Run-about cycles in the Law Building

Element One, Inc. –  A new Era in Hydrogen Detection
Presented by William Hoagland, President
whoagland@elem1.com

Element One, Inc., based in Boulder, Colorado, has developed a unique gas sensing technology that makes it possible to produce a wide array of low cost, reliable hydrogen detection products.   Products made possible by this technology are indicating paints and specialty coatings, inks, marking pens, indicating tapes, stretch films, shrink wrap, and low cost RFID smart tags that could be used to create a network of detectors.  Hydrogen use is growing by 10% per year – the market is in the tens of millions and over !00 million world-wide.  With the potential increase in it’s use as a consumer fuel, there’s great reservations about its safety.  Hydrogen is an odorless and highly explosive gas, that’s hard to contain and difficult to detect.

Element One, Inc. has created the only available “smart” coatings for the detection of leaked hydrogen which change color, either reversibly or non-reversibly as desired.  They have applied this technology to a wide range of products:

• smart inks or paints (1.5yr lifespan)
• thin film indicator – can be used for safety decals and labels
• flexible tape – applied to pipes, seals
• shrink-wrap – used for packaging in transport
• RFID sensors – installed at facilities and plants

The non-reversible sensors serve a “single use” function, as the color indicator is a permanent change.  The reversible sensors are multi-use items – the color indicator disappears once it exposed to oxygen.  Even though it’s reversible, they will still need to be replaced every so often, as it’s sensitivity will diminish over time.

Element One has identified 3 main markets for it’s line of products and examples of the industries in each market:
1. Hydrogen Leak Detection

• Energy Systems & Fuel Cells
• Oil & Gas
• Chemical
• Nuclear
• Food Processing
• Space

2. Contaminated Drywall

• Builders
• Inspectors
• Home-owners

3. Bio-Medical Testing

• Hospitals
• Research labs

The availability of these products will reduce concerns over the safe use of hydrogen in the next generation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in consumer environments where the lack of operating experience has been identified as a significant barrier to their widespread adoption.

This sensing technology has been extended to chlorine, hydrogen sulfide and several other hazardous gases.  Element One Labs is now completing product development and testing to introduce the next generation of low-cost hazardous gas leak detectors to the existing $500+ million gas sensor market and facilitating the transition to hydrogen vehicles.  They are actively looking industry partners in the areas of strategy/finance, testing and manufacturing.

Run About Cycles Inc –  Enhancing the Cycling Experience
Presented by Joshua C. Kerson, Founder
Josh@runaboutcycles.com

RunAbout Cycles has been specializing in green local transportation options since 2004 and is recognized as one of the prime manufacturers of electric powered personal vehicles. They offer quality support for a wide range of electric cycles, including electric tricycles, bicycles and motorcycles. Runabout Cycles is positioned to create an Electric Bicycle distribution network in the marketplace.
There are over 300 electric bicycle companies in the world today and nearly 1 in 7 manufactured bikes is Electric. With the majority of the European tradeshow floors focused on Electric and over 100 million Electric bikes on the roads in China, there’s obvious opportunities to expand this market in the US. The advanced technologies in Electric bikes are creating exceptional value for today’s end user. The US demographic trends are also indicators of the market potential. 70 million people are approaching retirement, and the 50+ age group is looking for ways to resume exercise habits. There are also currently 5,000 closed gate communities where a lighter (and greener) form of transport is ideal.

The benefits of Electric bikes are both financial and medical. Cycling strengthens your heart and lungs without placing unnecessary stress on your joints. It naturally tones the body’s musculature, and remains one of the best cardiovascular exercises that one can do. Plus, with the Electric bike, there’s motor that can provide assistant if it becomes a bit strenuous. Economically it is much cheaper than operating and owning a car. The Electric bike can achieve 1,000m/gal compared to fuel operated alternatives. These Electric bikes also fall into the bike class (1hp and up to 20mph) that does not require registration, inspection, insurance and driver’s license.

An electric bike at RunAbout Cycles starts at $1,200 – $1,500 and can run up to $6-8K for a custom high-end bike in the 100+ mile range. The average price in Europe for an Electric bike is $2,500 or $600-$700 in box box stores. RunAbout Cycles also offers kits to retrofit your current bike as an alternative to purchasing a new unit. They project that the E-bike conversions and accessories will generate an additional 30% in revenue.

The maintenance is also relatively simple – just plug into a standard electric outlet with the supplied adaptor. A full charge takes only four hours to complete. RunAbout Cycles also has trained and qualified technicians to help diagnose and fix any problems.

RunAbout Cycles is investing to build their flagship store and setting up franchise opportunities, and also to establish partnerships in product development.

Electric bikes are enabling more people to enjoy an enhanced cycling experience by providing clean local transportation alternative with an assistive technology.

A2BE Carbon Capture LLC – Industrial Algal Cultivation Technology
Presented by Jim Sears, CTO
www.algaeatwork.com / jimsears@algaeatwork.com

A2BE Carbon Capture is a behind-the-scenes architect and thought leader for the nascent algal biomass industry. Co-founder Jim Sears has been a featured speaker on this topic at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Bipartisan Policy Center, Electric Utilities Consultants Inc. and the Algal Biomass Organization where he also serves as Chairman of the Technical Standards Committee.

Micro-algae are found in lakes, rivers, oceans and even in soil. Algae are masters of photosynthesis and sold powered chemical production, it’s ideal source of bio-fuel. The challenge with traditional Algal cultivation systems is that they are generally built like “Open Raceway Ponds”, which have unsustainable water consumption and CO2 emissions. The key is “re-productizes” CO2 emissions.

A2BE’s core technology is scalable, low-water-consumption closed-photobioreactor algal cultivation technology that will be environmentally permit-able and highly suitable for integration with the newly evolving low-carbon fossil energy industry. Algae cultivation will have an agricultural sized footprint, but it is sustainable both environmentally and in resources. Though still in the R&D stages, A2BE’s “Closed Photobioreactors” system is designed for low water consumption and no CO2 emissions. The energy balance is 4-5 times versus ethanol which is only 1.2 times. The carbon market is marginal versus the end-product benefits.

A2BE’s algae system is also capable of enhancing the net CO2 emission performance of other biofuel processing plants and fossil fuel processes. The O2 generated by the algae system would be used for oxy-fuel combustion to produce a CO2 rich flue gas ready for sequestration. The CO2 from this would be piped to feed the algae cultivation system.

Because algae can replicate quickly, adaptations can arise and lower production. A2BE has addressed this issue by using mixed cultures and inoculation (refresh strains).

With their patent pending technology and additional intellectual property from a select group of collaborating corporations, institutions, and individuals, A2BE is expecting to go from pilot to full scale bioreactor operation within 24 months and their first carbon capture projects within 48 months.

Building Systems Insight – Critical Resource Monitoring and Analytics
Presented by Scott Hendrickson, PhD, CTO and Chris Svarczkopf, JD, VPBD
scotth@buildingsi.com, chriss@buildingsi.com

BuildingSI deliver continuous real-time visibility into the performance of key operational systems for commercial and industrial buildings and operations. Whether your facility is retail or manufacturing, BuildingSI provides minute-by-minute visibility into use of electricity, gas, water and key operating conditions such as temperature, equipment function and more. They can convert data on the use of critical resources such as energy, water, waste water, natural gas and carbon production into actionable strategic business intelligence. BuildingSI delivers the insight to configure systems such as lighting, HVAC, air handling and production processes to operate at peak efficiency for comfort cost savings and productivity.

The Analytics part of the service uses real time access to data on the resource usage, (electricity, gas, water, etc….). It can compare data from various sensors and time periods to look for patterns, correlations, consistencies, variations, etc. The system normalizes data from various sources. Results, updates and alerts can be sent to clients electronically via email, twitter or SMS. Monitoring operational systems can add value by decreasing energy costs, identifying optimal usage schedules and improving other business processes. Ownership of the data is specified in the customer agreement, but when there’s a 3rd party involved, it can make things a bit more complicated.

BuildingSI partners with energy consultants, building consultants, LEED certification consultants and building managers to provide monitoring services for customers, measuring/verifying project results, identifying new opportunities and building long-term relationships.

The hardware, installation and commissioning costs are covered either by the customer or channel partner. BuildingSI charges monthly fees or yearly contracts for their monitoring services. For clients with over $10K monthly in energy costs, they can potentially see savings from between 10-40%. The higher your energy bills, the greater the potential savings with the monitoring system. BuildingSI offers different levels of services, providing incremental customer value. They have a field-proven product with enthusiastic prospects and are targeting a multi-billion $ market that’s growing.

Ed Lehrburger, CEO of PureVision speaking on the future of bio-fuel production

PureVision – Enabling Technology for the Cellulosic Biorefining Industry
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Presented by Ed Lehrburger, CEO

PureVision is a technology company, based in Ft. Lupton,  that has developed a patented a solution to make bio-refining of fuels a sustainable and profitable venture. A carbon-neutral biomass fractional technology produces sugars from cellulosic biomass. The resultant product can also be direct energy or fiber to be used as feedstock to other industrial or consumer products. The feedstock to the PureVision process excludes food based products such as corn and focuses on cellulosic based biomass such as wheat straw, corn stalks, trees and energy crops.

Ed started his presentation by providing a clear definition of his technology and use of cellulose. Cellulosic sources range from trees, shrubs, grasses and other fuel crops. The process will not use the seed or the fruits but focus more on the branches, stumps, trees and other materials that are not necessarily as recyclable.

The result of the process is to produce sugars which can be used for many products. In the next hundred years sugars will replace crude oil as a source of energy. It is rapidly becoming the feedstock of the future.

There are many products that can be made with these sugars, including ethanol diesel gasoline, jet fuel and industrial chemicals, consumer products, pharmaceuticals with fibers and sugars from biomass. Today there are number of companies with platforms to make their products from these fibers and sugars but the problem is that there are few technologies to make sugars from abundant bio-mass. Today a common way to do this is the nine day process known as the NREL dilute acid pre-treatment. This pretreatment makes the biomass available for conversion when enzymes are added. The sugars are then used to make bio-fuels/ethanol.

PureVision has a new technology that condenses the dilute acid process from 9 days in batch mode to a 20 min continuous process. Today’s processes involve a number of steps such as stirring, mixing, heat that involve large facilities, energy, capital and incur waste water disposal problems. Fractionation reduces much of the downside of this process, by using water and reagents to quickly extract the product. Examining a new approach we first examine the inputs:  biomass & plant products. Typical feedstocks consist of a combination of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin (A typical biomass breakdown is 40% cellulose (fiber), 25% hemicellulose, 20% lignin, 5% ash, 10% extractives). Essentially much of the cellulose input is pulp, and the PureVision solution mimics the pulping process (removing lignin, hemicellulose) concentrated to an 8 min process in a reactor (versus 2 hours for paper). The cellulose (e.g. corn stalk) is converted to glucose (6 carbon sugar).

The structure of the target feedstock, biomass (e.g. corn stalks) is a combination of cellulose (containing glucose – 6 carbon sugars), and hemicellulose (containing non-glucose 5 carbon sugars). This combination along with lignin has evolved over millions of years to withstand rain/snow/storms. Ultimately though, the structure needs to be broken down to make the end product. Glucose is the primary intermediate product from the fuelstock – the (C6) sugar is the easiest to work with and provides the highest yields for the end product (e.g. fuels). The other product are as follows:

• Xylose sugar syrup from the hemicellulose
• Lignin – cane be used a young coal (high btu fuel) – sold as fuel or for making other industrial products
• black liquor – a biogrowth media for producing yeast
• residue of ash (nutrient rich to go back to the soil)

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The process is very effective, using a countercurrent process (injecting water upstream), it extracts out around 95% of the fiber from the biomass while removing the hemicellulose & lignin. This process avoids overcooking the biomass and thereby losing the fiber recovered. The final stage converts the extracted fiber to glucose

Food versus fuel debate has positioned cellulosic processes as a more viable option to make fuels. Ed referenced the spike in corn-meal prices in Mexico shutting down tortillas plants

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. Also here in the states corn went to over 7 dollars a bushel with increased ethanol production and the Iowa flood coinciding in June 2008. This positive incentive along with the federal support for cellulosic ethanol (up to one dollar a gallon for cellulosic fuel) is driving considerable research into making cellulosic biofuels more sustainable and produce better yields at lower costs. Target markets for PureVision is to follow the trend of converting ethanol plants (in the next 5 years) in places such as the American corn belt and South America (e.g. Brazil) into cellulosic plants. The existing PureVision pilot plant can run 24 hr/day and process a half ton biomass per day. Near-term pilots are expecting to scale up to 20 ton/day and an upcoming commercial plant is expected to process 250 ton/day. The company has done R&D for clients and received 6 grants so far to help develop their unique fractionator process.

Questions from the green tech group started with the expansion and retrofitting of plants in Brazil. Ed considers it one of the biggest markets in the world. Brazilian sugarcane ethanol (considered to be the most successful alternative fuel to date) is processed by squeezing sugar cane. The residue created from this process is burned as bagasse The Black Shield of Falworth ipod which provides heat for the mill’s operations and is also used for cogeneration of electicity to be sold back to the grid. This process is considered to be greenhouse gas neutral since the CO2 released during its burning is the same absorbed by the plant during its growing phase but this could be partially mitigated. The PureVision process has proposed to make 35% more ethanol by using their process and to derive energy from the lignin to replace the direct burning of bagasse.

Another question raised about how much product is generated the 250 ton plant. Ed responded that the plant would generate 60 gal/ dry ton (cellulose) of ethanol fuel and by using the lignin and hemi-cellulose the output raise to 90 gal/ dry ton. Vertical integration is another evolving area for cellulosics. Although today a wood based feedstock could be used with volumes as high at 2000 ton/day, the main focus is on energy crops/ agricultural residues such as switch grass that will provide a more sustainable input to bio-refineries. PureVision has multiple patents on the process and apparatus and have worldwide patents. As of today they have experimented with 6 feedstocks: bagasse, corn stovers, wood, corn cobs, wheat straw, triticale straw. The energy required for cellulosics is generally accepted to be 35% more efficient the corn ethanol production and water usage is significantly reduced with cellulosics (specifically if the biomass has more moisture – typically plant mass is already 50% water).


Texas Instruments – Alternative Energy Initiatives Redacted hd Final Destination the movie
Presented by John Van Scoter, Senior Vice President

Texas Instruments helps customers solve problems and develop new electronics that make the world smarter, healthier, safer, greener and more fun. A global semiconductor company, TI innovates through design, sales and manufacturing operations in more than 30 countries.

As Texas Instruments (TI) is primarily an electronics company, John began with a little background on how the company is applying its current expertise in green electronics. Firstly, TI is a large corporation with 12.5B in fourth quarter revenue 2008 (a 30% drop from 4Q07 ) and R&D spending was around 2B in 2008. Some other notable trivia, a major market segment for TI’s chips is targeted for communication based systems. The device/chip catalog has over 30000 products and many of these product are available for free for entrepreneurs for prototyping. TI is showing leadership in green construction with its latest TI analog 300 mm manufacturing facility in Texas, the first semiconductor facility awarded a gold LEED certification. TI also has a received a silver LEED certificate for their assembly/test facility in the Philippines that will be the first in the country awarded a LEED certification.

The Texas Instrument approach to the green technology sector falls into 4 categories:

1. MakeIt – Renewable(solar, wind, biomass) and Distributed power (including efficiencies in Refinement/Drilling)
2. MoveIt – Real-time monitoring, transmission & distribution, smart meters, 2-way price signaling
3. UseIt – improving motors, lighting (LED), consumption, appliances, power supplies, transportation, HVAC, (white goods – e.g. refrigerator appliances)
4. Self Powered systems – through Kilby labs (step-function innovation for technology 5 years out) - using intrinsic environment-derived (kinetic, thermal, RF) energy to store (in a thin film battery) and power small electronic devices

TI sees many opportunities to apply their experience to the Smart grid including communication applications in the home/wide are network. Today TI chipsets for the Smart Grid are employed on the meter-side. For enterprise applications, areas such power management/efficiency solutions  and optimization of battery management/density is also a TI expertise. TI solutions can reduce up to 50% energy consumption in data center-based server farms. Another area of opportunity is LED lighting. LEDs already   reduce power consumption with an efficiency improvement of over 10x compared to incandescent bulbs. TI sees a value-add green play by using the solid state device to become a sensor. Not only will the next generation light illuminate, it will collect information and turn on/off local thermostats, lighting and other electronics.  Other applications for embedded light circuits are security and atmospheric sensing. TI is currently researching this area more deeply with a learning lab that explores thermal properties, light balancing, power management and communication between sensors.

Structure embedded self powered sensors have show great promise. Work on embedding monitoring sensors in bridges can detect strain on bridge components and communicate potential issues to state authorities. Previous bridge collapses such as the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis are examples where long-lived sensors (potentially up to 100 years) could be used with no external power or wiring to monitor a structure’s health. Future personal healthcare monitoring applications could use energy generated by a person to power devices such as in a smart shirt. An individual can generate up to 100W a day. From the TI perspective, this is more than adequate energy to power its low-power electronics that would be embedded into clothing items.

The green tech audience brought up TI  consumer awareness which for many translate to TI-powered products such as Speak & Spell, TI-branded calculators and LCD projector systems. Beyond its product line, the most famous asset of TI is one of its engineers, Jack Kilby, who invented the thermal printer, integrated circuit and won a nobel prize in Physics.

Another areas raised by attendees was the area of environmental stewardship. TI has made great strides optimizing the wafer fabrication process and improved the management of the toxic waste generated. Their latest work for LEED certification was attributed to water reclamation and power reduction/efficiency. One of the more impressive illustrations of this was a reengineering effort to optimize water pumping systems (reduced # of pumps by 50%) in their facility that resulted in a significant energy reduction to run the new lab.

TI also is leader in smart meters / e-meters,  where they enjoy a 2/3 market share in this product category for embedded TI chips. In order to be a chip supplier to worldwide green products , TI’s approach is to be protocol/standard agnostic. In that regard TI has adopted, amongst other standards,  Zigbee for wireless device communication.  It is a popular standard in the US and is advancing with EU standard committees for use in smart meter in-home device communications for smart grids.

Chuck Hodges and the Optibike

Speakers

Heartland Renewable Energy – renewables-based natural gas production plants
Presented by George Howard, Managing Member

Heartland develops and delivers renewables-based natural gas ‘manufacturing plants’ which process organic waste streams in a proprietary form of anaerobic digesters. In addition to gas production, these production plants provide significant environmental benefits including greenhouse gas mitigation. This natural gas (clean methane) is transported by interstate gas pipeline to electric power plants for generating

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electric power that meets the Renewable Portfolio Standard which exists in many states. Residue from the gas plants is a high quality soil amendment (“compost”) for land reclamation, agriculture, erosion control and mitigation, and other purposes.

George first set the stage for anaerobic digesters. Their goal is to create natural gas or bio-gas as a next generation digester system with advanced overall performance compared to today’s existing municipal sewage systems. The digester can take animal waste, which is typically typically manure and uses the bacteria to produce bio-gas consisting of 40% CO₂, 60% methane and trace of hydrogen sulfide. The ultimate destination is California, which needs to fulfill it’s renewable energy portfolio standard. This alternative energy is highly regarded solution in Colorado and has the potential clearing the permitting process. There a re number of customers in California waiting to purchase these type of energy resulting in a good margin of return. This approach for removing green house gases has a significant effect. Farmers previously would be disposing manure by spreading it on fields and using it as a low-grade fertilizer, creating Nitrous Oxide emissions (300x more potent Green house gas then carbon monoxide on a per pound basis). This means a digester solution goes especially far for green house credits. The digester solution is flexible for its inputs and takes a number of agricultural wastes and food waste streams.

The plants to produce the gas look like a field of Olympic-sized swimming pools with domes

Examining the bio-gas plant’s internal system, most of the methane is removed when the slurry traverses the separation sub-system. The water vapor, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide are removed (and potentially resold) and the bio-gas is pressurized to 1500 psi. for interstate pipe transit. One downside is that potentially the CO2 may not be sold and will need to be released and the plant would then use a small portions of its own carbon credits for this. The plant they are building today is on 80 acres in Weld county and will produce 4700 mmBTU/day of pipeline grade quality gas or 5 mil. cubic foot/day and can support a 23-25MW electric power plant. This is equivalent to 170 natural gas wells over 30 years of operation. Unfortunately natural gas wells in old fields in Weld county have drop-off in capacity (up to 50% in a year) so this is also a factor in the number of wells needed to keep the equivalent plant running.

The plant design requires feed-in pipes to be built to the plant location. These pipes then will connect the plant to the interstate pipeline. The plant will include a water reclamation/treatment system (using desalination/reverse osmosis) to feedback water into the process.  A portion of the methane from the process is used to heat the plant. The system uses CO2 monitors to ensure the level is below 2%. The plant requires 5MW of power supplied from a rural energy co-op (at about 5.1 cents per KWh). The plant can process 1500 tons of waste a day and uses about 100,000 gal of “grey” water a day, (dirty water from an adjacent dairy farm).  In California, this methane fuel would cost 10-13 cents/KWh. Turns out anaerobic digester projects are harder for VCs to fund (since they need around 7x return in 8 years). The first Heartland plant uses project funding, which is closer to a condo/high rise building project return. George indicated they had a dutch uncle discussion earlier on financing and now are getting much better return for their project. Before the plant is operational all Colorado department of health certification must be passed.

Cool Energy – Powering a Clean Tomorrow

Presented by Sam Weaver, CEO

Cool Energy is a renewable energy equipment supplier in the growing field of distributed power systems.  Founded in 2006, the core technology under development is thermal energy conversion, and is applicable in solar power, waste heat recovery, and biomass combustion.  The initial SolarFlow^TM System product provides highly efficient solar collectors and a novel Stirling engine generator to enable a single solar system to provide 80% of the heating needs, 60% of the electricity needs, and nearly all of the hot water for a building while emitting no greenhouse gases.  Other applications include distributed geothermal and waste heat power production.

Cool Energy is based on Boulder, with 8 people on staff and a product that has 9 patents (current & pending). The core case for the cool energy system is the rising cost of home/small business costs for energy. Heating fuel costs are increasing 7.5-10% annually and electricity is seeing a 4% growth rate. An example from the customer perspective showed a 2/3 heating oil (space heat and water heat) and 1/3 electricity usage for a sample home in New Jersey. A standard PV solution only addressed the 1/3 electricity part of this bill.

The goal for cool energy systems is to cover 75% of the energy bill: 80% space heating, all the hot water and half electricity (large installation). Their system addresses areas that PV and solar thermal cannot – which is they can’t provide neither heat nor electricity. Comparatively PV can’t store energy or generate heat and solar-thermal can’t provide electricity. The Cool Energy system is managed by the control system.

The core technology is a stirling engine, that does not use combustion, needs no maintenance and can have a 20yr lifetime. The Cool Engine solution uses temperature differences (heat exchangers) to create motion (usually a piston) – it utilizes low-end temp differential with the high end at only at 250C.  Normally stirling engines go up to 650-1000C – which is more expensive to design as it needs to accommodate higher temperatures. There are evacuated tubes on the roof for solar collection, this can be used to heat-exchange water filled tubes for heat or used across the hot side of the stirling engine to generate electricity. This solution avoids 6 tones of CO2 over a year compared to conventional fossil systems.

The thermal storage is useful over cloudy days (most home heating utilize this). Typically load curves don’t match up to production curves for PV. With storage, the “cool energy” system can collect energy at peak  sun hours and then utilize the stored energy at peak demand hours. The stirling engine’s part of the design has an efficiency less than combustion fuels and less then conventional stirling engines as well but it does not get as hot and can be built from cheaper materials. Another benefits over PV systems is the Cool Energy system does not produce “semiconductor-waste” and can provide twice the return of PV .

The cost of a typical home system is 15-30K (with 30% tax credit) and with incentives, it has a 7-15 yr. payback. The convective radiator is twice as big as a car radiator and takes 50KWh/yr. to run. The controller uses the internet uses predictive weather information as well as local fuel rates to determine the appropriate energy generation. The engine operates with temperature ranges 100-200C in and 0-40C out.

Power Ecalene Fuels – Patented Thermochemical Process that Produces Mixed Alcohols (clean fuels)
Presented by Gene Jackson
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Power Ecalene Fuels, Inc possesses a unique patent pending gasification technology coupled with
patented catalyst technology that yields a low-cost, high-production and cleaner
burning fuel, Ecalene™.

Ecalene is meant to be a drop-in fuel and to replace ethanol. The name is registered, trademarked and named by Gene, he refers to it as Gene Ecalene. There are two existing patents with 10 being filed. The original feedstock was going to use beetle-kill lodge-pole pine feedstock and claims to convert one ton of wood to 186 gallons of Ecalene fuel.  The technology can take almost any type of feedstock such as Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), spent tires, coal, medical waste, municipal west and natural gas. One benefit of ecalene is that its transportation method is preferred (and much easier) when compared to transporting natural gas which needs to be liquified (before transport).

Gene helped start two alternative fuel companies, one is the well known Range Fuels in Colorado. Their process is stacks up well against the competition and recovers 85% of the energy for any fuel stock. Registered with EPA as a fuel additive, their target is to replace the ethanol additive used in today’s gasoline. Their future plants will be about 70% of the cost of a typical ethanol plant. Ethanol will not be as cost-effective as agile as ecalene, especially with with a lower feedstock energy conversion then ecalene which produces 186 g/ton. The first plant will be 100 ton/day biofuel using beetle-kill as an intial feedstock – this output is around 4 tanker truck equivalents. The long term expectation is to put one ecalene plant in every municipality. The dynamic aspect of ecalene system has allowed it to co-locate with aglae production, utilizing a CO₂ and oxygen exchange between the two plants. Beyond the additive, Ecalane can be a standalone fuel for cars or be produced in biodiesel or jet-fuel.

The by-product of the ecalene product is ash which can be used for roadbed or other applications. The plants can be “fuel-agile” and support multiple feedstocks if it is designed for that purpose. The plant should be energy neutral, with the gasafier and endothermic/exothermic processes balancing each other out.

Optibike – 1000 mpg and have fun too !!Demo bike at the Meetup!!
Presented by Jim Turner, President and Chuck Hodges, CFO

Optibike builds the highest performance electric bikes in the world today, and seeks to firmly establish its premium brand as the Ferrari of electric bikes.  Optibike enables its customers to lose up to 20 lbs a year; reduce their risk of heart disease and diabetes by 30%; save $1000 a year; reduce their carbon emissions a metric ton per year; reduce their gasoline consumption by 325 gallons per year; and have fun.  All in no extra time.

The start of the presentation is a video of a dallas cowboy player, DeMarcus Ware, doing a testimonial for Optibike. DeMarcus and his wife use the bike extensive.  Optibike is designed to be rugged and easy to use. There were some humorous parts where DeMarcus talks about riding the bike all the time and wanting to make it go 50-65mph.

Optibike was founded in 1999 and their bikes are designed and made in Boulder. The company is already at profitable and growing. The core product markets to improving weight/health, fossil fuel depletion and climate change. Jim asked the meetup group questions on bike usage and was impressed with the response of a number of people riding over 40mi/week (although a good response from a  green conscience crowd). One of the reason, Jim pointed out, that people don’t ride their bikes is that it does not go fast enough or it goes slower then a car. The argument is that we could ride a motorbike but would miss out on the health element. An electric bike would assist us up steeper hills or in the foothills around Boulder, while still allowing the rider to pedal like on a “regular” bike when feasible. Another testimonial indicated that a car commute of 40-50 min is  just over 1 hr. for an Optibike ride.  The  mileage figure for an Optibike ride is the equivalent of 1000 mpg. It uses less then a 1KWh and has a range of 40 miles,. Energy return then is better then a solar/PV installation.

Around the world e-bikes are growing significantly. In Europe 700K units have been sold and in China aroudn 20 mill. units have sold and trailing but growing US growth (around 75K units/year) is growing at 40%. The overall market today is around 1-2 Billion. Opti-bike holds the title for the most expensive e-bike in the world, with one of their limited-edition bike. Optibike builds what they consider the best premium quality e-bike on the market. There are 6 bike models in their product line. The earliest bike cost 5K. There are a number of patent designs around the design and they have years of production experience.

As for performance, single charge lasts for 40 miles and takes 8 hrs to charge (costing around 10 cents). The battery has a 3 yr./30k warranty. The replacement cost of the battery is 1500 dollars. The bike is aluminum frame and weighs 55 pounds. There is no regenerative breaking, as it did not make sense for the bike since it is mostly coasting. Right now the cost is on the high end since they are a boutique shop, but it also has significant quality related to gearing and electronics that make it easier to use then its competitors. The electric system works in parallel with pedaling. You pedal-only, use electric drive or a hybrid mode that employs both. A recent article in national geographic featured the e-bike trend that highlight the Optibike. There is a cardio-monitor design upcoming in future products as well as more advances in designs allows for software to control electronic shifting and other functions.

Well another move and it looks like we have filled out next venue very well. As Kris mentioned, this is where we started watching the Boulder New Technology Meetups and imagined the Green Tech equivalent.  Colorado Green Tech keeps growing and we’re excited to be part of it.

Announcements

• BCBR held a Green Summit  Event at the Millennium Harvest House on June5th
• Meg Hendriks has left to work at NREL and the green tech Group is looking for a volunteer to help with the Job Board director
• Clean Tech Open, is a business plan competition  with a 50K prize package at the regional level and winners go on to compete at the national level for a 250K prize package. The program started 3 years ago and holds competitions in the Pacific Northwest, California and the Rocky Mountain regions.
• Paul Jerde announced the new director of TEAM, Trent Yang
• Upcoming Renewable Energy Technologies (RETool) workshop is taking place July 9-11,  for professionals and decision-makers wanting to learn more about the renewable energy sector. This 2 day course is held at the CU Boulder campus.
• Upcoming NREL Industry Growth Forum

Speakers

Nick Sowden, US Director of Business Development, ToughStuff
Solar Power Made Appropriate for the Developing World

ToughStuff is a social enterprise that makes very inexpensive solar products for low-income people in developing countries.  Their focus market today is the 1.4 Billion people that have limited access to electricity. Without many options thee poorest inhabitants of these countries turn to their cheapest and most accessible options, which in many cases are not eco-friendly and typically dangerous to their health.  For lighting in a small family dwelling,  many turn to kerosene lamps which are smoky, sooty and lead to health issues in their children.

Using kerosene lamps is like lighting a little bottle of gasoline and letting it run all night

Even with all these side effects,  kerosene lighting does not generate enough light for reading.  Another source of pollution is cheap batteries used by people to run devices, in lieu of electricity, which are left on the ground and then make its way into the water supply.

The average expenditure by families on power is on average $122/year, and this figure amazingly is based on people with incomes levels close to one dollar a day.  The Toughstuff products are designed to tackle the cost/environmental problem faced by these groups with the core product being a $6 solar panel (1watt, 5.6V). The solar panel will power lighting, mobile phones and small appliances. The solar panel can charge an LED light product, an accessory that is sold separately, in 6 hours.  This can run for 30hrs in low light mode and on the highest setting (enough to read by) it will run for 5 hours. Another key product line is mobile phone connectors, designed for the most popular phones and plugs phones directly into a solar panel for charging.

ToughStuff has streamlined all their processes & costs and have applied the feedback, (from testing in Madagascar) to design their products and prices for the base of the pyramid consumers. All their products are designed for a lifetime of 5 years and have a payback of 2 months. One key design consideration was to build a solar panel that utilized no glass. It was very important for their product cosumers that the panel  be durable, lightweight and strong. The panel can be run over by a car or get wet and still function. Once the panel had recouped it’s cost in the first two months, it starts saving $98/yr in electricity costs for its consumer. Based on the projected sales,  ToughStuff products will have the ecological benefit of displacing 200K tons of carbon by 2012.  The significant environmental impact of batteries in the waste stream will also be diminished by the applying solar panels to displace battery usage.

The business economics of ToughStuff is calculated both as a private business and also as a Social Enterprise. In order to be more accessible, they use commercial distributors and work on a thin margin. There are many potential partners and opportunites in this market segment. Work is expanding through agreements with NGOs/Governments and through entrepeneurial toolkit called “Business in a Box” which includes 10 solar panels & marketing material.  Exposure and hard work has paid off with an award by the Dutch government of funding to provide $750K to 1000 Village Entrepreneurs (VEs) over the next 2 years. ToughStuff Just incorporated in Mauritius and works in China to manufacture products. Today they have a staff of 5 people in their offices on Pearl St. in Boulder.

The company is started as a philanthropic venture investment and was launched by 5 partners. Today they are Just about to hit a sales milestone of 100 thousand products sold since their inception. Nick invited people to join their newsletter on their website or donate $25 to launch a Village Entrepreneur. Nick proceeded to answer questions, indicating that they anticipate the solar panel will be copied but expect to retain the IP, and staying ahead with their design (patented connectors and lamps) is also key for them. The solar panel is not recyclable yet, but the rechargeable unit they sell is repairable. Their rechargeable battery system is based on NiCad technology because it lasts longer, is cheaper and needs to operate reasonable efficient at 40C. Their choice of VE’s to fund is typically based on vulnerable groups such as child soldiers and single moms. A person from the audience mentioned that their was illegal traffic selling cooking fuel in Congo and that solar cookers were a great alternative. The main founder of ToughStuff lived in Madagascar for 20yrs and they are looking to develop their business in other African countries such as Kenya, Liberia, Uganda and South Africa.

Peter Lilienthal, CEO and Ted Ladd, COO, HOMER^® Energy LLC.
Clean Power Everywhere

HOMER optimizes the design of high penetration renewable and hybrid power systems.  It models wind, solar, biomass power, hydro, hydrogen and multiple types of conventional generation, co-generation, and storage.  Peter gave the audience a multiple choice question on the origin of the name:

Does Homer stand for:
A) Hybrid Optimization for Electric Renewables
B) Homer the Greek poet and father of civilization
C) Bart Simpson’s Dad

The focus of the Homer product is the distributed energy industry specifically for managing and optimizing hybrid energy mixes (that may include energy source mixtures and batteries) and renewable energies. The mission of Homer Energy is to provide services, software and a community to help the distributed energy industry grow. Taking on the issues of managing hybrids with storage in a least-cost approach has proven difficult to many developers of energy hybrids. In essence, renewables such as solar and wind are variable but in a large grid that variability is small enough and can be absorbed so as to not effect the end client. For smaller and more diffuse power grids in developing countries, the variability is significant and this is where Homer comes in to optimize the power and make it cost-effective for the end customer.

How do changes in average wind speed and fuel price affect the feasibility of adding wind turbines to a diesel-only system design?

The company’s origins take it back to NREL, where the software grew and gave developing nations the ability to customize their grids and was combined with training, forums. This outreach helped provide the future client base for the Homer software consultancy.   Today there is a growth market for the private industry to help provide islands, some of which are the richest countries in the world, with the ability to optimize their variable power sources. The software has been available since 1998 and was developed out of research that started in 1992.  There are 31,000 users today, with up to 1K users/downloads being added every month. To ensure it maintains its legacy user base, Homer provides a free version but uses this as a platform for customization and consulting services.

The software can take into account any number of attributes such as wind speed, fuel price or the price of PV based watts and then provide graphs to show what combination’s ( e.g.  30% wind and 70% PV) or technology provides the most optimal mix for the client to build into their local grid. Peter also emphasized that they let customers provide the data, which can be very specific such as dealer margins, import tariffs and installation costs. Their current software can analyze power sources such as PV/Hydro/Wind/Biomass in a grid/isolated/cogeneration scenario. The software has been downloaded by almost every country in the world and is available for licensing in a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.

Software clients range from academic, to product suppliers, NGOs, individuals and groups in remote areas such as Alaskans living in a remote area.  An example client is the Bermuda Electric Light Company. The expectation with the new community collaboration software is that the company will harvest important statistics from their clients on their usages/needs to help further Homer’s business. Upcoming software updates will support concentrated solar/thermal storage capabilities and be available in 6 months.

Rebecca Alexis, Gino Figurelli, Matt Plahutta, Radiant Glass Industries
Power*e Glass. Power-e™ Heated Windows for Homes and Offices

Radiant Glass Industries is originally a regular window manufacturer based in Denver that has developed a new radiant glass as a sustainable building product. Their windows insulate and heat by increasing the temperature of the inside pane of glass. The current market is large and their product solves one of the principle energy inefficiency costs for buildings: 50% of house heat loss is through windows.  This cost incurred by home/building owners and is a source of discomfort.

The current average window has a R value (the ability for a material to resist heat flow) that varies from 0.9 to 4.1. A normal wall has an R value between R13-R60. The standard is set by  American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). New building standards are calling for more efficient heating systems while at the same time requiring the need for more daylight sources (e.g. windows) to reduce the electricity usage for lighting which causes more heat loss.

The Power-e heated window system claim is that it stops 100% heat loss (window is hotter then interior) through a window and uses 40% less energy than a conventional heat source, (proven at Kansas State University) . Its core design uses a low DC voltage source to power the window. The window radiate 85% of its source energy into the interior target space and also reduces condensation and resulting wood rot. Existing windows can be retro-fitted and even be installed as mirrors or internal windows. The Power-e windows also avoid hot-spots by more evenly distributing heat and when measured, it uses only 1.4Kw energy versus forced air which uses 2.4Kw. An example referenced was a 2800 sq. ft. house in Keystone, CO where over $450/month in electric heating bills were incurred, dropped to under $100/month by using Power-e heated windows. The case study in Keystone had a calculated ROI of 4 years. Another aspect of retrofitting historic/landmark buildings is that window removal may not be an option but a second interior heating window is permitted, allowing for greater efficiency.

A business plan directs them to engage the domestic market but patents have already been filed in Canada, EU and Japan as well as the United States. They expect to use green building grants and tax incentives to drive their adoption. They are actively promoting distribution channels and licensing for new construction as well as the retro-fit market.  They also intend to market to the large HVAC/Window manufacturers with the enticement that manufacturing of their windows is low-cost to the target plant. Along with distribution and licensing, they are seeking joint venture opportunities.

There was an abundance of questions with some inquiries on their independent certification of the window performance which is amazingly proficient for physically reasons that are not fully understood. Their window effectiveness when rating beside one of Anderson Windows top windows is about 3x more efficient. The internal electronics converts a normal interior 100Vac supply to 25VDC for the window supply. The window will not overheat and uses a windowstat to turn it off once it reaches the desired temperature which can also be wired to an internal thermostat. It usually takes windows about 5-11 minutes to heat up to the desired temperature. Part of the innovation of the window is a coating the keeps the heat from going through the window and this also helps to ensure the overall loss to the outside is 15%.

Jim Fournier & Lopa Brunjes, Biochar Engineering Corporation
Solutions for Climate Change, Energy & Soil Fertility

Biochar Engineering builds biochar production equipment. They design, develop, and deploy industrial equipment that uses waste biomass, such as agricultural or forestry waste, to produce biochar. Jim started the presentation with a question to the group of what bio-char really is?

Bio-Char was first discovered in amazonian soils left from previous inhabitants that amended the soil and significantly improved their crop yield. The soil was found to have unusual properties to allow farming with 80% less nitrogen and effects fungus/bacteria growth in a way to improve plant growth along with improving water retention/drought resistance in the soil. It works to amend poor soil, improving yields by 200%.  With such a reduction in nitrogen, today’s modern farming is much “dirtier” through its extensive usage of Nitrogen based fertilizer that creates NOx emissions, a fact that concerns scientist along with more tradition carbon green house gases. A primary interest for the sustainability movement is that charcoal can stably capture and hold carbon for thousands of years (providing a carbon sink) and remove/reduce greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Some of the value streams available from biochar is soil fertility, sequestration and energy generation through the production of gas, heat, electricity and liquid fuel (e.g. methanol, dimethyl ether, diesel). Bichar Engineering has found a sweet spot or lowest capital investment by creating heat (through a gas) from biochar. Their product is a modular unit that can be scaled to the biomass feedstock chain. Early prototype units takes and burns 100 ton/day of biomass . By creating heat from biomass, you maintain 40% of carbon from the plant (or 25% by weight), that was locked-up, avoiding it’s release into the atmosphere as it decays, and keeping it into a stable bio-char medium. An example of this is the Pine-Beetle infested wood.  If left to rot, it will produce green house gases. Currently the forestry services have not allowed permits to create bio-char until they finish the last of their studies on environmental impact.

New models and joint venture span both wood chips with a model in 2009 to  lignocellulosic biomass based units. Additionally tested are examining the efficiency of the byproduct glycerin from biodiesel as a feedstock to the process. From forest management (where beetle infested trees can be turned to bio-char) to an Italian gasification plant, they are involved in a number of partnerships examining the various usages and efficiencies for biochar.

Today developing countries may value the bio-char more then the cooking fuel. An example raised by the audience was that the Congo Basin Forest Fund that has awarded money to the Biochar fund to support it’s usage. Many of these efforts are also using the value of sequestration to stop deforestation. For many of these feedstocks and processes, the Greenhouse Gas(GHG) Lifecycle Analysis is proving to be instrumental to determine the value per feedstock of sequestration.   BEC’s technology mimics nature’s intelligence, creating valuable co-products, ultimately including biochar and process heat with or without electricity or liquid fuels. Biochar engineering has also found that there are many good feestocks but dryness, about 20% moisture is a good amount to support optimal bio-char generation. They aim for about 25% yield of char and this will produce about 40% sequestration.  Yields generated above this has diminishing returns.

After a month break and Kris’s knee injury, its time to look forward to our next meeting. We will be back on the regular monthly schedule again in May. Our last meeting in March was another heavily attended session and the good news is we are moving to a larger venue at the CU Campus, the Law Auditorium (Wittemeyer Courtroom) that seats 250+.  So for all who attend the new tech meetup, you know this venue has a great side room for refreshments and area for networking. Also the law building has a very spacious and comfortable presentation room.

Kris and Puneet call the meeting to order

Announcements

• Kris updated us on the advisory services (check out our web site)
• The CU Business school had its Elevate conference on Feb 26th
• Jim Graham from the CORE group announced the Sustainable Opportunity Summit on March 17th
• Ziegler, known for their HealthVest finance group, has a new renewable energy investment group that is looking for companies to add to their portfolio. They have looked at natural gas projects in Weld County, Colorado)

Networking outside the auditorium in the Atlas Building

Speakers

Steve Kroll and John Andrews, Corvid Inc. Americanizing Shelley rip
Hydronically Heated and Cooled Building Envelopes

Corvid Inc. is an Evergreen, CO based company that has developed a patented process for radiant heated and cooled walls to make homes more energy efficient. Founded 2 years ago,  their foundational technology utilizes a sandwich of external concrete, a Thermomass® Dow Styrofoam insulation and at the core a heated/cooled concrete layer. Similar to radiant floors, a piping system in the core concrete layer provides the cooling/heating aspects. Heating can be provided by a solar-based heating or a standard existing hot water boiler. Cooling can be provided by a small geothermal loop run by pumps that would displace a traditional air conditioning unit.

The core of the green building market is driven by many factors, the current price of energy being a primary one (where natural gas prices has seen jumps of 30-70% over a year) and the future cost of energy where carbon trade and cap will make sources of dirty energy  more expensive.  Additionally Corvid technology fits well with LEED construction projects and is currently utilized in platinum certified buildings.

What is the competitive advantage of the hyrdronics and concrete? Essentially three fold:

1. using a wall as a thermal mass battery has been know to architects for years.
2. Engineering concrete has excellent properties to store energy and provide one of the most comfortable and even distributions of energy.
3. Also Pre-cast, tilt-up,  Insulated Concrete Forms

   (ICF) style of manufacturing provides a simple paradigm for the construction industry versus other competitors such as concrete block, 2×4 wood construction, traditional straw bale and rammed earth.

Energy savings are significant, with 2/3 energy reductions for average sized homes. Concrete wall also provide better sound insulation and protection from rotting and rust. With Corvid’s unique design, the R value is an extremely high R34 and the energy usage is around 10 BTU /sq. ft. / hr. versus an average building which is 60 BTU /sq. ft./hr.

Right now Corvid is personally financed by the owners and is looking to expand in the west and then move to the eastern part of the country.  Their future plans are to work more on building complexes and integrated systems for new development, given that retrofits are not as cost-effective for the pre-cast walls.  Their plans are also to work on affordable and modular home based development and to bring down the prices of their solution to make it even more competitive in their market segment. Their ability to innovate on precast styles, stains and customization of wall finishes are areas of development they hope to innovate in.  Also Corvid is looking at improving and building the next generation of hydronic concrete floors that will provide cooling without condensation.

Norman Vickers and Perry Wyatt, Nilar
Rethinking how Battery Chemistry is Packaged

Nilar is a Denver based company delivering custom large format battery power systems to industrial and transportation applications.  The company was founded by veterans of another battery company Optima. The founding principal of the company is to develop a battery with chemistry that improves volumetric performance, reduces cost and improves reliability.  With over 30 patents, the company has focused on NiMH batteries with bi-polar high density construction and design, providing 1Ah to 40Ah capacities.

The core market addressed varies from heavy duty vehicles (e.g. 18 wheelers), electric vehicle applications (e.g. ATVs), to military and aviation applications.  Long haul vehicles can benefit greatly from incremental improvements in mileage. So for a transportation company, a 5 mpg increase using a hybrid battery solution can help improve their fleet fuel efficiency by 10-15%. This efficiency can result in a ROI of less than 2 yrs and significant long term savings.  Lighter electric vehicles such as ATVs need batteries that are reliable out in the field, where a failure means you are stranded far from help. Military applications as well are seeing usage for silent watch, battery-only periods, where a motor or generator can’t be used during stealth mode.

New applications such as flying refrigerators

Oscar video

allow a temperature sensitive package to be shipped on a cargo plane without requiring any power during the flight

Addressing the customer’s needs is the focus for Nilar. Their process supports significantly lower capital expenditures for production equipment. The modular packs allow for better integration, simpler production and lower TCO.  Manufacturing has been well thought out. Nilar will co-locate with customers to improve cost and execution for a production facility. Their battery is totally recyclable (can be converted to stainless steel) and has no waste stream (other then the power for manufacturing). Their customer engagement process was illustrated showing deliveries of evaluation, pre-production, testing/final design and production that align well with customer needs. Nilar indicated it can deliver end-to-end in 2 to 6 months but a delivery cycle typically takes 2-3 years.

Nilar’s philosophy during the development of its battery was to examine the system for common failure modes, then re-engineer the battery to remove those modes. Common NiMH failure modes include dry-out, electrode swelling due to heat, and weld failure.

Nilar had a great response from the audience and some great questions. Around NiMH applications, this type of battery is not a good solution for massive storage. Where NiMH applies well is power hungry applications such as large trucks. As for thermal conditioning, NiMH loses efficiency when it is cool. When it is hot, air cooling can be applied to optimize efficiency. Nilar can back all its claims and knowledge on its battery solution with the accomplishment of powering a 40 ton truck on NiMH, essentially a 40 ton Toyota Prius.

More questions revealed Nilars knowledge and strategy for the European market. Their batteries are fully compliant for end-of-life vehicle recycling (a requirement in the EU). All the non-toxic materials can be recycled into other materials such as stainless steel.  Nilar’s chemistry is superior in this regard. Solutions such as Ni-CAD batteries don’t work, cadmium is hard to dispose of and recycle. And for lithium recycling compliance is not simple. Lithium batteries sometimes contain toxic electrolytes and are fire hazards if not fully discharged.

Colleen Rauscher and John Dee , Global Energy Options, LLC (GEO)
Hydrogen Hybrids

Global Energy Options LLC (GEO) is a Colorado based technology company that has developed a revolutionary hydrogen hybrid retrofit solution for diesel engines called GEOgreenbox. This system  reduces emissions up to 80% and fuel consumption by 30%. GEO was founded with seed money – 2.4 Mil executive owner investment. Initial backers came from the founders of whole foods market. Their development work, strategic partnerships and sales spans three continents.

The technology was of great curiosity to the meetup group. The retrofit unit uses electrolysis and produces hydrogen on demand so that no hydrogen is stored on-board the vehicle. Hydrogen is injected with the air inflow and mixed with fuel in a proprietary mix and process. The unit is convertible for different salt-water reservoir sizes to support electrolysis . Other components include a heavy duty alternator, electrolyte solution and a metal conditioner.

The primary business driver of the hydrogen system is fuel efficiency but also a main benefit is converting vehicles to meet tougher EPA and world standards for diesel emissions. Today a popular system to abate NOx emission in boilers is the Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) using urea fuel injection. This technology is facing challenges with the mobile/vehicular applications due to size/real estate required under the hood.  GEO solution competes better in its space profile and has impressive statistics, removing NOx 32%, CO 50%, HC 85%. GEO also claims that other technologies can increase fuel usage by 10% to run their systems, and the GEOgreenbox uses far less.  GEO also claims their competitor’s  system can’t reduce nitrous oxides at the same level as their system.

Units are available for a wide range of applications including  locomotive, small marine shipping vessels, class 8 diesel trucks, city bus and refrigeration units. The price for a class 8 diesel truck is around 18K. The cost goes down significantly for large fleets and the ROI is calculated at 7 months for fleets running year-long or averaging 248,000 miles/yr. The total addressable market for this technology is 660 Million diesel engines worldwide.  GEO has pre-qualified customers on 4 continents that give them access to refrigeration & long haul trucking as well as marine, mass transit and locomotive industries.  GEO’s relationships span Australia, Asia and marine/truck industries in Europe and United States.

The business model established by GEO involves both direct sales to corporate clients and licensing for both distribution and manufacturing. The system milestones for the product include EPA/National Lab Validation and final application for universal application on multiple engine types. The technology IP includes 12 patented components within the system and other patents are in progress. The projections for sales in 2010 is looking promising at 70Mil with less than 1% conversion of pre-qualified customer fleets, and 2009 sales are over 10Mil.

The Howling download

GEO is looking to be well positioned in their market. Their product is the most efficient unit of their competitors and retrofits well in smaller spaces available in trucks. Their engine management and control systems for mixtures/injections are the best in the industry and they plan to extend this to 50% fuel-efficiency savings. Their product also has extensive safety features, such as circuit breaker cutoffs for surges, shutdown systems for sensed impact and monitoring of temperature, pumps and other systems that will cause the appropriate shutdown of hydrogen production.

• download Backbeat

Great February meeting! Thanks to everyone for being patient with the overflow in the room . As we speak, we’re looking at options to expand.  With room for 200 and extra chairs, there was an overflow of approximately 30 people in the aisles. Hope you all enjoyed the speakers and we’ll let you know about the location change for next month.

Announcements

• Kris reviewed the new mission statement for Colorado Green Tech:

Help the Front Range of Colorado become the Silicon Valley of Clean/Green Tech by providing fast track opportunities for companies with emerging Clean/Green technologies

• Thanks to Meg Hendriks for the job board, Tony and Yann Ropars for  photos
• For those interested in participating on the Advisory board, please contact Kris
• Kris is looking for a sweat equity IP attorney for one of his projects. If interested please contact him at kris@coloradogreentech.net
• MISI has published a Green Job report for Colorado and at the national level
• Various events were announced – next month these will show up as a group mail, as well as in the calendar on our web site.

Speakers

Susan Innis, Governors Energy Office, Colorado Carbon Fund
A New Way to Fund Clean Energy Projects

A first for the green tech meetup – we’re delighted to have a representative from the Governors Energy Office (GEO) talk about how green technology is supported by the state. Susan Innis is the program manager of The Colorado Carbon Fund, otherwise known as Project C, which support the following GEO’s objectives:

• Develop a funding source for community-based clean energy and climate mitigation projects in Colorado
• Support Colorado’s climate change mitigation objectives
• Provide high quality, credible offsets for individuals, businesses and government agencies interested in mitigating their carbon footprint

For more information on the Governor’s activities,  Susan, directed us to Energy’s Office website. In our audience, Susan pointed out a number of recipients of the GEO’s NEED grant program, (CZero, Hybrids-Plus). Although the NEED fund is now closed,  these recipients are moving on to their next stages of growth. Colorado has been an active leader at the state level and is one of 2 dozen government agencies executing  their climate action plans.

Delivering on the three objectives above, the Carbon fund is actively looking for clean energy projects to invest in. The response to the program has been very positive so far with over 125 projects submitted.  In order for the fund to buy carbon credits for your project you need to show that your business/technology will reduce or displace fossil fuels, and the main criteria is

Reduce one or more of the six GHGs (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulphur hexafluoride).

Some examples of projects that have funding preferences are: home or business “weatherization” projects and thermal-based energy technologies such as biomass. Road/transportation reduction solutions are also considered. Another area of interest is “Anaerobic digestion projects”, (some of our attendees may remember Heartland Renewable Energy presented on April 10th, 2008 at our meeting.)  Susan pointed out that this anaerobic technology for methane capture must be used on a hog or dairy farm. The state is also interested in other methods of methane capture from landfills and coal mines.  For more details on qualifications for projects see the website. A few important requirements is that a project needs to be brand new in Colorado, take place in Colorado and have not yet been implemented. A project needs real and verifiable emission reductions. It must be equivalent to or greater than 2500 metric ton/yr of carbon dioxide-equivalent Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The carbon credits are purchased at a rate of $8-12 per metric ton. Susan also mentioned that even though there is a minimum savings requirement – but they would consider “aggregating” projects such as smaller “solar heating” distributed systems.

The Governor has chosen the Climate trust in Portland Oregon, to design the Colorado Carbon Fund and work to offset Greenhouse Gas (GHG). Currently the fund is in it’s early stages and looking to fund it’s first projects (as of this writing). In the question session , Susan was asked about interesting projects. One project had to do with electrified overnighting for large haul trucks similar to this project. Also projects related to bio-mass co-firing and zero emission diesel have been evaluated. One project presented, but did not qualify, was a “Colorado” scuba diving center that “saved greenhouse gases” since people did not have to travel to New Mexico to get certified.  The Carbon Fund will not sponsor education programs, given the outreach programs in place today such as Boulder County’s Climate Smart Program.

Mike Fisher, EasyLite ILS
Energy Efficient Controlled Lighting Systems

Easylite is a Boulder based company founded over 10 yrs ago that specializes in integrated, controlled facility-wide lighting systems. Their founding started with 4-5 years of R&D and the product line demonstrates that their research is still on-going with a 3rd Generation fluorescent  lighting solution with dimming capability.

Mike took us through some of their experience in setting up custom and controlled lighting environments. For management of a facility, EasyLite offers the following solutions/control systems to reduce lighting loads:

1. Time of day (changing lighting output for various time periods)
2. Zone based (allowing finely grained control of facilities e.g. floor, building, classroom  to improve lighting load reduction)
3. Daylight harvesting (sensing daylight levels and adjusting interior lighting to maintain a constant light level)
4. Occupancy sensing (bringing up lighting on detection of a person’s entry)
5. Network addressable lighting (tying into the building automation systems over existing 3 wire connections)
6. Electric Demand reduction (supporting smart grid utility commands to reduce lighting at peak rates)
7. Frequency modulating dimming (retrofitting fluorescent lighting to allow for dimming)

Their focus has been on customer satisfaction, (currently rated at 4.86 out of 5, based on yearly visits after a deployment) and on optimizing end user value.  Their solutions are directed at reducing overall electricity usage, but also target peak usage when utilities charge peak rates.  The time of day/zone on-off scheduling systems, offer savings of 5-15%, while light level (dimming) can be higher 10-20%. Light harvesting generates outstanding savings of 30-60%, while occupancy sensing shows 5-25% savings.

EasyLite does it’s own manufacturing of ballasts and controls. Their value-add is in system design and application development for various facility requirements. Their offerings also include a full turn-key solution for customers. They also build and source many system components including digital addressable controls, relays, software, occupancy sensors and dimmers used in system solutions.

The crown jewel in the product line is their Frequency (versus pulse modulated) controlled ballast system for fluorescents, that allows for dimming. This system is based on low voltage control, does not require conduit, and works independent of the existing electric circuit configuration, ( so you can zone in any direction or grouping).  These lights are interconnected via a class 2, RJ-11 (phone-jack) terminated wiring.  This facilitates the control network and is used to create zones via plug-n-play.

Through their research on lighting systems, they have achieved two benchmarks unmatched in the industry:

• Low Profile T8 – 1 thru 8 lamp configurations
• Low Profile T5HO – 1 thru 4 lamp

Others in the industry can only do T5 fluorescent at 2′ for a single dimming ballast. Just as a note, the T measure is a diameter in 1/8ths of an inch ( A T8 bulb will be 1 inch in diameter, compared to 1 1/2 inch for the T12 bulb, a T8 bulb is often used to replace T12 as it fits into the same ballast and reduces energy consumption ). A T5HO bulb is used for typically for outdoor usages.

These lights support universal voltage, meaning they can be wired to various voltage sources levels (source needs 20A current rating) which is then converted system to their network low DC voltage. Another unique feature with the EasyLite fluorescent system is that all the lights are wired in a parallel. This configuration ensures that one failure won’t bring down a bank of lights.  With a harvesting configuration, a failure is compensated by the remaining active lights which maintain a constant lighting level. The harvesting solution is a closed loop system – which reads the natural and artificial light constantly at the “working surface” and can be reset by a flashlight. The harvester reacts gradually, minimizing the distraction at the location.

Mike provided an example of demand leveling in a school, showing a reduction of 200Kw at peak usage. He also presented a use case where there system enabled a 63% electricity saving at a school facility with daylight harvesting. The incremental install cost for a controlled lighting system is typically $1 per sq ft.  EasyLIte has patented technology in US, Europe and Asia.

We began the Q&A session and here are some of the answers to questions. The company has somewhere between 500-800 installed projects. Their frequency based ballast used regular fluorescent bulbs.  A question was posed on “interference problems”, since their system frequency range may cause aliasing problems and the response was there are no problems in this area. Their system is based on a 17V DC bus and can use existing conduit.  Light reduction usually translates into  A/C savings.  The formula for A/C savings in Colorado is for every 3 Watts of light not used, there is a 1W of A/C savings. In Texas this rate is much higher.

Benzi Livneh/Ian Richards,   MicroCoal, Inc
A Smarter Way to Clean Coal

After a brief audience survey on the perception of clean-coal by Kris, we were primed to hear our next presenters that have patented a new pre-combustion coal cleaning technology. Kris also mentioned that the new Comanche 3 coal plant is built for a 60 yr lifespan and cost 1 Billion to build. Our presenters did not disappoint on addressing the reality of our coal legacy. In the U.S cleaning up what we have is necessity and a stopgap as we shift over to renewables.

The first statistic introduced to the group was that total global energy usage is 17.4Billion MWh/yr. This demand for energy is expected to double by 2030. Of that total, 4 Billion MWh is consumed in the US. The install capacity of coal in the US is 330, 000 MW including the Comanche III plant. The replacement cost of the 1300 coal plants in the U.S. is 500Bil.  Of the 4Bil MWh used here, 50% is produced by coal.

Trying to relate how coal has improved, a graph was presented showing a period between 1990-2006, where electrical generation went up 34% but emissions went down. From the web I found that

Average annual emissions growth since 1990 is 1.1%/year for both petroleum and coal, and 0.8%/year for natural gas.

So in a sense, emissions per unit of energy is decreasing due to cleaner technologies, but our demand is outstripping current cleaning technology improvements.

So the question was posed on how we are going to tackle cleaning up coal. One solution put forth is legislation. Currently we have the Clean Air Act of 1990, that deals with Air Pollution Prevention and Control.  There is also the proposed Carbon Tax, legislation put forth by  Congressman Dingell’s to tax carbon content @ $50 ton/of carbon content  and  50 cents on a gallon of gasoline.

The direction that MicroCoal has taken is to make burning coal more efficient. As posed, it takes 3.17 kWh of fuel consumed to produce 1 kWh. So as it stands today coal is 30% efficient. There is a lot of room to improve this efficiency. Older coal plants typically boil water to produce electricity. In the next generation, coal will also be turned into liquid, to power and provide fuel for vehicles. This new process is dirtier then current coal plants.  In both cases, the processing is essentially burning coal and trying to clean what comes out of it. The effluent contains various contaminants including NOx (Nitrus Oxides), SOx (Sulfur Oxides) and Hg (Mercury).  These pollutants are released from the 1.2 Bil tonnes of coal we burn every year.

MicroCoals approach is to clean the coal so it goes to the boiler cleaner thus reducing contaminants by 30-50%. The reduced effluent,  will improve the boiler performance by reducing slag and resultant ash. The slag in the boiler acts as an insulator and decreases boiler efficiency. The early-processing of coal, cleans it up during the pre-combustion stage, which reduces moisture, sulfur, mercury, etc. via microwave treatment. The process separates the slag and heavy metals from the coal.  It also handles the resultant water by cleaning/filtering and separating it from the effluent solids.  If all coal plants used this system, it would result in a reduction of 2.5 Billion tonnes of CO₂ /annually from the atmosphere.  Coal that is processed through this system comes out ‘fractured’ but it contains more energy. Another footnote is that Comanche III will take in 2-3 Million tonnes of coal a year, and use 1 million tonnes of water to process.  MicroCoal will significantly reduce the amount of water used by the plant.

Benzi, indicated they are making good progress selling their system, and have a pilot facility co-located at a power plant in Golden, CO.  The Q&A session revealed some great insights.  It seems that there is a penalty to do carbon capture, (a competitor to MicroCoal). In theory Carbon Capture Systems (CCS) could reduce CO₂ by 80-90% but there is a  25-40% cost premium.  MicroCoal considers their penalty to be much less – closer to 15-20% premium.  They offer stiff competition to other solutions, with a conversion cost for a 500MWh plant  around $30mil versus scrubber system that would cost $100mil.  In terms of cost, microwave was chosen since it is more efficient then other heating systems, he posed the example that a microwave is much more efficient then a stove to for heating food. The current efficiency of a microwave is around 64%.

Another question came up on the source and quality of coal. 40% of American coal comes from Wyoming and Wyoming has very clean coal. In fact in the Powder River Basin is the the world’s largest deposit of coal.  Benzi indicated that they worked with $13/ton WY coal and $60/ton Appalachian coal – Appalachian coal has 30-40% more BTU’s, hence the extra cost. The MicroCoal solution works better with cleaner WY coal and provides a more ecological result with a 40% contaminant reduction rate.

A quote I found on a 1990 NY Times article backed up Benzi’s discussion on the Powder the Power River Basin talked to the benefit of this coal and the Federal Clean Air Act :

Powder River Basin coal is so low in sulfur that utilities that burn it can meet the new standards without installing multimillion-dollar pollution control systems.

Christopher Reim , American BioResources, LLC
Simplified Scalable Algae Production Solutions

Christopher started off their presentation by introducing the executive team, a new CEO Sue Kunz, the COO Jeffrey Veres and their lead industrial microbiologist Nick Rancis.  American BioResources is driven by the market opportunity to use algae as a source for bio-fuels with the primary target market being  bio-diesel vehicles. They’re current offering consists of an algae growing system and a distribution channel for purchasing algae-based fuel to be refined and resold to the transportation market.  A key aspect of their solution is the partnership with farmers that would provide facilities to grow algae.

The foundation of algae bio-fuels is a desire to find a fuel source that is highly scalable and renewable given where the global demand for oil is going. Chris displayed a chart showing this resource consumption and it demonstrated how quickly demand from China has grown. Even if you don’t believe in Peak Oil (which is not theorized to be in 2020), then there still remains the issue of global competition for our existing petroleum resources post-recesson.

The growth of bio-diesel processing capacity in the U.S. is increasing with 110 plants in production and 86 new plants coming on-line. The current issue is that there is a disconnect with capacity and resources, where bio-diesel sources are being outstripped by the capacity being built. To meet this need, is the opportunity to use lipid-based oils from micro-algae, enabling anyone with the equipment to grow their fuel In a sense, facilitate the “Democratization of Energy”. The bio-fuels market is 2 Billion today with 500 Million gallons sold in 2008 and production has doubled since 2004. In comparison, the current petroleum market in 2008 was 306 Billion gallons.

The bio-fuel competition comes from other sources of bio-mass, such as corn, soy-bean, sunflower, safflower, camelina, and rapeseed. One of the best efficiencies comes from oil palms which can make 635gal/acre of bio-diesel, but this is dwarfed by micro-algae which produces 1850 gal/acre of fuel. The newer numbers for algae are proving to be even higher then this number cited.  Algae has a number of unique properties. Ocean-based Algae produces 70% of the worlds oxygen. So much for the reputation of the world’s forests, in reality the ocean is the “lungs of the earth”. Algae has the potential for 100% utilization in the process, with lipids going to make bio-diesel and the chaff used to make cellulosic ethanol. Also the chaff can be used for bio-plastics, fertilizer and food supplements (being rich in omega 3) .  The chaff is of great interest to livestock farmers. This type of “crop” is highly desirable to farmers over other alternatives since it is not seasonal, not weather dependent, does not require “change of fields” and can be grown all year-round.

The solution involves growing algae is an indoor, photo-bioreactor system. It consists of a proprietary growing system that is closed loop. It employs artificial lights to grow algae, recycles water and uses affordable components. Algae is not consumptive of water is just lives in it.  But it does consume CO₂ at a rate of 1.8 lbs for each 1lb of fuel produced. The current focus is to make the offering attrative to farmers through scalability and  low infrastructure cost.  The solution supports the change of  algae-strains, scaling the process through additional tanks and flexibility to upgrade system components for efficiency.  AmBioRes currently has two full scale units in production today.

In our Q&A session we had another great set of questions from our highly-educated audience.  First, a question on the efficiency equation was not tackled due to the complexity of the answer.  In regards to problems such as disease, the proprietary system can quickly cycle out water to quickly change out bad algae and get the system running again.  Responding to a more detailed request on the business model, AmBioRes mentioned that it supplies the photo-bioreactor to farmers/micro-growers, and in a co-op style the growers sell their product back to AmBioRes.  The company then processes it in refineries and sells the final product. Their goal is to use hub & spoke, so that micro-growers are setup close to refineries, in order to minimize the overall cost of moving the product.

Algae strains also are part of the equation and profiling them for fuel conversion is where much of the proprietary research and intellectual property is found. There are over 300,000 known strains and some are so filled with lipids and fatty-acids, more then 50% of it can be converted to fuel.  They have chosen a distributed model that allows for rapid growth and partnering with farmers. An extra benefit to farmers is utilizing chaff for their livestock.

The question of the extra cost of internal lights versus natural lighting and it turns out that the internal lights are much more efficient then natural light which has a 11% efficiency rate.  The cost of bio-diesel fuels was in the realm of $4.43/gal in mid 2008 and down to $2.45/gal at the end of 2008, some in the audience claims a much higher rate for algae fuel.  Algae-based fuel at the pump will probably be brought down with government subsidization.  As a feed for livestock, algae has a huge upside, since it produces 2 1/2 times the protein of soy. Farmers need to invest about 100K for equipment, but would see payback in a relatively short period.  The feed for algae is proprietary but its a mixture of Nitrates, Phosphates and CO₂.

Thanks all for making this another great meeting – I’m watching the video (thanks Ryan Vachon!) and realizing we had yet another great set of speakers.

Our Website

With no small amount of work, Patrick Himes has brought our official Colorado Green Tech Website online. Patrick is a true professional and very talented. Contact him at his company Sally Forth or the email link above.  Our site now includes a Green Tech Events summary calendar  on the website main page. Visit the full Green Events Calendar View on the Calendar Page. Use the google calendar icon below and add our event calendar to your own personal Google Calendar.  For upcoming events please send email to events@coloradogreentech.net and we’ll post them on the site. Check for new articles and references to our Green tech group on the News Page. The jobs site will be online in the near future.

Announcements

Although the deadline is over for deal flow screeners, the Colorado Green Tech Group had 7 members review 7 company’s on the Business Catapult site. Based on our member’s ranking, these company’s will advance to  the Angel Capital Summit. All of these company’s have presented at our meetup group and ranked very well. Good luck to all of you!

Speakers

Wyatt Metzger, National Center for Photovoltaics
Solar Electricity

We’re very pleased to have research/informational speakers at Colorado Green Tech . Apart from the entrepreneur/commercial world there is the fascinating work where technology in incubated in academia and government laboratories. Starting with background of the group,  the National Center for Photovoltaics (NCPV) was formed by the Department of Energy and Wyatt works for NREL, so I assume they are one in the same. Wyatt started the presentation with a couple of tantalizing facts on Solar and the possibilities of harnessing solar energy fully:

• More energy from the sun falls on earth in 1hr then is consumed by the world in 1 year
• 100mi x 100mi solar collection could provide enough power to cover the US electricity needs

Solar has some great applications, and is available everywhere. We’ve applied solar technology from the far reaches in space (including our space program to power the space station)  to remote place on earth such as power for small,remote and impoverished villages. Solar has the potential to easily aid 1/4 of the world population that does not have electricity. The future goals of solar are to use it to make hydrogen (from water) at a cost-effective rate and allow the greater population to burn “stored hydrogen fuel on demand”  in automobiles.

Some of the current significant challenges for solar are it’s competitive position along side other energy sources and it’s more intensive manufacturing process. Right now solar is 2.5 times more expensive then grid power. The solar cost was hotly debated at the meeting (Factors such as grid source subsidies and transmission losses are usually not included in the grid source cost). As well, the manufacturing process for solar panels is slow. Panel manufacturing is inhibited by “impurity” and structural defect problems. These problems reduce electron flow and hence reduce efficiency. For flat plates, we’re in the midst of the second generation. First generation single/multicrystaline silicon panels are mature and have been slow to improve. The current record, just made by Univ. of New South Wales is 25% efficiency for silicon solar cells and this brings them very close to the theoretical limit of 29% efficiency. The second generation is thin film, materials such as a-Si, CdTe, CIGS that absorb light 100x more efficiently. As many know, First Solar bases their technology on cadmium telluride (CdTe) and has seen explosive growth.  The second generation solar technology can be made several microns thick and NREL has achieved 20% efficiency with these cells. As just reported 10/24/08, the record now stands at 25% efficiency. Thin films can be integrated into roof shingles and can be rolled up easily. The third generation, is still in the research phase and is not yet stable. Technologies like quantum dots show promise but have a long way to go. In another area of growth, Solar Concentrators show great promise. NREL has achieved 40.8% efficiency with their concentrator prototypes. Between the material cost and efficiency, solar technology has not reached grid-parity yet.

Wyatt drove home what many in the industry know, solar-funded (government) research has been meager in the U.S. The government NREL budget is 70Mil/yr (compare that to Univ of Texas athletic budget of 100Mil/yr). Luckily rebates, mandates and tax credits have helped the private industry significantly – especially in Colorado. Solar is even more progressively approached in other countries like Germany and Spain. In these countries, the governments support “feed-in” tariffs where they pay a premium for solar generated electricity. Colorado rebates and tax credits right now allow for a solar system to be installed at 20% of actual retail cost. The current rate of growth in the United States is high now – and if sustained in 30 yrs could support all of the United States needs. The US represents less then 10% of the solar production in the world but is catching up fast in new investment. Of the renewable consumption pie, 7 percent of world consumption is renewable and 1% of that is solar/thermal & PV.

Ed Van Dyn, VanDyne SuperTurboCharges
Engine Efficiency

Ed Van Dyn introduced his company as a “Spin-Out” company of a $1.5 Billion public company and they have been developing their technology over the last 4 years. The company is tackling challenges to improve automobile engine efficiency. This is primarily driven by high fuel prices and compliance with CO2 regulations (in Japan and Europe today) and potentially in the U.S. as well. Their solution provides efficiency for existing fleet of cars with a “Super-charger”. Their product claim is a “20-30%” improvement in fuel efficiency and a significant reduction of CO2 emissions without any loss in horsepower.

The super turbocharger product can supercharge, turbocharge and turbocompound. The supercharging part uses an air compressor to get better internal combustion efficiency. A turbocharger does the same but uses the engines own exhaust flow to push a turbine and thus creates the air compression. The turbocompound / reciprocating engine uses a turbine powered by exhaust gases (like a turbocharger) but the turbine is physically connected to the crankshaft. The power of the whole system is boosted at the low end torque by the supercharger and at the high-end by the turbocharger. Employing 30% of the original 30% heat/energy waste from the exhaust gives the engine an extra 10% efficiency increase. The incremental cost to the engine is $300/car at quantities over 500K.

The product value proposition is very well positioned. It offers a $700/yr savings, easily putting the ROI below the 1 year mark and it saves 4000 lbs. of CO2/yr/car. For heavy trucks the statistics are significant. The technology allows for 7-10% reduction in fuel efficiency and the saving is $8k/yr with 17 ton of CO2/truck/yr eliminated.

The target market is $10-20 Bil and with niche sales they hope to target commercial fleets and penetrate 1.5% of the market. The factors to make their product competitive are lean manufacturing, extreme reliability of the product and aggressive cost reduction. The product prototypes are in tests with large automobile companies and they have made significant progress.  Intellectual property has been protected with first generation patents plus patents in the  pipeline.  Van Dyne has an impressive executive team. Their product is being evaluated and involved in a number of collaborations with different labs and institutions including  CSU’s engine laboratory in Ft. Collins. Ed’s efforts have produced a great product and we’re looking forward to hearing more in the future.

Reed Sarver, StrionAir
Green Buildings without adding an Energy Penalty

StrionAir is a green building company focused on air filtration and efficiency in the residential/commercial market. With previous funding rounds their product is already developed and ready for mass commercialization. Air quality is important and many research studies have shown better attendance and school scores in green/healthier environments.  Areas of concern for air quality outlined in the presentation are sick building syndrome, infectious diseases and allergies/asthma.  In the early stages, StrionAIr was funded to look at the security risk of critical infrastructure but markets now have expanded to building health and efficiency segments. Not only has the company worked with the CDC to look at infectious disease filtration it also has worked with the Green Building Council, a 501(c)(3) non profit group.

The product target market is broad and therefore is designed to be scalable to any size building.   The addressable market presented is $2 Bil. and broken down into Residential, Security, Healthcare, Green Building and Specialty markets (manufacturing facilities – pharmaceutical/ microelectronics).  The product has three key benefits: 1) Very high particle capture rate; 2) a very low pressure drop; and 3)   trapping and killing “pathogens”. The product operation works with an electric field to polarize the particles and attract to a fibrous material and then deactivate particles. Reed put up an illustration of their product specifications that demonstrates an excellent capture rate but also a very low obstruction rate to air flow. Compared to the  standard High-efficiency-particulate air HEPA) bag filters it does very well. There is an interesting read if you follow the above wiki link on how HEPA was initially developed for the Manhattan project to filter radiation.

StrionAir already has a significant product placement and partnership network. They have an OEM agreement with  companies such as Carrier. Installations in healthcare have been done for Trauma centers and laboratories. Also they have worked with the ATF and FBI on installing filtration at select installations.

The residential/commercial green tech play is based on efficiency. The breakdown  of energy in a commercial building is split three ways 1) Lightning 2) Electronics(severs/laptops)  3) Heating/Venting/Cooling. HVAC is then split into 60% heating/cooling and then another 40% to “pushing air”.  The StrionAir unit advantage to reducing the 40% of energy used to push air in buildings through efficiency of their filtration. Pressure drop (measured in “inches” ) increases steadily as filters near the end of their lifetime (and are changed). The Strion unit reduces pressure drop (by lowering it from MERV 15 to MERV 13) significantly. The air filter changes also are improved from every 6 months to 12 months. The payback for this benefit is 3.2 yrs in an average  NYC building (16cents/KWh) with 31,675 lbs of CO2 saved annually.

The company outlook is excellent and they are currently cash positive (in 2009). Installations of units are at 60K residential units and 1500 commercial units. They foresee a greater adoption rate based on time-of-day electricity rates and energy rebates accelerating this.

Philip Lyman, Boundless Corporation
Energy Storage Technology

Boundless presented on Li-ion technology is providing a better battery technology and eco-friendly technology. Their immediate eco-friendly advantage is that Li-ion batteries are considered non-hazardous waste by the federal government, and thus avoid the toxic leakage we see in the municipal waste-stream by lead-acid batteries.

Lithium-Ion has been around since the 90’s and has penetrated almost all of the portable electronics market and is applied in larger applications as well. But Lithium-Ion batteries need to be managed with a “smart” feedback control system to ensure safe , reliable and long-life operation. Turns out Li-ion cells are not all perfectly matched and eventually diverge in power characteristics. A management system is needed to keep them running together like “sled dogs pulling together” to avoid damage to the cells.

The main Boundless solution is the intelligent battery management system that is chemistry independent. Their management and electronics system provides a number of integration opportunities to a large segment of products on the market.

Boundless electronics systems provide Off-Board Data Interfaces to Li-Ion cell packs,  such as “managed charging” of fleet vehicles. Managed charging allows subsets of vehicles to be charged at one time without drawing large currents (and tripping breakers). Also for grid-utilization they build integration for smart grids which control the charging period for optimal utilization. On-Board Data interfaces allow for Battery Management System (BMS) to work with the Vehicle Management System (VMS)) such as an engine controller. This interfacing will help the battery management to control a low power situation and allow for degraded capability before a complete shutdown.

Some of the new market applications for lithium range from 1) Specialty Electric Vehicles (electric scooters, plug-ins),  2) Auxiliary power (e.g. auxiliary power for A/C in vehicles when in no-idle zones) and 3) Electrically Powered Machines (new cordless lawnmowers, floor scrubbers). Boundless is finding opportunities in these markets by selling directly to OEM manufacturers.

The competitive landscape for Boundless is complex. Philip provided a “magic quadrant” style view of the industry with battery technology on one axis and complexity/capability of electronics/management systems on the other axis. One set of competitors are in cell manufacturing and tend to focus mainly on the chemistry and cell production. Other companies like A123 and Johnson Controls have gone after tier 1 automotive applications. These companies provide integrated Li-ion batteries systems with BMS protection that in a proprietary configuration. Another category of competitors are simple BMS providers that work on low scale, low voltage applications.  Boundless is extremly competitive since it works on a wide range of voltages and wide range of application and is battery/chemistry independent.

Great questions from our members again. One questions was on the  competitive capability know as “rapid-recharge” for Li-ion batteries. Philip mentioned kiosk style recharge stations being built that recharge batteries in 20 minutes. Also another question asked was around the Hymotion Li-Ion upgrade pack by battery maker A123.  This system claims 30-40 miles on electric-only drive and a battery back that supplements the existing nickel-metal-hydride battery in a Prius. It can potentially upgrades a Prius to 100 mpg.

The future for Boundless holds a new round of product development featuring minaturization, sophisticated features and integration. They have built a significant amount of Intellectual Property and the demand is growing for their product with OEM vendors looking to integrate Boundless technology.

Welcome again to our latest meeting for Green Tech. I hope you all enjoyed our new location and found appropriate parking. By the time the meeting ended I believe it the parking booth was closed giving us free parking for our time in the Atlas Engineering building .

General Announcements

Firstly with the good work Kris has done recruiting sponsors,  we are happy to officially introduce our new sponsor GreenSpark Ventures that specializes specifically in the Cleantech industry.  Kris also mentioned our visit to the Nanotech Summit, see my previous post for details. Fall classes are starting soon and the networking portion of our meeting will go from 6pm to 7pm.

Group Announcements

• Cameron Brooks from Cleantech for Obama is looking for people interested in (1) attending events and (2) helping to organize events. You may contact him at his email or phone (303) 957-7667
• One of this month’s presenters Boulder ElectroRide will be at the Green Frontier Fest being held at the Democratic Convention Sunday Aug 24th
• Green Door Events,  this coming Sunday will be at the Peak Event Center, see the DNC WebSite for more information. Location: 15th and California – Denver, Across from the Hyatt Hotel and one block north of the Convention Center
• LINK, a Denver product design and development firm, is seeking interested parties in support of a educational recycling station designated for schools. Contact Mark Hanchak for more information
• Corey Cox is a Biochemist looking for work in Bio-fuels development. Contact at (303)242-6805

Presenters

Mark Kostovny, Solar Village
Trends in Zero Energy Residential Building

Solar village is a 4 yr old company that has been involved in green home construction in the Colorado area. They specializes in Zero Energy Homes or homes that use zero energy over the year. Some of their recent projects are Prospect, Longmont,  Redwood in Boulder and Maple in Ft. Collins.  They specialize in designing and building homes that minimizing energy usage through green building techniques and drawing energy from renewals.

Construction uses optimized south glass, super insulated walls (isolene spray foam) and passive heating and cooling techniques with desirable thermal mass (to slow heat to the interior) to minimize energy usage. Homes are outfitted with high efficiency hvac systems, lighting and appliances. Also active solar is used to generate power, hot water and hot air.  Heating comes from both radiant floor heat and also heat pumps. Care has been taken to include healthier materials in the home that will not out-gas harmful chemicals such as “low/no VOC” carpets and MDF chipboard.

Solar village has a commercial strategy to scale with turnkey homes. They have optimized a number of components to snap together to reduce construction time and cost. They can build turnkey homes in 2-4 months.  Solar Village has partnered with All American Homes to deliver their homes all over the country.

Tom McKinnon, Boulder ElectroRide Spark a revolution!
Spark the first electric motorcycle of its kind

Wow, really impressed with the look of this bike and Tom! We know Tom works on many projects including his work on cellulosic ethanol. This Boulder Company was founded by four local entrepreneurs, Tom McKinnon, Ned Riedel, Dev Bhatia, and the ride’s creator, Blair Keller.  This product is targeted at the consumer that would do a work commute on an electro-scooter with an stylish “easy-rider” design. The bike has a range of 40 miles per charge,  a top speed of 45 mph and great acceleration. They do not have a final price point yet but expect it be somewhere in the low 3K range.

So how much cheaper is an electric scooter? How about 2.3 cents/mile which is pretty significant if you’re looking a cost effective transportation. Electrical power is not necessarily a clean source, but when you include production, transportation and exhaust from gasoline this puts regular cars at 400g CO2/mile driven and the scooter output at 35g CO2/mile. So we have a very environment friendly transportation alternative here.  The team looked at a number of battery technologies for their design and decided on Lithium-Ion for its better maintenance and performance characteristics. They also put a significant amount of technology and brains into their power management system to support Li-Ion.

There are other competitors in this market, two similar ones are  Zapino (a chinese bike costing around 3K using lead-acid batteries) and Vectix (costing 11K and uses a NiMH batteries). All range of bike categories can also present alternatives to the Electro Scooter, such as old-fashioned pedal bikes, electric/gas assist bikes and full electric bikes.

ElectroRide is starting to take pre-order in Aug 2008 for their model Spark M2.  They are based on a cro-moly frame today and will move from chain to belt drive in the future. The bike does qualify as a scooter for DMV’s purposes. More improvements in the bike design should also make it significantly lighter perhaps in low 100’s). For all wanting to learn more about the bike there is an event schedule on their website.

Carl Lawrence, Hybrids Plus, Inc.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Carl is somewhat of a quiet legend in Denver-Boulder in the area of hybrid motors. He’s responsible for one of the most early high profile green transportation solutions known as the “Columbine bus“. Found on the 16th st Mall in Denver, these bus are fueled with natural gas (powering an electric motor). They cut emissions by 80% when compared to the old diesel buses the mall used and were put into service in 2000!

Hybrids-plus is well know in Boulder for converting regular hybrid electric vehicles (Ford Escape, Prius) to plug-in hybrids (PHEV). Why do this? You can convert a 50mpg Prius to a 100mpg Prius by replacing the battery pack to a highly efficient battery system. The original batteries are typically NiMH and are converted to a stronger Lithium-Ion battery pack. From the website:

For example, a stock Toyota Prius is an HEV-2, meaning that its battery holds enough energy for about 2 miles. A Hybrids Plus Prius conversion is a PHEV-30, meaning that its battery holds enough energy for about 30 miles.

Currently Hybrids Plus are building the next generation of plug-in hybrid hardware that facilitate vehicle2grid (V2G) enabled vehicles.  V2G Vehicles are active participants in the new SmartGrid envisioned by Xcel Energy and PG&E energy utilities. There are two solutions that Hybrids-Plus offer:

1. Smart Charge (when charging, draws from the grid during non-peak times)
2. V2G Inverger which allows the car to supply power back to the grid.

This new type of smart system needs a connection (done through the phone network) to communicate to/from the power company. Maybe they may consider also using the fiber-optic network going into the SmartGrid homes in Boulder?

So why do this? The details are still being worked out but Carl mentions the utility may incentivize car owners by selling them cheap-rate electricity to charge their car and then allow the owner to sell back to the grid at a premium. We know of two-tier power rates in multiple states such as California, so this rate offering is very plausible . The V2G system will be programmable,  allowing a user to set the battery discharge level to some minimum (e.g. Don’t discharge my battery more than 60%). The benefit of having millions of cars plugged into the grid (as storage devices) is that power can be drawn during peak times and cities/states can reduce the need to build new power plants for peak demand. In relation to charge time, and feed back to the grid, hybrids plus indicates for vehicles with invergers:

Such vehicles will charge rapidly at 220 Vac, and be able to return energy back to the power company in minutes on those rare occasions when the power company suddenly needs extra energy.

Today there is battery competition from a123 and Johnson Controls. The current business strategy is high margin /low volume but the future product lines are meant to be integrated with major manufacturers. Also partnerships with the energy utilities will help take the product lines to higher volume. Future partnerships will include to OEM the battery system to a first tier supplier. Carl expects all vehicles in 10-20 yrs to have electric drive (expecting to hit 42 million by 2012). With the adoption of hybrids today, this is a great time to be an early stage innovator in this space.

Bill Matvichuk, Trulite Inc.
Portable hydrogen Fuel Cell

Trulite designs and builds portable fuel cell power systems. They also offer custom off-grid wind solutions. Products range from individual Polymer Electrolyte Member (PEM) fuel cells to 150 w portable power generators to cost-effective SolarPanel/Fuel cell hybrid generators. A number of applications exists, but the themes are remote power and portable power that is a clean alternative.

From TruLite’s website:

HydroCells are based on a chemical hydride known as Sodium Borohydride. Instead of compressing or liquefying hydrogen, hydrogen molecules are chemically attached to other elements to create what is called a compound. This compound can then be stored without pressure for long periods of time. When hydrogen is needed the compound is reacted and hydrogen is then released as a gas. This method of storing hydrogen is currently the lightest hydrogen storage technology available.

Currently the latest power supply product is the KH4 which is 23lbs and can supply 5hrs @ 150W per HydroCell canister. It currently supports 2 canisters.

Bill had some great stories from the field. The department of defense felt the batteries could power remote electronics along the border areas. Also applications for FBI “silent watches”, such as a telecommunication van,  that need power without using a noisy vehicle motor.  Marine batteries are another great application since a boat can use 100lbs of lead-acid batteries. Weight is reduced dramatically with PEM batteries while eliminating the lead-acid toxic fumes that vent. Hydrogen cells have a water as a by-product and the water is recycled internally.

As we are now on the eve of the Democratic National Congress, we learnt that Trulite will be providing portable power for laptops. ClearChannel wil also be using it for portal power for their mobile cameras! Trulite has a number of strategic partners including Motorola, BK radio and our continually looking to expand with new partners and applications. They see the market around 2.3 Bill and are well positioned to expand into this market.

Welcome again to another blog entry for our green tech meeting.

New Meeting Location

You’ve all probably received Kris’s email notifying us we’re moving our meeting to larger forum in a different building. We’re in the ATLAS building (part of the engineering faculty) for the rest of the year.  The auditorium holds 150, the lobby is large, both are well appointed. To get to the ATLAS building, park in the Euclid lot, exit the lot on the east side, and walk north along 18th Street about a hundred yards. Here is a CU map which show both the parking lot and the Atlas building.

Announcements

• Linda from the Boulder Innovation Center - is looking for new team members
• Boulder founders meetup is looking for speakers/members
• Northern Colorado entrepeneur network meeting in Ft.Collins looking for speakers/members
• Stephen Boulter is organizing a Green Product Showcase – 5 day event – before the Democratic National Congress in Denver and is looking for green company’s to host their products

David Stark EverSealed Windows, Inc.
Super-Insulating Vacuum Windows

Energy efficiency is a significant area for green entrepreneurship and  EverSealed Windows has targeted the both commercial and business segment of window construction. Dave indicated the following on energy loss in US buildings

30% of a typical building’s annual energy budget is lost through windows. Since buildings account for 40% of America’s energy consumption, 12% of our energy goes out the windows.

Of that lost energy there is a potential to save 2/3 of it with efficient window designs. The market for insulated glass units (IGU) windows/doors in the U.S. is approximately 15 Bil and there is a handful of vendors that compete with various different approaches.

EverSealed produces a double pane window that is vacuumed-sealed. Known as Vacuum Insulated Glass Unit (VIGU) it has excellent insulation characteristics. The glass insulation acts like a thermos and keeps the contents inside either hot or cold.  In order to make double pane glass hold a vacuum without spacers, EverSeal had to develop technology to bond glass and metal alloys together hermetically and allow for flexing of glass over various temperature ranges. This technology has been tested extensively to ensure the seal will hold over 25 years. For normal windows, 40% lose their seal after 15 years and this is where significant energy loss occurs.

ESW has secured the support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), as well as the DOE’s two leading facilities for Windows. In the are of R&D, they have collaborated with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO and the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA.

Competitors use techniques  such as inert gas (e.g. argon) and/or coatings with low emissivity (Low E) to help insulate the interior of a home. Alpen Energy Group, has coatings that filter based on light wavelengths. Anderson Windows also  has high performance windows (Low 4E). EverSeal rates their window as a R10, where a norm single pain window is R1. Compared to their competitors their R rating is quite good and EverSeal competes well on the seal/cost variables. With 6 patents EverSeal has a strong position and expects to license their IP to larger manufacturers for a unit royalty.

Jennifer Sullivan – Entegrity Wind Systems Inc
Commercial Scale Wind Turbines

A local Boulder company, Entegrity Wind System, designs, builds and installs wind turbines for commercial businesses to help offset their electrical costs. Their wind turbines are “behind the meter” and distributed energy source located on the business’s property. With local generation, businesses can save the 9 cents per kWh they normally pay to their utility when the wind is available and draw from the utility only when the wind is not available. Their typical customers are business that have big electrical loads, such as a school or water treatment plants that may require 50-80 kw (up to 500kW). They are national leaders in the <500 kW space. Entegrity has a vertically integrated strategy that has been vetted with NREL.

Entegrity sees a considerable growth, especially in states were wind is plentiful Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma and there is less legislative entanglements around wind turbines. They sold 70 units this year and have a significant pipeline of sales. Yet with all the backlog, it will be critical to maintain quality while ramping-up manufacturing to meet demand. Entegrity has 15 years of experience and expects to maintain 30% annual growth through 2020.

In the future, they see Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean as growth areas for wind technology. Along with other wind and solar competitors, Entegrity expects to invest in technology to provide a better value proposition, such as monitoring and demand management. For example, Entegrity has developed an iPhone application to remotely manage some aspects of the wind turbines operations. They are looking at “leasing”" as a line of business . Also since Entegrity manufactures all parts including the blades, they expect to improve their designs and cost margin. Although their design is “in-phase” with the grid they have not built systems that will feed back into the grid.

Stephen Boulter – StudBuster
Interior Wall Metal Stud Recycling

At the beginning of our meeting, while those of us enjoyed some of food and beverages, Stephen had a demonstration of his StudBuster creation running. The studbuster is used to compress steel studs,  typically removed from a building before a demolition or a remodel. It’s value is the dual benefit of cost and energy saving since compressed studs saves trips and the number of dumpsters used for disposal of the material.

In the demolition industry, especially for large industrial buildings with multiple floors, the cost of removing a steel stud is 7-10 times the cost of originally installing it.  Steel studs can be separated from other waste and be recycled. With the compression of the stud, the construction/demolition company will find it faster/cheaper/easier to manage the extracted stud.

Dr. Anthony Catalano – TerraLUX Inc
LED Based Lighting Solutions

TerraLux is a local Boulder company that was incorporated in 2003 and works on technology enabling LED lighting for various applications. A number of company members, including Dr. Catalano worked at NREL facility in Golden, Colorado. Their team has core competencies in the areas of electrical, mechanical, optical and thermal engineering and as well as research around the area of LEDs.  With products both OEMed to other product companies and direct retail sales, TerraLux is building a significant product suite. With significant cadre of experts, innovation with new product lines is also a part of the company’s growth.

TerraLux holds significant IP and has 3 patents and have have had sales and growth shortly after their first year of research and development. They  are working with a number of strategic partners such as industry heavy-weights Arrow and Phillips. Some of TerraLux’s OEM products are in the areas of architectural lighting, medical/dental devices and consumer products such as sewing machine lights.

TerraLux technology is available in commercial products today. They’re most well-know product is the LED replacement lightbulb for MagLite flashlights. They provide light instruments for HVAC/plumbing as well as LED work lights for non-specialists. Their products are available in stores, such as Handy Hardware, Home Hardware and McGukins in Boulder.

With demand for custom work, TerraLux have developed state of the art technology using LEDs. They have engineered lights that can output up to 600 Lumens. LEDs are providing capabilities in lighting that significantly save energy and provide better lifetime characteristics. LEDs are 6-10x more efficient the incandescent. They can last 20-100K hours and compared to incandescent it runs extremely cool (100C) whereas incandescent runs at 700K. Along with the above characteristics and more competitive brightness characteristics LED is starting to grow in market share. Today LED is only 1.1 Bil of a 57.7 Bil industry.

Currently TerraLux is working actively on their strategy for growth and to increase their valuation so that they attractive acquisition target for a large lighting manufacturer. Their future solution porfolio will include work on LED replacements for fluorescent, mecury-vapour and new speciality lighting products for highly volatile environments (e.g. refineries) and medical lightning applications.

We’re growing again. Our June meeting hit another milestone with over 100 “yes” RSVP’s for our meeting. With the growing attendees, the meeting has been moved to an auditorium on the main floor in the Koelbel Building.

Pre-meeting Activities

There was lots of networking before the meeting started – great food, drinks and conversations. Lots of new faces as well. Kris was approached by the Boulder County Business Report who covered our meeting this month.We’re excited to have them aboard. Green technology is seeing more exposure in the press will hopefully draw the interest of new and current entrepreneurs to the meetup.

Introductions

Kris Wiesenfeld kicked off the meeting with the unveiling of a new logo, designed by Denise Cote. We’re grateful for such an innovative design and happy to promote Denise – she can be contacted via the members list. Also we’re happy to announce the addition of a new sponsor Infield Capital, thanks for the supporting the green tech meetup! Infield joins our current sponsors Sequel Ventures and Access Ventures.

Presenters

Professor John R. Dorgan, PolyNew Inc
Ecobionanocomposites, A New Class of Green Materials

Professor Dorgan is currently teaching at the Colorado School of Mines. John started his talk with some background on the current plastics market, which is large – currently in the billions of dollars. But with plastics relying on petroleum as a major component, the feedstock cost and access is becoming an issue. Enter bio-plastics, now on its third generation(that employs genetically modified crops), that is competitive with its petroleum based counterpart.

Some of previous work in this area are

• Nature Works LLC – that produces green house gas neutral poylmers
• Brasken – Brazilian plastics company with green polyethylene products made from sugar cane
• Metabolix/Telles – using non-food feedstock for plastics, chemicals and energy, ADM licensing technology

One of foundation domains of bioplastics is Industrial Ecology(IE) and is defined as:

an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the sustainable combination of environment, economy and technology.

Within this field the sub-domains can be identified with colors. “Red” is for research and processing of plants for the medical field. “Green” is associated with agriculture and “White” is associated with industrial biotechnology.

So now for a mouthful to describe the current field of bio-plastics that John works in

“Ecobionanotechnology”

representing the convergence of Industrial Ecology, Biotechnology and Nanotechnology.

So where is consumer demand for bioplastics?  For one, the plastic cup, an industry that would benefit from providing a green alternative. The bio-based beer cup is a significant market but even larger, coffee cups, cups and lids that could withstand “McDonalds hot” temperatures.

In order to get solve this challenge, nanotechnology is employed, to provide clay like material heat distortion properties. Take a tip from our green chemistry book, we want to avoid materials that mined (acid mine drainage” is a well know mining issue). To achieve these properties, Dr Jordan has engineered a “Nanowisker” to embed in the plastic structure, similar to fiberglass.

A natural target market are company’s producing plastic cups today, MeadWestVaco being a prime example. Making  ecobionanocomposites cost-effective is key and with current oil prices this threshold has been reached.

PolyNew has secured an NSF Phase II funding and is seeking additional funds. With a potential market of 100 mill/annually PolyNew is well positioned. They are also exploring a number of feedstocks for their product, such as soy-beans and others and working to reducing cost of their product to 95cents/lb and lower.

Quale Hodek, Renewable Choice Energy
Renewable Energy and Carbon Offsets

Renewable Choice Energy, started in 2001,  is a Boulder based company that sells renewable energy and carbon offsets.  Company rep, Quale Hodek indicated a number of businesses and private individuals are taking advantage of the opportunity to grow renewable energy through credits and offsets. Their customer list is very extensive with company’s such as Whole foods Market, Vail Resorts, Steel Case, John Deere, HSBC, Washington Mutual, Microsoft.

Business services offered go beyond the sale of offsets & credits. They also provide renewable energy education and work with businesses to promote/market their own contributions to green energy. Company and individuals can contribute to many types of energy “purchases” or project developments such as geothermal, wind, pv, biomass and small scale hydro. Some businesses specify that wish to contribute to a specific project or help support a from-scratch project, such as a Wind Energy farm that Steel Case helped develop.

The market for selling credits and offsets is currently 31 million. Renewable energy choice is working hard to penetrate this market with a 27 person sales team. Growth in the renewable energy markets has been significant and with credit/offset contributions are help to accelerate the trend. An example of fantastic growth is Wind Energy  – which alone grew 40% in 2007.

The carbon credit market is based on the Kyoto protocol and is globally recognized. Quale also emphasized that they “certify” the wholesalers of renewable energy, this is a value-add for the individual/business to ensure their purchase is valid. He also described that this support helps developers get their renewable projects online, a difficult task when the energy itself is sold to the end client at an extra premium (typically 2-5% more than fossil fuel based energy).

The typical client base is 90% corporate and 10% residential. Customers could go to Excel directly to specify a renewable energy source but corporate customers prefer access to “call centers” and marketing information provided to them.  Also Excel may only sell certain types of renewable energies such as a wind directly but Renewable Energy Choices sells credits for the complete domain of renewables.

With customers in all 50 states and clients like Vail Resorts (which made the 2nd largest purchase of Wind Energy credits – offsetting all their annual electricity use)  they see great potential. The opportunity is selling credits/offsets to help assist developing renewable infrastructure growth in 2008 for a 1 Bil. market.

Russell Thomas, Thomas engines
Variable compression engine technology

Russell Thomas has answered a question many have been asking lately, can’t we just get more fuel efficient vehicles with our current gasoline based systems with no power loss? The variable compress engine promises just that, no power loss or changes in engine cost or driveability differences from today’s modern combustion engine.

Thomas engines has investment support from large international corporation such as SKF, AVL, Chevron Russia and interest from Sweden, Austria, China, Russia and the US.

You can think of variable compression engine as a comparable to diesel efficiencies without the drawbacks of a diesel. A high compression engine can provide better fuel economy 20-30% better but an engine need to switch between low and high compression to make the engine useful and this where variable compression engines come in. The only production vehicle variable compression engine to date is the Saab SVC.

Russell showed a great graphic of an engine configuration that is a little difficult to describe, but at high level it looked like undulating steel washers rotating around pistons – essentially a new take on the crankshaft to facilitate piston strokes. And with this novel design a lot of work and finite-element analysis has gone into the design to ensure mechanical endurance and minimal wear on the components. The engine is designed to last over 150K miles. Essentially with the design work the Thomas team has made, the engine is extremely reliable, maintainable and smooth when compared to existing variable compression engines and comparable to existing gasoline engines.

The price of the engine is similar to normal gasoline engines, and less then half the price of a diesel engine. It is also competitive with existing hybrids since there is no extra battery cost. The engine design intellectual property is covered by extensive issued and pending patents owned by Thomas Engines. With a 60 Mil passenger car market it is well positioned to help mitigate the consumer costs brought on by the current global oil crisis.

More details about the engine, it is 2.06L engine with 240hp with “slightly less weight” for same power gasoline engine. Currently it is spark-ignited but designs for non-spark ignited are on ready for the future. With significant experience and years of development, this engine seems to be ahead of its variable compression competitors.

Sunil Cherien,  Spirae
Energy Management for Renewable and Distributed Energy

Sunil took us on a tour of the future of energy management. How do we management all the alternative energy sources on the grid with their inherently different characteristics? Both areas, demand management and supply management have challenges to be tackled. Smart grids are one of the answers, but would require an upgrade to our electrical infrastructure that matured in the 1950’s and 60’s.

Sunil’s group is based in Ft. Collins and is part of a “Clean Energy Cluster” along with the Colorado State University supporting green technologies in Colorado. The city of Fort Collins, the city’s utility department, other state agencies are helping Spirae and working to improve the grid to support alternatives.

The next generation of grid infrastructure involves both demand and supply management of energy resources

For demand management infrastructure there are smart grids, where the consumer is also part of the equation of “smart demand management”. The demand is managed or optimally utilized which helps consumers use power during “low usage” periods or during “peak generation” of alternatives such as higher wind generation. Consumers have “discretionary usage” of power by turning on a washer machine at the “optimal” supply period.

Supply management is on the other side of the equation. The future of supply systems is both a hybrid collection of energy sources and systems to manage them. Outside of traditional energy supply (electric, nuclear, coal, etc.) there are new alternative supplies such as wind farms, solar concentrator power farms, PV grids. Additionally, consumers can generate energy to the grid through small “dispersed systems” such as small PV systems on roof-tops.

How does a power system operator “balance” the system given the hybrid of alternative, dispersed and traditional generation plants?  As well, the operator needs to keep supply power attributes within specification (120V/240V and 60hz).  Current system management is done with the SCADA system (You can ask our organizer Kris Wiesenfeld on this topic, I’ve also worked on power transformers as an electrical engineer).  We’ve also got issues with scaling systems (such as PV – which have fixed output supply). We now to also need to compensate for multi-directional systems – your house PV can feed into the grid with net metering or you can also draw power (on a rainy day). Remember the grid was designed for uni-directional supply of energy. Another issue with alternative supply management is that output can be variable, so that a wind farm can generate 450MW at is peak but drop significantly based on the wind conditions.

The road to integrate these challenges has been set, and Sunil and his  company are on that road.  At the governmental level there are standards such as Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and states such as California are already adopting it. Sunil’s company is providing advisement and building infrastructure for the hardware side of this equation.  Euclidean systems with intelligent nodes that communicate to each other and work together.

Spirea is an R&D shop of 35 people working with strategic customer around the world.  Spirea’s helps build managed substations that produce consistent electrical supply that can turn off or on or “island” the power station. They can bring on natural “gas beakers” to produce electricity when alternative sources are producing lower outputs and bring on consistent power to the grid. Also modeling and software are important part of the infrastructure solutions that have to work in real-time and reacting to changing conditions and “protect” the grid from large fluctuations.

Sunil had some great stories on work they have done in Denmark which receives 20-30% of their energy from renewables today but are planning to increase that to 60% in the next few years. If you’re interested there is a great presentation on Wind Energy done for the DaVinci institute where a NREL researcher explains how Denmark sells excess wind energy to Norway.  Also Ft. Collins is a leader in renewables. The city is a Zero Energy District (ZED) with both wind, PV and CFCP engines on the grid.  Sunil also mentioned in the area, the selling of power to neighboring geographical areas has challenges and work is needed in the regulatory field. In Europe again there is the potential to sell power from Denmark to places like Italy (which is considering restarting a nuclear program due to energy requirements) and the regulation and systems need to be in place to do this. Also the cost for renewables usually draw a premium and customers and governments are working to educate on this new business model.

This was a great meeting with innovative topics, thanks to Kris and all our speakers!

Kevin Geminiuc