Click here to subscribe to
Planet-Profit Report, reporting on sustainable development in the Western United States.

Transfer Spotlight: Altela

An ASU prof's simple solution to turn wastewater into clean water

COMPANY: Altela (www.altelainc.com)

RESEARCH CONNECTIONS: Altela's solution to turning wastewater into clean water is as simple as nature itself. The low energy AltelaRain technology recreates the cycle of evaporation into rainwater within rectangular towers filled with sheets of inexpensive plastic material – the same that is used in political signs. Clean water simply condenses out, leaving impurities behind.

While Altela co-founders Ned Godshall, president and CEO, and Matthew Bruff, chief development officer and general counsel, both worked for Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque in the past, the company is based on a process developed in Arizona. Jim Beckman, associate professor with the Department of Chemical Engineering at Arizona State University, invented the technology. “He wanted to solve the world's lack of clean water. It's a very elegant, simple thing that he came up with,” Godshall says.

FOUNDED: Altela got going in 2005 when the co-founders licensed the ability to manufacture Beckman's technology and harness it for cleaning wastewater from the oil, gas and mining industries. Drilling generates a tremendous amount of ancient brackish water sucked up from deep below the ground. The usual disposal process requires drilling yet another well, trucking the water to it and pumping it back down where it came from. “This water is a liability. It's something they have to get rid of at huge cost,” says Godshall. “The simple idea of Altela is that we take a liability and turn it into an asset. After we treat it, it's 20 times cleaner than tap water.”

LIFTOFF: Altela makes both portable and stationary treatment plants at the company's manufacturing facility in Albuquerque. The solution has been commissioned for the Marcellus natural gas basin in Pennsylvania, the San Juan basin in New Mexico and the Piceance Basin in Colorado. AltelaRain water can be used for irrigation or directed back into the drilling or mining process.

The simplicity of the system keeps the implementation costs down and makes it suitable for a variety of applications. “Altela is the first new water desalination technology in about 50 years. It's well-suited for extremely brackish water and mixed contaminant water where there is all sorts of gunk,” Godshall says. The company has also obtained some rare environmental permits. “Altela is the only company to ever show that the water we treat is so clean that we have a permit to discharge into the Colorado River,” Godshall says.

THE PLAYERS: Godshall headed out under Sandia Labs' entrepreneurial leave program in 1994. Altela is his fourth startup. Co-founder Bruff has a background in environmental and natural resource law. He works out of the Denver office handling environmental permitting and business development.

THE MARKET: The oil, gas and mining industries are Altela's main targets, but Godshall can see using the technology to meet the inventor's original vision of providing clean water for communities. The drought-prone West could be the proving ground. “People think we don't have much water. What we're tapped on is clean water. There's lots of salty water. This whole region used to be an ocean. That water is there,” Godshall says. The company is currently in the running to provide water desalination services for deep wells that are planned for the city of Rio Rancho, N.M.

FINANCING: Godshall and Bruff self-financed the initial launch. New Mexico-focused venture capital firm Verge Fund led an early $1.2 million investment round in 2006. Altela raised $7.1 million in Series A funding in late 2007 and is currently working on another round.