Aidan Mortensen, KOAL News
On Thursday, May 9, members of the Utah Advanced Materials Manufacturing Initiative (UAMMI) and Blue Sky Energy traveled to Price to deliver a presentation on the benefits of Blue Sky Energy expanding further into Carbon County and to ask for public feedback and ideas regarding the potential move.
Blue Sky Energy President Jeff Lowe began the afternoon by discussing where Blue Sky Energy is as a company. Lowe explained that one of the company’s current problems they are struggling with is moving on from process and product development due to a lack of coal to feed into their machines. One of the goals Lowe spoke on was that Blue Sky wants their processes to be able to run completely off the grid to bring this technology to places like South Africa and Indonesia and make their power more sustainable.
Alan Hall, the founder of Blue Sky Energy opened his portion of the presentation by explaining Blue Sky did not want to burn coal, instead, they want to be disruptive to the industry by using coal to create carbon products such as oil, char and fertilizer.
This is accomplished by feeding crushed coal into a kiln which superheats it producing solid byproducts such as char, activated carbon and soil amendments. The rest of the coal is run through a condenser to create gasses like hydrogen and fertilizer and liquids, namely oil and tar.
Hall then opened the floor for questions and concerns from those in attendance. One attendee asked about how this would benefit the community, namely if they would work with Utah State University Eastern to help establish a program or add onto the already established welding program. Hall responded by saying “We want to be a part of your development, we want to be here to fund things, to drive our knowledge and equipment to make sure this community continues to thrive.”
Hall was also asked about what the company’s future would look like in Carbon County, where he replied,” Well we have to have a business that makes money. And we need to get others around this whole idea of other companies who can be participants and build a consortium. Or maybe early on it’s the coal mines throw us 140,000 tons a year to do something to get it rolling.”
The presentation concluded with Hall speaking on how Blue Sky Energy wants to be disruptive in a good way, and that they want to do everything they can for the community.