The August meeting had a good turnout (for the vacation month of August). We had a slightly scaled back session with 3 speakers along with co-hosts Kevin Geminiuc and Marc Wheeler filling in for Kris Wiessenfeld.

Announcements

• RETool Course

Take advantage of a one-day executive education course on the essentials of renewable electricity offered by CU-Boulder on Thursday, October 29 at the Denver Chamber of Commerce. For more information please visit: http://Leeds.colorado.edu/RETool

Greg Cook from American Electric Vehicles

Speakers

In the Circle of Life – Go Green, Literally
Presented by Ed Gazvoda, Founder

The green play of this company is to replace crematory facilities with a more environmentally-friendly   (90% less fossil fuel, 94% carbon dioxide) and less costly (15% less cost) solution for the remains of a beloved pet. Circle of life has a solution for the death management of pets and expects to use this technology to provide an alternative to human cremation. Today it primarily works with veterinaries that are asked to have their pets disposed after their death.

Ed was very upbeat about their growth and opportunities given a sell rate of 50% to convert current crematory customers over to the their circle of life solution. The market size is around 75K pets deaths/yr, of which 50% are cremated which aligns with approximately 5 pet deaths per 100 humans. The benefits of cremation of a pet is the eradication of disease and prion based disease such as wasting diseases.  In order to calculate the amount of carbon reduction, Ed went through the exercise of calculating weights such as a 150 lb. of flesh which is the equivalent of 124 gallons of fuel burnt.  Inventor is Joe Wilson invented the process in 1991. Ed had had previous experience with starting green technology companies and most recently started FuelTek.

The cost is half of cremation, and plans are going to 25% of american market. The revenue model is $20/pet and this solution is 15% lower. Dislike for pet cemeteries by human cemeteries. With 6.8B people there is a demand in death market. There are really no patents on this area, described as a land grab, with exclusive rights for the US

The technology is based on Alkaline Hydrolysis that takes around 18 hours and leaves only bones with no DNA or remnants of any disease . A nylon shroud is used in the process so the remaining bones can be returned to the owner or the remains can be used for compost. In the them of circle of life, Ed emphasized that the best green alternative is to use the remains back to the earth.  Bone meal and bone broth can created and sold back to farms and close the final loop on the circle.  

Farms will pay $200/ton for bone meal and $40/ton for the nutritious broth.

Further questions were asked by the group, such as the barrier to entry, which in this case is about 1 million. Ed expects to share the market which is large enough to still potentially valuate his company at 100 million if all goes well. Other questions brought up whether pets are cremated together or separately and it turns out to lower the price (to $40) animals are usually cremated together. There is somewhat a deceptive practice which means sometimes the remains returned are not originating exclusively from your pet. The only service that does it individually as Ed recalls is Precious memory.

CleanCoal Briquette Inc. – The Viable Clean Coal Option
Presented by Ravi Malhotra

CCBI is in the business of creating an energy source (a burnable briquette) from coal plant waste stream by combining fly ash or coal fines with sawdust/biomass. The briquette can be re-burned at the coal plant, increasing it’s efficient use of it acquired coal. This opportunity is created from the increasing cost and regulatory environment of disposing off Fly Ash and the potential for toxic accidents.

To provide a little background also on the coal fly ash product and its consituents the following is from wikipedia

Fly ash is generally captured from the chimneys of coal-fired power plants, and is one of two types of ash that jointly are known as coal ash; the other, bottom ash, is removed from the bottom of coal furnaces.

The production of coal waste is a large scale problem today. Over 5 billion tons of coal mined annually from 2300 coal mines around the world. Of the 1.1.B tons/yr of coal mined, 5% is left over as coal fine, this fine is reused (75%) and the remaining 25% of the waste is impounded. The result is billions and billions of tons of coal fine is stored in the mountains and valleys (close to coal plants). Over 131 million tons of fly ash is produced annually in the U.S. with 57% of this required to be impounded. An example provided talked to Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) disaster in Dec 2008 where a three hundred acre breakage in a fly ash impoundment broke, creating to date over 1 billion in clean up cost and may cost over another billion before its done.

The technological challenge then is to provide a useful product from this waste. CCBI’s solution combines fly ash or coal fine with a biomass that can originate from many sources such as agricultural waste, wood,

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lignin (byproduct of cellulosic fuel production) The Sixth Sense on dvd or starch. The engagement with coal facility involves setting up onsite at the coal plant and having a source of biomass brought in. The facility once running,  combines the fly ash and biomass feedstock onsite to create briquettes and is then added to coal furnace directly after. This process allows for the fly ash to be redirected into the briquette production facility without any storage in an impoundment center. The mixture of biomass feedstock to the fly  ash is dependent on a number of factors that the company has built intellectual property around.

The company was started 4-5 years ago based on discussions with coal plant managers with a costly problem of paying to remove fly ash. Other related discussions with producers of unwanted biomass/wood waste revealed problems with disposal since they could not burn their waste.

These two issues are see a solution in the technology solution developed by CCBI. Additionally many companies produce biomass as a waste and this too could be obtained at low cost. The foundation of the company stemmed from work at iCAST (international center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology) at the engineering department in CU Boulder area in 2004. Subsequently the lab proved the concept in 2006 and commercial success was achieved in 2007. Once the process was perfected the founder Ravi Malhotra filed for a patent. Research was done in strategic partnerships with universities (CSU Dept. of Forestry) and with support of the departments of energy, commerce and agriculture. Ravi shared that early on the chance of government funding this endeavor was one in three now funding is more scarce and the ratio, he estimates is closer to one in 50 or 100.

Ravi went on to estimate the addressable market for their solution broken into two segments. Coal Fines at 13M. tons/yr.  impounded or 41.6M tons/yr potential briquettes or a $2.08B/yr. market. The target market for Fly Ash is closer with 15-20K tons/yr of fly ash with an estimated 36 mil tons.yr of briquettes produced creating a market of $1.8Bil/yr. The fly ash market should provide better returns for coal plants that were built before 1967 and burn inefficiently producing fly ash with 50% unburned carbon. The biomass market opportunity is  targets 70+ paper and pulp companies in the US (having both a onsite power plant and a source of biomass). Then there are companies that have captive coal power plants, such as the Cement, steel and other larger scale industries. This market is estimated at 105 mil/yr. All the above calculation assumes that briquettes can be sold for the same price as coal, a production tax credit can be realized (at 1cent/KWh) and renewable energy credits and carbon offset values can be applied. The calculation also includes the reduced cost from eliminating the need for fly ash disposal.

The two business models offered are 1) build/own/operate the plant and 2) license the technology. In the build/own/operate model, CCBI will build the plant, pay rent and sell the briquettes directly to the customer. For licensing, revenue sources come from consulting, setup fees and royalty based on tons of briquettes produced. The revenues sources include the transportation savings in removal of waste, the BTU value of the briquettes ( about 2/3 that of coal) and all incentive, grants and loans. Overall this solution helps companies reduce their CO2 emissions by 50-75%.

Competitor in the clean coal space include CoalTek, Great Point Energy, Evergreen Energy. Briquette companies include – Greenfields coal company and Renewable fuel technologies. These companies have similar product but CCBI advantage is that it has a process that does not require a permit to burn the biomass.

Some good questions were raised at the end of the presentation. One was about the fly ash that does get used, the 57% is not used, leaving 43% that is used for roads, building materials, cement industry. There is a significant team behind the company and a bright future helping to make our cola plant more efficient.

American Electric Vehicles – Complete Solutions for Electric Vehicles
Presented by Greg Cook

AEV is an electric vehicle  drivetrain company in Monument colorado. Currently in startup mode with 12 employees, the expectation is to ramp up to 30 people by end of  2010 . This is a company of veterans dating back to the EV1 and deep experience in Li-Ion batteries, motors, battery chargers and power electronics. Previous to AEV, a number of team members came worked at CompactPower in similar technology but chose not to move from Colorado to their new home in Michigan. A noteworthy company as well since it just landed a 115 Million stimulus grant and has contributed to the EV1 design. Members have left this team along with the original founder, Dr. Dan Rivers, to create the new AEV company.

The current source of revenue is primarily engineering services but the target is focus the technology suite towards licensing with customers in India and China and eventually products to this growing market. Selling electric vehicles is a much a larger step and this foundation is being laid down with experience and relationship building with partners. Today the technology is advancing through converting existing vehicles with drivetrain systems.

A core competitive advantage is the AEV has an integrated suite. To work on drivetrains , experience is required in the popular Li-Ion battery packs and charging solutions, electric motor design and electronics. AEV helps take away the headaches of integration away from their OEM partners. This experience has resulting in filing for IP in  PhotoVoltaic Collectors, Battery Pack Systems and Battery Management Systems.

The first area of focus Greg introduced was the battery pack and power management system. A typical configuration is 15-20kWh energy capacity providing a rating of 250 VDC allowing for a 200,000 km lifespan. The battery system is the overall most expensive part of the solution, so the rating of the size for the application is very important. The management system monitors the cells and overall health, ensuring safe operation, extending battery life and reducing the costs related to the battery. Battery monitoring information is used by the management system to notify and control other vehicle systems.  AEV can also integrate a third part battery pack and PMS into their drivetrain solution.

Electric motors are another area of specialty and the IPM series motor, the same type as in a Prius,  has been selected for their technology suite.  AEV is also developing their own motor from scratch with the goal of 50% reduction in size, 60% reduction in weight and leveraging intrinsic IPM key benefits such as no contact points and extremely long life.

The last two components are the motor controller and smart charger systems. The motor controller developed is a 400V 400 Amp system that support bidirectional operation and converts the DC battery source to AC through an inverter system. The controller communicates with the BMS to ensure battery protection. The current design is being designed for a wide range of voltages to allow for flexibility in different configurations and power output in the 100kW range. The battery charger system is being designed to take advantage of the grid, with a 5000W 80-240 VAC input range. The expected charge time is 3-4 hrs depending on the line voltage.

Penetration into international markets is a key area for AEV. Their relationship and delivered solutions span a number of customers such as SAIC, SEM in china and Tata in India. The integration projects provide a great technology proving ground and demonstration platform. Some of the examples shown are vehicles at the 1000 kg weight class with 100 mile ranges with 5kW AEV charges and PMS systems.  This work has been applied to military vehicles including an all-electric reconnaissance vehicle using LG LMO (Lithium Manganese Oxide) batteries (16-24kWh power rating) and a 50kW motor.

Partnerships include NREL and USCAR. NREL has provided resources to help validate and test AEV equipment, thus accelerate development. USCAR similarily has provided a collaborative environment to help AEV achieve its goals. Some good questions from the audience, one questioning the role and competitve landscape in the new automotive landscape. AEV found they partnered with experts in their respective fields. AEV looks for partner companies that are respective experts in their fields such as automotive chasis manufacturing/design or aerodynamics. These companies that require EV drivetrain expertise and integration experience will then build solution together with AEV. Another area of interest was on types of battery technologies. AEV indicated both Korea and China as good suppliers for batteries and they are experimenting with many technologies including  Maganese Dioxide and Iron Phosphate chemistries. Tend to like larger form factors (10-20 AmpHour).

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