LITTLE ROCK, AR, Feb. 22, 2005 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ThermoEnergy Corp. announced that as of Feb. 14, it terminated three of its license agreements with Battelle Memorial Institute (BMI), which include the Sludge-To-Oil Reactor System (STORS), the Nitrogen Removal process (NitRem), and the Dual-Shell Reactor system (DSR).
The company incurred no material costs in connection with the terminations, never derived any revenue from the STORS, NitRem and DSR technologies and doesn't believe the license terminations will have a material adverse affect on the company, its business or financial results.
The termination will enable ThermoEnergy to focus 100% of its economic and human resources on commercializing the Ammonia Recovery Process (ARP), another BMI technology it licenses, as well as the ThermoEnergy Integrated Power System (TIPS) technology. The company believes the ARP and TIPS technologies represent its best long-term economic potential.
In a separate matter, ThermoEnergy released a clarification and further detail of the grant process related to its TIPS technology in response to questions regarding a Jan. 5 press release on federal funding for energy projects.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 that was signed into law on Dec. 8, 2004, included authorization for $2.3 million in federal funding for research and development projects that may benefit the patented TIPS technology. While the Act itself does not specifically authorize these appropriations, the House/Senate Conference Committee Report that accompanied the bill describes appropriations for three projects directed toward a thermoenergy integrated power system, which is the patented intellectual property of ThermoEnergy Corp. The Conference Report provided for appropriations of $500,000 for the thermoenergy research project for the University of Nevada - Reno; $800,000 for domestic fossil fuel research, including a thermoenergy integrated power system to achieve an advanced level of clean, economical power generation from coal; and $1.5 million from the science and technology budget for the Healy Zero Air Emission Technology. ThermoEnergy sought these grants in conjunction with the University of Nevada-Reno, the Texas Energy Center and the State of Alaska.
ThermoEnergy may or may not be the direct recipient of these grant funds. In cases where the funds are channeled through other entities such as universities or state agencies, ThermoEnergy believes it has reached an understanding with these grantees that they will contract with ThermoEnergy to perform some portion of the research as provided for in the grants. If the money is appropriated and the research does demonstrate the viability of TIPS as an effective means of generating clean electric power from coal, other fossil fuels and/or biomass, ThermoEnergy believes that it will benefit as the patent holder of the technology. ThermoEnergy intends to subcontract a substantial part of the personnel and technical support requirements for any contracted project.
Founded in 1988, ThermoEnergy Corp. (www.thermoenergy.com), of Little Rock, Ark., is an integrated technologies company that is seeking to commercialize municipal and industrial wastewater treatment and power generation technologies to which it has the rights.
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