Advanced and Alternative Energy : Innovation + Job News

Crown Equipment Corp. is putting a new economy spin on an old-economy industry. Already one of the leading lift truck manufacturers in the world, Crown wants to be the industry leader in application of fuel cell technology.

The New Bremen-based Crown began making lift trucks in the late 1950s. Today, the company, with 8,000 employees worldwide, is considered the seventh largest lift truck manufacturer, with 16 manufacturing sites around the world.

Eric Jensen, manager new technology research and development, says fuel cells make perfect sense for customers, who must now recharge lift truck batteries an average of every eight hours.

"Batteries have six to 10 hours of runtime," he says. "Some of our customers have three batteries for each vehicle -- one is in the vehicle, one is cooling and one is being recharged. To change a battery, it can take 20 to 30 minutes," during which time the vehicle is out of service and an employee is tied up with maintenance. Translation: lost productivity.

The hydrogen fuel cells now being applied to lift-trucks do everything a battery does, but can be refueled much more quickly using a hose from a tank, Jensen says.

In 2008, a $977,000 Ohio Third Frontier grant helped Crown with the first phase of a project to study the technical and commercial barriers to the application of fuel cells in Crown lift trucks. A subsequent $1-million grant will allow the company to begin researching the integration of fuel cells into the manufacture of its vehicles, Jensen says.

While qualification will continue over the next several years at the company's Huber Height's research center, the company already has delivered two initial shipments of its fuel cell-equipped vehicles -- one to a grocery chain in Texas and one to the U.S. Air Force in Georgia. Future shipments are planned to a grocery chain in Pennsylvania.

Source: Eric Jensen, Crown Equipment Corp.
Writer: Gene Monteith

As Ohio manufacturers, start-ups and individuals look to impact � and benefit from � the emerging green economy, an Akron-based company is developing a product to capture waste heat and solar thermal energy, converting it into electricity.

Today about 60 percent of heat generated by burning fossil fuels is wasted, released into the environment, according to two-year-old rexorce. And every day, the sun shines down enough thermal energy to power the world's demands for a year.

Now, rexorce -- A privately held company founded by CEO Philip Brennan and CTO Michael Gurin -- is developing the ThermafficientTM heat engine. This system recovers thermal energy from industrial and commercial waste heat, solar thermal, bottom and top cycling in power plants and other sources.

That energy, in turn is converted into electricity to power Ohio's homes and companies. The company has a growing intellectual property portfolio that protects the novel means by which their engine harvests heat and creates power, heat and shaft work.

The founders of rexorce describe their work as pursuing "profit with a purpose, by providing innovative solutions to the world's energy challenges." Its aim is to radically improve the way thermal energy is sourced, produced, distributed and consumed.

"The reason I got involved is because I have passion to help find a real solution to the energy challenge," Brennan said.

Individuals and companies are becoming more aware of the environmental impact of their activities, and increasingly are looking for ways to curb that impact. Now, rexorce has the potential to tap into a large area of wasted and renewal energy sources.

The company was founded April 1st, 2007 and employs 17 people, mostly engineers. The company soon will bring on two more employees, and has received millions in financial support from the state including from Jumpstart and the Ohio Third Frontier. Most recently the company was awarded $1.5 million from the Innovation Ohio Loan Fund.

That support has allowed the company to make great progress, says Brennan, who previously worked for several Fortune 50 companies as a packaged goods marketer. His partner is a veteran engineer who has done contract development work for NASA, BMW and Caterpillar.

"We are in the final stages of development with deployment of a commercial scale system with two industrial partners in Q1 and Q2 of next year," Brennan said.

A commercial launch is planned for late 2010, and will be marketed in steel, cement, pulp and paper, petrochemicals, oil and gas sectors.

Source: Philip Brennan, rexorce
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

The University of Toledo is already well known for its role in incubating young alternative energy companies, like solar products manufacturer Xunlight. Now it has a campus devoted purely to the development and commercialization of advanced and alternative energy technologies.

Last week, UT signed the first two leases for its new Scott Park Campus of Energy and Innovation, dedicated in September as the university's newest technology accelerator, says Chuck Lehnert, vice president of facilities and construction. The university calls the 177-acre campus the first in the country committed solely to advancing renewable, alternative and sustainable energies.

"Our university's mission is to improve the human condition," Lehnert says. UT's pioneer work in new energy options has made "renewable and sustainable energy part of our DNA. Scott Park demonstrates our commitment."

The campus will serve as an alternative energy laboratory for teaching, research and demonstration and an accelerator for new ideas coming to the marketplace. The hope is that resulting new companies will locate within the UT technology corridor and spur economic growth in northwest Ohio, Lehnert says.

While the Scott Park Campus hopes to make an economic impact on northwest Ohio, it hopes to make no impact on the environment. A 10-kilowatt solar array and a 100-foot wind turbine have already been installed at Scott Park. And there are plans for a larger, 1.12 megawatt solar array to be installed on eight acres near the UT soccer field. The goal: a neutral carbon footprint.

Source: Chuck Lehnert, University of Toledo
Writer: Gene Monteith

Home brewers know that fermentation stops when the yeast produce so much alcohol they can no longer survive. If you want a higher alcohol content, you'd better find a different yeast strain that can survive in a more toxic soup.

That, in essence, is what Ohio State University researchers have done in developing a new strain of bacterium (clostridium beijerinckii) that produces twice the amount of alcohol -- in this case butanol -- before kicking the bucket. The potential payoff is a motor fuel that has many advantages over ethanol -- America's current biofuel of choice.

Shang-Tian Yang, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, says butanol, which is used widely as a solvent, now sells for $3.50 to $5 a gallon. Because much of the cost is in production, getting twice the amount of butanol from the same amount of bacteria could reduce the cost by half.

"Ethanol has severe limits," Yang says. "It is corrosive and can't be shipped through a pipeline, you have to ship using trucks. And it must be mixed with gasoline to be used as a fuel in current automobiles."

He says ethanol alone has around a third less energy content than gasoline and gets only 65 percent of the mileage. It is highly volatile and explosive. Yang says butanol is superior to ethanol in every way but one: its price.

Boosted by a $1-million grant from the Ohio Third Frontier, Yang is leading work to develop the technology needed for commercial production. In the meantime, his team has applied for a patent on the new bacterium and production process.

Source: Shang-Tian Yang, Ohio State University
Writer: Gene Monteith

The city of Wilmington and Clinton County have faced some hard knocks following the recent pullout of major employer DHL Worldwide Express, which cost the Southwest Ohio area thousands of good jobs. But creative local officials are looking toward the future with an innovative renewable energy employer incentive program to create new jobs.

Wilmington officials this year created the country's first Green Enterprise Zone in Wilmington and Union Township. Renewable energy businesses that locate in the zone will be given tax and other incentives to locate there.

"Our goal is to have a group of companies here that would be related solely to alternative energy, and we are going after those folks," says Clinton County Administrator Dr. Mark Brooker.

Already, the Green Enterprise Zone has sparked interest. UK-based Gaia Energy is in the design phase of a pilot program that will convert biomass from local farmers into energy that will fuel coal burning power plants, says Brooker. If the pilot proves successful, the company could expand it.

"They will be buying crop residue from the local farmers initially," Brooker says. "They want to start testing this by the fall harvest."

At least two other companies are very interested in locating in the Green Enterprise Zone, including one that has property under contract, says Brooker, adding that more details should be announced on those companies near the end of the year.

Find out more about these efforts at Energize Clinton County.

Source: Mark Brooker
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Like many great stories, this one starts along the Appalachian Trail.

Making his way down the famed footpath, Tremont Electric, LLC owner Aaron LeMieux realized that his movement was generating loads of kinetic energy, evidenced by the annoying abrasions that appeared where his backpack met his hips. If only there was a way to harness that energy, he mused, and apply it to something more useful than blisters.

A few prototypes later, LeMieux had perfected nPower™, a technology that converts simple motion into electricity. The first commercial application of that technology is the PEG (personal energy generator), a lightweight gadget that can power handheld electronic devices. Slipped into a backpack � or purse or briefcase � the PEG charges iPhones, Blackberrys or GPS units via USB cable with every step its owner takes.

While other kinetic energy generators exist, none are as elegant, refined or practical as the PEG. Weighing just nine ounces, the slender cylinder-shaped unit charges mobile devices at the same rate as a wall outlet. Goodbye bulky back-up batteries; goodbye dead devices. 

The PEG was a hit at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and Tremont Electric was included in BusinessWeek's recent feature on "America's Most Promising Startups." Production is expected to begin in October of this year, but already there have been over 1,000 preorders online at $149 each.

Jessica Davis, Tremont's director of sustainability, says the Cleveland-based company hopes to add 16 employees in 2010 and twice that by 2011. And those figures don't take into account secondary and tertiary job growth at suppliers.

Source: Jessica Davis
Writer: Douglas Trattner