Estech believes it has found a clean energy alternative to fossil fuels -- and a way to keep from filling up landfills. With sales pending around the world, it's hoping that when the technology catches on, it will create hundreds of new Ohio jobs developing and building garbage-baking autoclaves.
Founded in 1998, the Powell-based company takes municipal waste and cooks it down to usable components.
"When we get through with that, it's easy to separate out the fiber, which is really clean when we separate it out, and metals, aluminum and plastics," says Ted Thomas, manager of engineering. "And all of those have a value in a recycle market."
Thomas says Estech is well positioned to provide both cheaper electricity -- by burning processed biomass -- and savings on municipal landfill costs.
While the process is straightforward, the market realities are more complicated. In the United States, it's now difficult to compete with a typical landfill's low "tipping fees" -- the cost of dumping garbage. Regulations also present a barrier to hooking up generators to the existing power grid, Thomas says.
But in much of Europe, where land is more limited and tipping fees represent a hefty cost for waste generators, Thomas says Estech, through Estech Europe, expects to make significant inroads into the marketplace. Likewise, Estech sees opportunity in developing countries where the cost of dumping may be free (in other words, along the road) but the cost of electricity is extremely high.
Thomas says the company now believes it could also operate profitably in the U.S., reducing the need for landfills and providing electricity cheaper than utilities -- if it can hurdle the barriers to market entry.
Estech received a TechColumbus Green Innovation award last year. It employs seven.
Source: Ted Thomas, Estech
Writer: Gene Monteith