Hartford Business Journal

12 Hartford Business Journal • October 5, 2020 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Matt Pilon mpilon@hartfordbusiness.com T he ways the U.S. and other countries pro- duce electric- ity and dis- pose of garbage continue to damage the environment and climate, despite ad- vances in clean energy and recycling. They're global prob- lems with high stakes, and a Farmington Valley native wants to help tackle both at the same time. Bjornulf Ostvik, founder and CEO of Connecticut startup Ecogensus, has patented shipping container-sized receptacles that heat solid waste into a dense char that can later be burned as fuel, replacing dirtier burning coal in power plants and cement factories. "We sit at the nexus, or create a nexus, between the waste industry and the utility industry," Ostvik said in a recent interview. Ecogensus has been headquartered for the past few years in downtown Hartford's CityPlace II office tower, but is currently shopping for a larger home office. The company, which has under 25 employees, also has prop- erty in West Hartford and Rocky Hill. Ecogensus started commercial production of its "EGS-5000L" units in August at a Texas factory. It remains to be seen whether the technology will catch on. Ostvik, 40, is a Georgetown Law grad with an accomplished resumé that includes three years at defense giant Lockheed Martin, where he led teams developing new technologies for the military and other custom- ers, and four years as an executive officer at a publicly traded wastewa- ter infrastructure company. Since 2015, however, Ostvik has also spent a fair amount of time in court, including as a witness in two high-pro- file criminal corruption trials in New York that ultimately sent a powerful state senator and his son to prison. Meantime, Ostvik is currently suing his former corporate attorneys for more than $100 million, alleging they extorted him and conspired to gain control of Ecogensus and related entities. In addition, a law firm that sub- leased Ecogensus its CityPlace II of- fice is now suing the company, alleg- ing it failed to pay more than $56,000 in rent and fees in recent months. Ostvik claims he gave proper notice terminating the month-to-month agreement as of March, but said the COVID-19 pandemic de- layed his ability to fully move out of the space on time. Despite the legal entangle- ments, Ostvik says Ecogensus is poised to succeed. "We are getting global inter- est," he said. "People are reaching out from all over the world and all over the country." Waste bake Landfilling is the domi- nant waste-disposal method in the United States. Burning waste to produce energy, which has been Connecticut's preferred method in recent decades, is also prevalent. Ostvik hopes Ecogensus can help reduce the need to do both. "The idea of aggregating waste and shipping it across state lines to then put it in a hole in the ground is a horrible thing for human health and the environment," he said. Using a thermal treatment process called torrefaction, Ecogensus' flagship EGS-5000L units dry out and break down solid waste at temperatures of several hundred degrees, while remov- ing oxygen to prevent combustion. The result is an energy-dense biofuel that's easier to transport, store, grind and incinerate to produce energy. It closely resembles coal, but is cleaner, Ostvik says, because torre- faction removes volatile compounds, while coal mined from the ground contains harmful heavy metals like mercury. In addition, every lump of coal that's burned introduces into the atmosphere additional carbon dioxide that's been trapped in the ground for millions of years. Ostvik doesn't view burning biofuel as a permanent climate solution, but a way to quickly reduce emissions while transitioning to clean energy over the coming decades. Torrefaction isn't new. It's been used to treat wood pellets and other types of biomass that are then burned or decomposed to generate electricity. But creating a biofuel that can produce sim- ilar amounts of energy as coal — and also be burned in coal plants without major equipment upgrades or technical problems — has been a major challenge for the technology, Ostvik said. Also, the fact that Ecogensus' technology can process a variety of materials in a single batch, including mixed plastics, is a unique advantage because it cuts down on the need for pre-sorting the waste, he added. "Torrefaction is not easy techni- cally to do with a mixed and diffi- cult feedstock. We were able to get there," he said. "We really think we're the world leader in this space." Ajay Shah, an assistant professor at Ohio State University who has studied torrefaction, said being able to ef- fectively treat multiple materials pres- ents numerous technical challenges. "If they are actually dealing with different feedstocks, that's very substantial actually," Shah said. "It could be groundbreaking if they have solved this problem." Plenty of torrefaction startups have failed over the years, accord- ing to Tom Causer, chief operating officer at Missouri-based Advanced Torrefaction Systems. Besides confounding engineer- ing challenges, other hurdles have included a lack of capital investment and fire hazards. "The fact is a lot of developers under- estimated the challenge, much to their detriment," said Causer. "Engineers still underestimate this challenge." Ostvik said he's confident in Eco- gensus' engineering and that fires aren't an issue because the compa- ny's product requires lower temper- atures than what has been used by other torrefaction technologies. In addition, Ecogensus has private U.S.-based investors, whom Ostvik declined to disclose, but he said one is a large, publicly traded insurance company. He also wouldn't identify how many EGS-5000L units have sold so far, Cleaner Energy After helping send a powerful NY senator to prison, CT entrepreneur tackles climate change Ecogensus' technology processes 1 ton of solid waste in roughly an hour, producing this coal-like biofuel, which can be burned to make energy. Connecticut entrepreneur Bjornulf Ostvik, pictured here in Hartford's Bushnell Park, has developed technology he says will reduce the need to bury and burn trash. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER

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