Goal Line seeks new lows for factory air emissions.

Firm sells two air pollution controls systems to Alcan

Goal Line Environmental Technologies -- a Los Angeles-based company founded last year to create air pollution control technology to reduce emissions to low levels never achieved before -- announced last week that it has sold its first air pollution control systems.

Goal Line sold two systems -- one that controls carbon monoxide and another that controls volatile organic compounds, both toxic components of smog -- to Montreal-based Alcan Aluminium Ltd. for use at one of its plants in New Jersey. The systems cost "a couple of hundred thousand dollars" each, Danziger said. In addition, Goal Line recently performed tests on its system, which turns toxic carbon monoxide or CO into harmless carbon dioxide or CO2, and the tests indicate it may be the most effective tool yet developed to eliminate carbon monoxide emissions, said Goal Line Chairman Bob Danziger.

Currently, the system is sucking emissions from the Sunlaw Energy Corp. plant in Vernon and the air coming out of the plant contains less carbon monoxide than the air going in, Danziger said. Goal Line is a co-venture of L.A.-based Sunlaw and Knoxville, Tenn.-based Advanced Catalyst Systems.

Danziger said he expects to complete work by October on a third system Goal Line is developing, which is expected to reduce nitrogen oxide, another toxic component of smog, to new low levels.

Once that system is working on a full-scale basis, Danziger will combine the carbon monoxide catalyst with the nitrogen oxide catalyst into one air pollution control system he calls the SCONOx system.

Danziger then plans to sell those systems to power plants all over the world at price tags ranging from $50,000 to $5 million per system. The average price would be about $1 million to $1.5 million for the system, which Danziger said will reduce emissions to new lows and be less expensive than currently available technology.

"If they get something that will work, it will sell worldwide," said Benjamin Shaw, senior manager of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. If it works, "there will be a lot of people willing to give them money and put it (the system) on their power plants," he said.

Shaw noted that most technology currently available and most air pollution producers, such as power plants and oil refineries, are aiming to reduce toxics to 10 to 15 parts per million, but Goal Line is aiming to reduce it to zero. But he noted that a system that turns carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide "is not an earth-shattering technology," although Goal Line is apparently reducing carbon monoxide beyond current technology. "What is going to make them or not make them money is their ability to get rid of NOx," Shaw said.

Shaw said his technicians have studied Goal Line's scientific data to reduce NOx on small-scale tests performed last year by Goal Line on the Sunlaw plant in Vernon and that the South Coast AQMD has issued Goal Line permits to perform tests. He added, however, that he thinks Goal Line's schedule for creating the system is "very ambitious."

Danziger said that originally he planned to start testing the NOx system on a full-scale basis in March, but now has rescheduled that for October.

"We ran into unexpected problems with it. It took an extra four or five months of testing," Danziger said. But now, he asserted, "we're sure it's going to work. Would we be spending millions (to build it) if we weren't?"

Danziger said he already has agreements with two companies -- Houston-based turbine engine manufacturer Stewart & Stevenson Services and Allentown, Pa.-based Air Products & Chemicals, an international supplier of industrial gases and related equipment -- to work with Goal Line in developing the systems. Steve Huval, director of operations for engineered power systems at Stewart & Stevenson, said his company would like to distribute the system, which he thinks would sell better than systems that use ammonia, a toxic chemical, to control NOx.

"What makes his (Danziger's) system special is it works as good or better than an ammonia-based system without the ammonia," Huval said. Not only is ammonia dangerous, but it's expensive in itself and requires expensive control systems, he said.

In addition, Danziger said, he has received calls from companies in Washington, Florida, Texas and China interested in buying the system. He noted that a new plan by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which may increase air quality standards in the Los Angeles basin, may bring his company a lot of work for local companies.

Currently, the system being developed would work only on gas-powered turbine power plants, but it may be reconfigured for use on oil refineries and other power plants in future years, Danziger said.

He is also chairman of Sunlaw, a power plant operator founded in 1980 which provides power for about 75,000 people through a distribution agreement with Rosemead-based Southern California Edison Co.

Shaw of the AQMD said if Goal Line is able to develop the system, "Let me tell you, there will be others that overnight are going to be trying to do it. There are thousands of companies in the world that make catalysts. (Goal Line) will have a few years lead time, or a half a year, maybe."

But more important is, if the system works, Goal Line "will up the ante" in air pollution control and create a new level of "best available technology," Shaw said. Air regulatory agencies have historically issued rules which require firms to reduce pollution to the level of the best available technology, Shaw said.