Thanks everyone for another great Green-Tech meetup!

This month we had 50 people attend and the energy, speakers and food was great. Thanks to our sponsors (Access Venture Partners and Sequel Venture Partners) we were able to provide some nice food and drinks for our networking session.

News

Assorted companies in Greater Denver/Boulder were active again this month. Broomfield-based Range Biofuels landed another 100 Million in investment that will be used to complete a cellulosic ethanol plant. Renewable Energy Systems (RES), a renewable wind company, has relocated from Texas to Broomfield bringing 70 jobs.

The company said it decided to move because metro Denver’s “business and political atmosphere … is supportive of renewable efforts” and the area has “a high standard of living.

Another Boulder based smart-grid/energy management system Tendril has landed another round of funding to the tune of 12 million. Also this month, it seems the California biofuels company “Gevo” has relocated their headquarters to Englewood, Colorado . Gevo gained some notoriety when “ecopreneur” and clean-tech angel, Sir Richard Branson invested in this company and is part of the “Virgin Green Fund”.

Caltech biofuels spinout Gevo is apparently tired of grappling with regulations and how long it takes to build pilot facilities, and thinks it can move faster in Colorado.

CommuniKey

Our first presentation informed attendees on the Communikey “exploring sustainability for creative arts”. This festival has been around since 2004 and attracts artists from all over the world to explore sustainability, carbon footprints, and human powered electronics. Communikey organizers were looking forward to the opportunity of teaching on the use of reclaimed materials. If one is daring enough to give full creative control to Communikey artists, they will take old clothes and demonstrate reuse of a now modernly styled outfit. Many other demonstrations on reclamation of materials will satisfy the most whole-hearted freegan!

Len Bloch – Algae Based Fuels

Len Bloch, a high/middle school teacher and former algae-oil entrepreneur gave a very compelling description on what algae oil is, the process of making it, and what some of the challenges are. Len has written a children’s book on the topic of Alternative Energy. One of the redeeming qualities of algae is that they don’t need fresh water or soil (and won’t divert these resources from food production ). Current Biodiesel needs oil from sources such as soy, conola or palm oil. Algae systems can be created in open systems (such as ponds) but there are a number of challenges controlling this environment. His experience included working with closed systems employing smaller water barrels and plastic coverings. Research is ongoing but it seem Blue-Green Algae produce fuel the fastest, with diatoms producing the highest oil content. Algae based fuels can work in home heating scenarios whereas biodiesel can not.

Len also thought there was opportunity to fund algae-based fuel R&D with another algae-oil based product, health care supplements, which provide vegetarian marine oils. He left us with some last notes that “agriculture” was one of the greatest revolutions, through beer, cheese and other preservation methods our ancestors domesticated microbes, and that biofuels would constitute “completing” this revolution.

Sam Weaver – Cool Energy Inc.

Sam introduced his water-heating/electricity producing hybrid solution to “harvest” the sun. When a rainy-overcast country such as Germany can extract solar energy – the other sun-rich districts in the world can easily do this as well. The sun in some of our states (Colorado being one) are as good as some of the best solar areas such as Australia and the Sahara Desert. From studies across United States, their is a different split between heating/cooling , but overall “heating” is the more dominant energy user.

The product is a combined heat/power system that comes from evacuated, water-mineral filled tubes that are heated on the roof (or another platform). With a mineral oil based system to avoid winter freezing, the tubes are sent into the house (e.g. basement) to be converted to heat in the winter, or electricity in the summer (or some combination). This combination is determined by an energy management system to optimize the use of solar energy. This system uses a Sterling Engine to produce electricity from the heated liquid and the heated liquid can be stored also be for a period . The Stirling Engine’s efficiency is less than combustion fuels but it does not get as hot and can be built from cheaper materials. The system does not produce “semiconductor-waste” and can provide twice the return as PV systems.

Peter Novak – Sunflower Daylighting Systems

Perter Novak introduced his product as “Sundelier” – “the chandelier that delivers sun” . This company is a pre-revenue startup. The main product allows for sun to be channeled through a hole/channel into the interior of a building. Additionally this system can be worked as a hybrid solution using traditional lights to provide the desired lighting effect. With the benefit of a small hole profile for the sunlight source, the sunlight is bent to follow the channel into the destination floor/area.

Overall benefits are health and productivity gains in workers from natural sunlight as well as reduced energy consumption. The system can include a sun tracking system to maximize sun input into the lighting system. With LEEDs based building constructions standards, these natural lightning systems are highly desirable and sales growth is very healthy.

George Howard – Heartland Renewable Energy

George got right into the science and value proposition of his “anaerobic digester” system. This company is based on a franchising model to help build plants and do technology transfer of their ‘digester factory” design. The digester uses microbes and needs solids (a biodegradable waste-food) to operate. With animal waste – methane can be produced and used as energy. They can build a plant in 6 months, and using “pools” and up to 200 wells – the plant can process 5 million cubic ft. per day.

The end result produced by this plant is natural pipeline quality methane gas. With Natural Gas increasing in price the energy return on investment is increasing. Along with the sale of the gas, other revenue streams include the sale of carbon credits and sale of the final solid residue as fertilizer. Although there still is CO2 generated in process, this can be mitigated by potentially co-locating a greenhouse operation near the plant.

I would like to thank all our great speakers this month!

Kevin Geminiuc