March 09 Meeting – Hyrdronic building construction, battery applications, hydrogen hybrids
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009After 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:
- using a wall as a thermal mass battery has been know to architects for years.
- Engineering concrete has excellent properties to store energy and provide one of the most comfortable and even distributions of energy.
- 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
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.
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.