Rocky Mountain Industrial News

Newcon Knife-Gate Valve Ends Three-Month Replacement Cycle at SF Phosphates

Alex Maser, Area Maintenance Manager at SF Phosphates' Rock Springs, Wyoming production facility, has extended the service life of knife-gate valves in sulfuric acid service from three months to over one year — by switching to Newcon Knife-Gate Valves with one-piece self-cleaning polymer liners, specified and supplied by ATSCO Sales & Service.

The problem at the SF Phosphates facility was costing the plant both time and money. Traditional knife-gate valves handling sulfuric acid in the phosphate processing circuit were failing every three months without exception. The mechanism was always the same: sulfuric acid produced at the plant would leak through the conventional valve packing, migrate into the valve body, and destroy the carbon steel structure from the inside out. Maser had explored special alloy valve bodies capable of withstanding the acid, but the economics were prohibitive — high material costs and long factory lead times made that path untenable for a component requiring quarterly replacement.

The solution came through ATSCO Sales & Service, which specified the Newcon Knife-Gate Valve for the application. The Newcon design eliminates the traditional packing arrangement entirely. Instead of a stuffing box filled with compression packing that the acid can attack and permeate, the Newcon valve uses a one-piece self-cleaning polymer liner that completely encloses the valve internals. The liner creates a continuous chemical barrier between the process fluid and the valve body — there is simply no pathway for acid to reach the metal components.

Since installation, the Newcon valve has operated for over one year in continuous service without requiring maintenance of any kind. For Maser and the SF Phosphates team, the result is fewer shutdowns, lower parts costs, and one less high-frequency maintenance item on the schedule.

Kevin O'Leary Backs 9-Gigawatt AI Data Center in Utah to Challenge China

Kevin O'Leary — known to millions as “Mr. Wonderful” from ABC's Shark Tank — is backing the Stratos Hyperscale Data Center, a landmark artificial intelligence infrastructure project breaking ground in Box Elder County, Utah, aimed squarely at keeping the United States competitive against China in the global race for AI processing supremacy.

The Stratos facility is designed to provide state-of-the-art AI processing power for American businesses, research institutions, and government agencies — delivering the computational capacity required for next-generation machine learning, large language model training, and real-time AI inference at a scale not previously available domestically. O'Leary has been vocal about the national security implications of falling behind China in artificial intelligence infrastructure, framing the Stratos project as both a commercial venture and a matter of economic sovereignty.

The facility's scale presents extraordinary engineering challenges. When fully operational, Stratos will require 9 gigawatts of power — a figure that puts its energy appetite in stark perspective. The entire state of Utah, home to more than 3.5 million people, currently consumes approximately 5 gigawatts of electricity. The data center alone would nearly double that figure.

To meet this extraordinary demand without collapsing the regional grid, developers plan to construct an on-site natural gas power plant capable of generating the facility's full power requirement independently. The on-site generation approach insulates the data center from grid capacity constraints and ensures the continuous, uninterruptible power supply that AI workloads demand — while creating significant construction and long-term operations employment in Box Elder County.

For the Rocky Mountain industrial supply chain — including valve, actuator, instrumentation, and fluid handling suppliers serving the natural gas and power generation sectors — a project of this magnitude represents years of work across every phase of design, construction, and commissioning.

From Canaries to Certification: MSHA Training Keeps Coal Miners Safe at Utah's Skyline Mine

Jason Thomas, Predictive Maintenance Engineer at the Skyline Mine in Carbon County, Utah, recently completed his Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) certification — a rigorous federal credential that equips underground coal miners with the knowledge and tools to detect and respond to methane gas hazards that make coal mining one of the most dangerous occupations in America.

Coal mines are dangerous environments for a reason that goes beyond the physical hazards of working hundreds of feet underground in tight, mechanically intensive conditions. Methane gas — odorless, colorless, and highly explosive — accumulates naturally in coal seams. A single ignition source in a methane-rich atmosphere can trigger a catastrophic explosion, as history has documented repeatedly at mines across the country.

The Skyline Mine, one of Utah's largest active underground coal operations, sits deep beneath the Book Cliffs terrain of Carbon County, a region with a long and proud mining heritage. The mine extracts high-quality bituminous coal used primarily in steel production, and its workforce operates in the challenging conditions that define underground hard-rock and coal extraction.

A century ago, coal miners addressed the methane threat with a low-technology but effective solution: they carried caged canaries into the tunnels. Canaries are more sensitive to methane and carbon monoxide than humans; if the bird died or became distressed, miners knew to evacuate immediately. The practice gave coal mining its most enduring metaphor for early warning.

Today, MSHA certification replaces the canary with comprehensive classroom training, hands-on emergency response exercises, and sophisticated electronic gas monitoring equipment deployed throughout the mine. Certified miners like Thomas are trained to operate multi-gas detectors that continuously measure methane, carbon monoxide, oxygen levels, and hydrogen sulfide — providing real-time atmospheric data that allows engineers and supervisors to identify developing hazards long before they reach dangerous concentrations. The canary's instinct has been encoded in silicon and federal regulation — keeping America's miners safer than at any point in the industry's history.