Salt-Free Solution Cuts Costs (News)

Deep in the Alberta oil patch, exploration companies are dealing with a tricky issue. When drilling for oil and gas, salt water stored underground rises to the surface and can pollute the land.

But a Fredericton company has developed an innovative water treatment technology that uses reverse osmosis to clean saline water. Atlantic Nuclear Services Ltd. can turn underground salt water or seawater into potable drinking water.

The company teamed up with Ottawa-based CANDESAL Technologies Inc. to develop a $200,000 desalination unit to test technology for application in the nuclear industry.

After big oil companies expressed an interest in the technology to reduce their water disposal costs, the test unit was sent to Alberta and proved to be cost effective.

"There are major issues with water pollution, especially in the oil patch and with drilling for shale gas here in Eastern Canada," president and CEO Keith Scott said in an interview. "The salt water can be put in a storage pond temporarily but eventually it has to be transported to a deep well disposal site or cleaned for surface disposal."

Atlantic Nuclear soon acquired the Ottawa company and a new business unit, CANDESAL Water Systems, was formed to apply the technology in environmental remediation. A second $500,000 unit was designed for the oil patch and built at the company's Fredericton shop.

The units are trucked into the oil patch on 53-foot transport trailers where the desalination machine is hooked into tanks holding salt water. The water is then flushed through the unit using reverse osmosis.

"About 90 per cent of the leftover water can then be safely released into the environment or re-used in an industrial process," said Bruce Gorham, manager of quality and performance.

"Desalination is being used all over the world to bring new supplies of fresh water to communities in arid places," he said. "We've taken a similar technology but applied it to an industrial process."

Atlantic Nuclear was one of 15 companies honoured with Innovation Recognition Awards this week.

"For much of our province's history, our economy was based mainly on industries that harnessed our natural resources," Premier Shawn Graham told the crowd gathered at Danny's Conference Centre in Beresford. "But now, at the outset of the 21st century, we're thriving more and more on account of our human resources."

Atlantic Nuclear was founded more than 25 years ago when CEO Keith Scott, a physicist by training, returned home from Toronto.

"I'm a native of this area and I wanted to come back," he said. "I decided that if I couldn't find the job I wanted I would start my own company."

The company provides engineering and technical support to operating CANDU power reactors and has clients that include NB Power, Hydro-Quebec, Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation.

"We supply engineering services focused towards the nuclear industry," Gorham said. "We try to keep a focus on our core services because that's our bread and butter. But we've expanded into other areas as well."

Only a handful of Atlantic Nuclear's 100 employees work on the research and innovation side of the business, he said. But technology development is becoming an increasingly important part of the firm.

"Not all technology innovations are things like iPhones or PCs," Scott said. "There is a lot of work out there in the technology world that is not high volume business. But these products can serve a niche market."

Atlantic Nuclear's foray into innovation started out of necessity, Scott said. When the core business slowed down at certain times during the year, the team of scientists and researchers worked on technology development.

"As they say, necessity is the mother of innovation," he said. "But if you're going to be doing innovation it's a challenge and you have to be very persistent."

Finding the skilled employees to do the job can be a challenge, Scott added. "It is particularly hard to relocate nuclear engineers and other high tech staff. However, it can be a problem wherever you are."

Brett Bundale
Telegraph-Journal