CAMR Gone - Activated Carbon Sales Projections Increase

In the coming days we will all be watching to see what effect the Appeals Court ruling against the EPA's CAMR will have on industry. Will power plants recently permitted to go forward have to resubmit their applications? Will Mercury Monitoring sales be slowed or halted? What other impacts will there be?

One industry that thinks ultimately the impact will be positive is the activated carbon market. Both Calgon Carbon and ADA have expressed upbeat reactions to the ruling. In an article from the West Virginia State Journal, Gail Gerono, a Calgon spokesperson says, "We think that long-term it is going to be quite positive for us." And investors must believe it will be so as Calgon Carbon stock went up immediately after the ruling and has continued to climb since. Excerpt follows;

"We were estimating before this ruling based on our conversations with various utilities that the market for 2010 would be about 300 million pounds (of powdered activated carbon and), by 2018, the market would be about 750 million pounds," Gerono said.

The company expects the court's decision to increase those numbers at the 2018 end of that projection, she said.

Another activated carbon company ADA-ES from Littleton, CO also sees the recent ruling not affecting their growth plans at all. An excerpt from Environmental Protection follows;

According to (ADA-ES) President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Durham, Ph.D., "We have been pursuing an aggressive strategy to ensure that we will be able to supply the activated carbon needs of our coal-fired power customers. Despite regulatory uncertainty, we have taken steps and invested capital prior to the adoption of final, binding federal regulations, in order to be in position to respond to the market that we believe will result from more stringent limits on mercury emissions."

ADA has plans to build the largest activated carbon production line yet, and does not appear to be altering those plans.