Eco Material Technologies, Alabama Power partner to repurpose coal ash

Eco Material Technologies, a South Jordan, Utah-based producer of sustainable cementitious materials and near-zero carbon cement replacement products, is collaborating with Alabama Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co., to harvest millions of tons of stored ash from Plant Barry in Bucks, Alabama.

This is the third harvesting plant project Eco Material has worked on with Southern Co., following a project at Plants Bowen and Branch in Georgia

Under the agreement, Eco Material will harvest more than 700,000 tons of stored ash per year from the plant. The effort will remove and beneficially use millions of tons of ash over the term of the agreement.

“Southern Company and its subsidiaries are critical in Eco Material's long-term strategy to invest in and upgrade sustainable sources of cementitious input materials to offset the high-intensive carbon emissions of the North American cement industry,” Eco Material CEO Grant Quasha says. “This collaboration with Alabama Power is a paragon for both the environment and concrete builders, and we should expect more companies across the country to follow Southern Co.’s lead in the beneficial reuse of their fly ash for products like ‘green cement.’”

The Plant Barry process will be similar to the Plant Branch harvesting plant announced recently with Georgia Power, utilizing Eco Material’s in-house ES EcoSystem Efficient Carbon Offloading technology. The ES EcoSystem Efficient Carbon Offloading technology is a proprietary solution that offers a lower-cost and greener process to reduce high carbon content in landfilled and ponded coal ash, bringing it up to the required specification for use in concrete and other building materials, Eco Material says.

The ash from Barry will be used in concrete blends to repair and construct bridges, roads and buildings in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana. Plant Barry will be the sixth ash harvesting and beneficiation facility operated by Eco Material and will add to the company’s portfolio of novel supplementary cementitious material projects.

The ash harvested from Plant Barry will enhance the strength, impermeability and durability of concrete, Eco Material says. In common practice, the material will replace 20-25 percent of carbon-intensive Portland cement in concrete mixes.

“Alabama Power has a long history of recycling coal ash from its plants for beneficial use in products like concrete and other construction materials,” says Brandon Dillard, Alabama Power senior vice president and senior production officer, West Production Group. “We’re very pleased that this collaboration with Eco Material will expand our ability to harvest coal ash at the plant and contribute to the development of materials that impact the growth of our state.”

Construction of the Plant Barry harvesting plant is expected to begin in 2024 and the new facility is expected to be in service by January 2026.

Alabama Power and Eco Material will build the processing plant within the permitted boundary of the site where material will be excavated and consolidated.  The teams will then haul the high-quality Class F fly ash to the processing plant as needed where it will be dried, screened and have excess carbon removed. Ash that cannot be sold locally will be transported via rail to the rest of the Southeast region.

The finished product from the harvesting plant will be conveyed to the existing truck loadout silos for loading into either truck or rail where RestoreAir can be applied as needed. Eco Material’s RestoreAir process uses a liquid reagent to pretreat fly ash before delivery to customers to neutralize activated carbon’s air entrainment. The ES EcoSystem Efficient Carbon Offloading approach provides the flexibility to process a wide range of carbon content and fineness found in the ash pond.

The processing plant will run 24/7 and will require a team of approximately 25 employees at full capacity in addition to construction and other temporary jobs. Eco Material expects the plant will quickly reach full capacity due to high demand for fly ash in the region. 

Eco Material has a portfolio of nine plants producing or under construction that represent over 4 million tons per annum of novel, beneficiated SCMs and green cement products to help decarbonize the North American concrete market.