Driving profits by cleaning up coal

Fuel Tech (Nasdaq: FTEK) is one of the fast growing public greentech / cleantech companies focused on cleaning up dirty coal.

CEO John F. Norris is one of the many former nuclear engineers that grew up in the electric utility industry. He's held utility executive positions including CEO of Duke Engineering & Services, SVP and CEO of Duke Energy Global Asset Development, and Senior Vice President, Operations and Technical Services, at American Electric Power (AEP).

John Norris, taking cleantech to a dirty industry

He took the reins at Fuel Tech early last year and the stock promptly started climbing.

Neal Dikeman of Jane Capital and Cleantech Blog is a longtime friend of Norris and his family. The two ran into each other at a recent conference. Neal had a chance to chat with John on the record on Fuel Tech in specific, and his thoughts on emissions technologies, carbon and greenhouse gases, and cleaning up electric utilities.

You're relatively new to Fuel Tech, what compelled you to join the company?

I started with Fuel Tech as an Executive Consultant in April of 2005 to try to open doors with utility execs. When the Board approached me late that year about becoming the CEO, I thought about what I had seen over that last 8 months and really liked the prospects for growth. I have had the opportunity in the past to build high growth, highly profitable enterprises including one the most fun periods in my life in leading Duke Engineering & Services. This reminded me a lot of that experience, although I think Fuel Tech has even better prospects than DE&S had when I first got there.

What are the key drivers an investor should understand for the recent and continuing growth of the business?

There are several. On the Air Pollution Control (capital projects) side, investors should watch for market penetration of Ultra systems in the China/Pacific Rim market as well as a broader acceptance our all our NOx reduction technologies in the US market. They will be able to track this by watching for our announcements regarding contract wins. On the Fuel Chem (specialty chemical) side, the key driver is market acceptance by utility coal units. Again they can track this through our announcements.

In short - what caused your recent revenue growth?

I tend to credit the good looks of the CEO, but others do not necessarily support that conclusion.

I think the real reason is that we have better defined our products and services and have recognized a much broader market for those services. We have a more focused R&D effort to bring solutions to client problems quickly. And it doesn’t hurt that customers are looking more earnestly for ways to reduce pollution and increase efficiency. All of these have come together for us in sort of a “perfect storm”. Still, we have to deliver results for our customers and for our investors.

Do you view Fuel Tech as part of the emerging cleantech investment theme?

Very much so, but also maybe with an important difference. Too often the greentech sector has, in my opinion, over-promised and under-delivered for clients and for investors. We aim to be a different breed in those regards.

If I understand correctly, Fuel Tech has long been a leader in post combustion pollutant reduction systems, and pre-combustion technologies are a newer business for you. Is this correct? What does the future hold? Where is the industry going?

Fuel Tech has long been a leader in post-combustion NOx control as you mention. Our Fuel Chem product line is really a combustion/post-combustion technology that helps reduce slag problems, dramatically reduce SO3 emissions (both in the boiler and across an SCR), and improve plant efficiency thus reducing CO2 emissions in the process. These latter two items have only recently (in the last few years) become important to customers. I think in the future clients will much more strongly focus on all these and other environmental and operational issues, both domestically and internationally.

Can you give us some color on the overall direction and key issues in the regulatory environment for these pollutants?

For all air pollutants the direction is towards dramatic reduction. You can sense that the whole world is looking to clean up the environment and they are not so much focused on CO2 but rather all the more serious pollutants (SOx, NOx and Hg especially).