Article published Feb 16, 2008

Choteau grad touts cutting-edge technology

By PETER JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Writer

Alex Truchot recalls being "a real geek" who loved science experiments, struggled at basketball and "had absolutely no social skills" 25 years ago while at Choteau High School.

Gary Betcher, who still teaches science in Choteau, fondly remembers the 1982 graduate.

"Alex wasn't a straight-A student, but he had that scientific curiosity to really delve into what interested him," Betcher said. "He was a tall, really nice kid who wasn't the best athlete but tried hard to do what you told him on the basketball court."

After a varied scientific career that began with a summer research program job his Choteau teachers helped him land, Truchot now is on the cutting edge of applied science.

Last summer, Truchot, 44, was hired by Wi Environmental, a high-tech Seattle company, as vice president of business development and marketing.

"The last thing I'd ever have expected growing up would be to work for a large company making presentations to hundreds of companies," he said.

His role marketing the company's technologies to companies around the world just got bigger.

Wi Environmental issued a bold press release a month ago that Truchot said has been reprinted verbatim in a few trade journals but not analyzed in mainstream media because it's awaiting larger scale tests.

The press release proclaimed the company had successfully engineered and tested what it called "the Clean Smokestack Solution" which is "poised to revolutionize the way private industry and government treat smokestack emissions."

Timothy Wandell, president of Wi Environmental and its sister company, Wandell Industries, said tests show that combining two of the companies' patented technologies will remove carbon dioxide, a leading cause of global warming, from emissions of coal-fired electrical, cement and wood pulp plants.

The technologies also will greatly reduce heavy metals, including sulfur oxide that causes acid rain, company officials said.

A research chemist, Truchot said he worked with similar processes for seven years, but wasn't part of Wi Environmental's final design team.

Rather, he was hired to market the company's technologies because "I've spent 26 years in the environmental industry, have networked with hundreds of people and know who to contact."

Truchot already has gotten a lot of inquiries about the clean-coal technology, but he says more tests are needed.

"We have proven to ourselves that we can remove carbon dioxide on a small 'bench' scale and are starting to negotiate with companies to work on a larger pilot scale test," he said. "It's a standard thing that you need a larger-scale demonstration to be completed to get the commercial world excited.

"We're trying to fast-track it and get the larger scale test completed successfully within a year or two," he added.

The potential gains from the Clean Smokestack Solution technology "are incredible," Truchot said.

They include

Selling the technology could greatly reduce America's trade deficit since many of the world's 50,000 coal-fired electrical plants are overseas.

"The cost of retrofitting such plants will depend on the types of environmental systems they have," Truchot said. "But even if it's in the millions of dollars, it's far cheaper than building new plants."

 

The clean technology could allow greater use of the massive reserves of U.S. coal, much of which are in Montana, for both electricity generating and coal-to-fuel plants, reducing U.S. dependence on foreign fuel.

"As a Montana native, I'd love to see the technology applied to existing and new Montana plants, so the state economy could benefit," Truchot said.

 

Most importantly, he said, the clean technology could help rein in global warming and acid rain.

Truchot, a fourth-generation Choteau resident, credits high school teachers Norm Cameron and Betcher with sparking his natural curiosity in science.

"I was fortunate to have teachers who really loved science," he said.

They helped Truchot enter and win an American Cancer Society grant to spend a summer at the University of Montana doing research alongside graduate students and professors.

"It was great to work in a real university lab at age 18," he said.

Next, Truchot got a chemistry degree at Montana State University, doing research all four years.

After graduation, he went to work for the Ribi ImmunoChem lab in Hamilton, where he helped senior scientist Kent Myers develop a product that helps humans better tolerate vaccines.

From there, Truchot went on to run a military hazardous waste facility in Washington state.

Since then, he's managed environmental cleanup efforts, including some Super Fund sites; started his own environmental consulting company that helps foreign countries such as China deal with environmental issues; and even spent a couple of years managing a $100 million, 2,000-lot residential subdivision project near Tucson, Ariz.

That latter project stalled last year because of the national housing downturn, Truchot said, adding that the environmental permits have been approved and the project can be built when the economy improves.

Truchot still visits his parents, retired Choteau farmers Alex and Janet Truchot, a few times a year.

He and his wife, Sook-Ja, have a 16-month son to show off.

"I like to get back to Choteau, visit my family and see the mountains again," he said. "I used to like to fish and hike a lot. But now I'm pretty much a desk jockey. I'm either on my computer or attending meetings."