Tanganyika energised

PERTH-based Tanganyika Gold Ltd, which has a diverse portfolio of mineral projects, including the Balla Balla vanadium deposit in WA, has acquired waste to energy technology in a deal that has “enormous potential” on a world wide scale.

Tanganyika executive director Jim Ross told Business News the company would undergo substantial expansion of its business through acquisition of the Waterwide waste-to-energy technology from a New Zealand company headed by its founder Paul Williams.

He said the technology provided a unique and established method of converting solid biomass waste into clean energy via the commercially proven, third generation combustion technology known as gasification.

The process reduces solid biomass in the form of agricultural, animal, industrial and sorted municipal waste to gases that are burnt at very high temperatures using highly efficient regenerative cyclonic gas combustion.

“It results in exceptionally clean and low cost energy which simultaneously addresses key environmental concerns of waste disposal and atmospheric emission,” Dr Ross said.

The proven Watewide technology has operated for almost twenty years but on a relatively small scale and in a narrow field of application.

Dr Ross said planned development included six full scale demonstration plants to be built at a cost of between $3 million and $5 million each. Two will be built in Australia, two in the US, one in Asia and one in Europe.

Tanganyika has established distribution agreements with Duke Energy Corporation and Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd, which have identified market opportunities in Europe, the US, Asia and Australia.

Dr Ross said the combination of existing markets for Waterwide technology, and growing international concerns about issues such as sustainable biomass waste disposal strategies, clean emissions and renewed energy, ensured exceptional growth opportunities for the new business.

“Additional benefits are anticipated from premiums for supply of green energy and eligibility for carbon credits,” Dr Ross added.