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:
- Smart Charge (when charging, draws from the grid during non-peak times)
- 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.
