HispanicBusiness

WORTHINGTON, OH -- (Marketwire) -- 01/22/13 -- Midwest Energy Emissions Corp. (OTCQB: MEEC) today announces an update on its current operations and offers a market discussion by its President.

As background, in April of 2012, the U.S. EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule was finalized giving US coal and oil-fired units over 25 megawatts in size three years to reduce mercury emissions by about 90% (the exact amount depending on the mercury content in the fuel burned). The EPA believes that this rule affects 1100 coal and 300 oil-fired units and estimates the annual cost of compliance to be $9 billion. Currently, several states have established their own limits on mercury emissions providing for a near-term market opportunity for MEEC while the major market will be realized in two years. It is at this time, around the second quarter of 2015, when all power plants affected by the MATS rule will be required to be compliant. This new mercury emissions capture services market will create a large and on-going, annual revenue stream for the very best suppliers of such services.

Alan Kelley, President and Chief Operating Officer, said, "We announced in August of last year that we had signed an agreement with a major US power producer to perform a demonstration of our mercury removal technology on one of its units. We are pleased to report that the demonstration went very well and that it achieved the results that we expected. We are in discussions with this utility about demonstrations on more of their units, and about potential long-term contracts for MEEC systems on all of these units. Likewise, in September of 2012, we announced a contract for a consulting agreement with a major Canadian utility which we hoped would lead to a demonstration of our technology. We are pleased to report that we did perform a demonstration on one of their units and achieved very positive results. Our report on the results of the demonstration and how the plant can optimize its mercury emission reduction has been submitted to the appropriate ministry of their provincial government for a decision on a path forward."

"For a typical 1000 megawatt coal-fired power plant, the cost of achieving a 90% reduction in mercury emissions is over $10 million per year when using a Brominated Activated Carbon (BAC) injection system, the most common technology used today. MEEC's patented two-step process for mercury reduction can typically achieve higher levels of reduction than BAC systems and with typical savings of greater than 30%. Another benefit of using MEEC technology is that it will also have less of an operational impact on other power plant systems."

"We anticipate more demonstrations over the next one and one-half years leading to long-term contracts for MEEC as utilities decide on the technology that they will employ to meet the new MATS limits. With our patented technology, which has consistently achieved superior results at costs lower than our competitors, we hope to achieve a significant share of this soon-to-be multi-billion dollar per year market."