Jun. 12--After six years of planning, Rialto can claim the first commercial-scale venture that converts sewer sludge into a usable, coal-like fuel.

It took nature millions of years to create coal.

But EnerTech Environmental, an Atlanta-based company, says it can approximate the same process in about an hour at the plant it has constructed next to Rialto's wastewater treatment plant.

The sludge plant, a $90 million complex of silos, pipes, heat chambers, pumps and steam exhaust towers, has been ramping up since January and already has attracted sanitation officials from Korea, Japan, the United Kingdom and Abu Dhabi.

EnerTech officials say by the end of the year, when the plant is operating at full capacity, their patented SlurryCarb technology, which they compare to a pressure cooker, will convert 833 tons of sewage a day into 180 tons of tiny brown pellets called E-Fuel.

During a tour of the facility Thursday, James "Russ" Miller, the company's vice president of energy projects, said the sludge under pressure is heated to 400 degrees, causing the material to carbonize and moisture to be squeezed out.

In the process, pollutants such as sulfur oxides and volatile organic compounds are removed, Miller said.

What leaves the plant, he said, is clean steam, the E-Fuel and brine that is piped to a sanitation plant in Orange County.

Carbon Considerations

EnerTech officials said the South Coast Air Quality Management District will check the plant emissions at full capacity before it issues an operating permit.

The plant is receiving sludge from Rialto, Riverside and San Bernardino, Orange and Los Angeles counties.

EnerTech president Kevin M. Bolin said all of the E-Fuel produced will be sold to Cemex Cement Inc. in Victorville and Mitsubishi Cement in the Lucerne Valley to be burned in place of coal to make cement.

Bolin said the Rialto plant is "the only one in the world (of commercial size) that converts biosolids into a clean, renewable coal-like product."

Like coal, E-Fuel has a high carbon content and when burned produces carbon dioxide emissions similar to coal, which is considered a dirty fuel compared to natural gas.

However, Bolin said the Rialto plant will reduce the carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere by 80,000 tons a year in cement manufacturing.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas blamed in part for causing global warming.

Bolin said carbon dioxide in sewage doesn't add to the greenhouse problem because it was recently part of the atmosphere. By contrast, he said, coal is dug from the earth and becomes a new pollutant.