Recycling Mine Tailings into 'Green' Tiles: Grass Valley Firm Looks for Investors

Jun. 3--Investors and big business have put their money behind green energy, green autos and green lighting, but they aren't biting yet on "green" tile.

That's the product a company in this well-forested mountain township is pitching -- what it described as a high-quality product manufactured from waste materials that come out of mines, gravel quarries, coal-fired power plants, and even leftovers from cat litter production.

Ceramics engineer Carl Frahme and others at Golden Bear Ceramics hope to tap into the building industry's demand for products made out of recycled materials and consumers' desire to purchase environmentally friendly products.

Housed in a business park in this Nevada County community, Golden Bear promises tile equal to any in the $3.7 billion U.S. tile market but with the added benefit of being made from 100 percent recycled material.

As the Golden Bear engineers refine the process, they hope to leverage the label of green technology to attract investors interested in funding its proposed $35 million tile production facility.

Frahme said he expects a ready supply of raw material for his tiles from mining companies that would otherwise have to store or dispose of the waste.

The green tile idea actually was conceived with one particular enterprise in mind: Emgold Mining Corp. A geologist with that British Columbia-based company developed the process to gobble up tailings that would be produced by the company's Idaho-Maryland Gold Mine here in Grass Valley.

Regulatory approval of the mine is now dragging into its third year, but Emgold has licensed the tile-making process, invested more than $6 million in developing it and founded Golden Bear as a subsidiary to get the idea off the ground.

As Emgold's stock languishes near 24 cents a share on the Canadian Venture Exchange, the parent company is hoping to spin off Golden Bear into an independent business.

Frahme sees the tile initially being used for flooring and even wall covering in commercial buildings. Eventually, however, officials want a line for residential use, including floor tiles, countertops and even roofing tiles.

Builders employ recycled materials as one of several methods to gain certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, a coveted designation that ranks the environmental sustainability of a construction project.

LEED-certified buildings are often viewed as more desirable by tenants and in some areas are fast-tracked through the permitting process, said Brian Senhert, a senior architect for SMUD.

Golden Bear has applied for patents on its process and, consequently, will discuss how it works in only the most general terms. Divulging more details would erase any competitive advantage, they say.

In traditional ceramic tile manufacture, special clay is ground into dust-fine particles and then shaped by a hydraulic press that uses 4,800 tons of pressure to mold the dust into the right dimensions. The tile is then hardened in a kiln at temperatures of more than 2,000 degrees.

Golden Bear's process involves heating the finely ground quarry leftovers or mine tailings to similar temperatures until they become almost plastic in consistency and then injecting them into a form -- a process called vacuum extrusion.

Somewhere in that process is what Golden Bear officials call their "secret sauce" that reconstitutes the recycled particles into what appears to be natural stone.

"It lets us utilize materials that the traditional ceramic tile industry would consider it impossible to use," Frahme said.

Tile experts said they weren't aware of any process similar to that conceived by Golden Bear.

"It sounds pretty unique. I don't know of any extrusion process like this," said Dunbar Birnie, chairman of the materials science and engineering department at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "But there's a huge interest in taking (mineral) waste and turning it into profitable products."

Golden Bear hasn't turned out tiles in any commercial quantity. It has produced only a few hundred tiles at its pilot manufacturing line in a massive warehouse at its Grass Valley headquarters.

Security is stringent. Its extrusion equipment is swathed in tarps and will be unwrapped only for visitors who sign a nondisclosure agreement.

But David Watkinson, Golden Bear's vice president of operations, said he's confident the pilot process can be ramped up to commercial scale.

"We hope to be able to produce these tiles for less than $1 a square foot," said Watkinson. "We feel we can sell this in competition with polished granite for $10 to $15 a foot."

That price might be optimistic, but Golden Bear's products should find an enthusiastic market, said David Leal, president of SpecCeramics, an Anaheim-based distributor of ceramic tile to commercial builders.

"There's definitely demand for their kind of product," said Leal whose company sold 3.5 million square feet of tile last year.

He said architects and developers are clamoring for green products because of LEED credits they can claim, but so far he's not aware of any company that sells tile made from 100 percent recycled material.

"We're anxiously waiting for them to get up and running so we can promote their product," Leal said.

Of course, the green designation is all relative. While Golden Bear's tile is made from waste material, it still will use large amounts of natural gas for its high-temperature process.

Frahme argues that tile production requires less energy per pound than glass, steel and plastic.

And he said Golden Bear's "carbon footprint" is still smaller than that made by traditional ceramics manufacturers in Italy, Mexico, Spain and Brazil, the nations that supply most of the ceramic tile used in the United States.

He said those manufacturers consume large amounts of energy in heating their kilns, and transporting the tile internationally also exacts a high energy cost.

Because of these factors, the ultimate energy consumption of Golden Bear is lower than that of foreign tile manufacturers, he said.

Timothy O'Connor, a climate policy analyst with the advocacy group Environmental Defense, said such an approach is similar to cement manufacturers that use waste materials in the production process.

"Anything that reduces landfill and reduces mining ... is something we would support," he said.

Golden Bear must deal with other environmental concerns, too. Regulators would demand that mine tailings or other waste be tested for dangerous levels of arsenic, asbestos or other contaminants before being processed into tiles or sold to the public, said Dean Fryer, a spokesman for Cal-OSHA's mining and tunneling division.

Frahme said Golden Bear closely analyzes all its raw materials in compliance with Cal-OSHA standards.

"Most of the materials we are using now, such as quarry dust, is about as benign as you can get," he said.

It would be up to Golden Bear to find the financing needed to build the $35 million production plant that could turn up to 65 tons of waste material per day into nearly an equal amount of tile.

Though its original plan was to build a plant in Grass Valley adjacent to the mine, Golden Bear officials now say they prefer a site in the Central Valley, closer to transportation hubs as well as more sources of raw material for its ceramics business. If the mining operation is approved, Frahme said the company would consider a ceramics production plant nearby.

In its original plans, Golden Bear aimed to build its tile operation adjacent to the Idaho-Maryland mine. Some opponents of the mine feared that Emgold was using the tile business as a "green" front for its mining operations.

But Frahme said whether or not the mine is approved, Golden Bear prefers a site in the Central Valley, closer to transportation hubs as well as more sources of raw material for its ceramics business.

If the mining operation is approved, Frahme said, the company would consider a tile production plant nearby.

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