story I've heard many, many times before and I've physically visited gasification plants (advanced and then some not so) in locations throughout the UK, Europe and Asia - all of them had the exact same issues - heterogeneous feedstocks (and in particular major issues with low ash-melt point plastics leading to clinker formation). Not a single one of them ran consistently at anywhere near the stated capacity (once they moved out of the safe, sterile test environment into the real world, running on genuine, mixed waste feedstock).
Gasification of clean biomass to make biochar works 100% technically, but with the prices of clean biomass nowadays, it's potential economic suicide.
You're right in that feedstock cleanup (for example to move from MSW to RDF, or from RDF to SRF) is possible, but it's expensive, which as you rightly point out results in the reduced gate fees that can be charged by the business accepting the waste. Taking SRF at £40/tonne means you need to get a LOT for the power you produce, which lends itself to very small, on-site applications predominantly focused on the displacement of diesel for power-constrained sites - I know of two such sites that have recently gone through planning and I'm eager to see their performance.
"Waste to X" applications such as hydrogen, syngas methanation, synthetic oils etc is definitely a possibility, the issue for me is on economics, in terms of can you actually get a customer for the byproduct which whilst technically very clever - might be prohibitively expensive.