Advanced and Alterntive Energy : Innovation + Job News

Picture the belching smokestack of a steel mill releasing heat waste into the air. Harnessing and converting that into usable energy is becoming a reality, thanks to the new Thermafficient Waste Heat Recovery Engine developed by Akron’s Echogen Power Systems.
 
Echogen views the engine as a game changer for steel mills, power companies and other industries that require a lot of electricity.

Echogen’s first engine, which can produce 250 kilowatts of electricity from a given heat source, was built in Lebanon, Ohio, and is in final testing stage at American Electric Power’s research center in Columbus.

“We’re moving it to another facility, this time in Akron, for a long-term endurance trial in a true industrial setting,” explains Mark Terzola, Echogen’s chief operating officer.

Echogen is currently building a much stronger engine, able to produce six to eight mega watts of electricity, according to Terzola. “We’re in late-term negotiations with potential industrial partners who need this kind of engine,” he says.

Echogen recently caught the eye of the Dresser-Rand Group, Inc., of Houston, which makes rotating industrial equipment. Dresser-Rand has invested $10 million in Echogen in exchange for a 20 percent stake in the company and will provide turbines and other parts for Echogen’s future engines.

“Dresser-Rand is the exclusive licensee for our engines to the oil and gas industry,” Terzola notes. Echogen also plans to manufacture smaller engines for companies that produce less heat waste, such as ceramics companies and glass makers.

On another front, California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory also contacted Echogen. Berkeley Lab hopes to be the first in the world to produce electricity from the earth’s heat using hydrogen and to store some of it underground, where it won’t contribute to climate change. Echogen is designing a special turbine for the project, according to Terzola. The project, which will unfold over about three years, has received $5 million of underwriting from the Department of Energy. EchoGen has received additional support from JumpStart and the Ohio Third Frontier.

““We’re only at the tip of the iceberg for this technology,” Terzola explains. “We have an outstanding team of engineers we’ve recruited from world-class organizations, and the technology we’re working with has tremendous future opportunity.”

Echogen currently has 25 employees and plans to have nearly 50 by the end of 2012.

“The early capital we received through the Ohio Third Frontier enabled us to leverage it for immediate growth that provided us with a foundation for long-term success,” he notes.

Source:  Mark Terzola, Echogen Power Systems
Writer:  Lynne Meyer

New technologies are worthless if people and businesses can't easily use them. Sometimes it takes an outsider's view to take an innovation from a theory to its best practical use.

NoBull Innovation has been helping entrepreneurs and companies in Ohio and beyond develop new science and technology-based products, services and processes for more than three years. The owners have at times invested in some of these new technologies and helped launch startups in the process.

The Dayton firm works as an innovation catalyst creating new products through physical science, biology, electronics, and engineering. It works with clients who are early in the innovation process or who are trying to solve specific problems through technology.

NoBull was founded by former veteran Miami University chemistry professor Gilbert Pacey, former Procter & Gamble product developer and scientist Wolfgang Spendel and Todd Dockum, director of the Miami Heritage Technology Park. The company has two employees and is applying for federal grants that could allow them to hire two-to-three more in the next 12 months.

"People come to us who have a technology-based idea but need some help. We provide experience in developing technologies and help them get their idea to the next level. We also have people who have a good technology but are naive on the business end, and we can help them as well," Pacey says.

The company often helps clients discover multiple and new uses for their ideas beyond their preconceived notions.
"Sometimes people get tunnel vision and Wolf is really good at helping them see beyond that," Pacey adds.

Among the companies NoBull has worked with are Algaeventure Systems, Inc., a clean energy tech company in Marysville, and Applied Nanoinfusion and VCG Chromatography, both in Dayton. NoBull is partial owner of VCG.

NoBull is located in a facility of The Institute for Development and Commercialization of Advanced Sensor Technology, (or IDCAST).  IDCAST, is a research and development accelerator established through a $28 million Ohio Third Frontier grant.

Source: Gilbert Pacey, NoBull Innovation
Writer: Feoshia Henderson

Algae Producers set up shop in 2007 with the idea of developing algae products for the biodiesel market.

It soon became apparent that the more immediate opportunity was in other applications like nutriceuticals, aquaculture, pharmaceuticals,  and other areas.

Since then, the company hasn't looked back. Late last year the company, whose technical and sales teams are based in Madison and which plans to eventually locate the bulk of its operations in the Cleveland area, entered the marketplace with two primary products: a substance that can be used as a fish food in acquaculture, and an astaxanthin product with the same body-cleansing and antitoxin properties attributed to green tea.

"It's kind of a green tea on steroids," says Stan Robinson, the company's CFO.

Algae Producers has developed 10 exclusive partnerships and agreements for manufacture and distribution of its algae products and continues to research new ways of making algae profitable. Robinson says the company expects to book around $250,000 in revenue by the end of the second quarter. Along the way, it has shared in a $3-million Ohio Third Frontier grant with Ohio University and a number of other Ohio partners to further commercialize algae.

While the company currently has three full-time employees, Robinson says the company hopes to increase that number to eight by the end of the year and more as new products hit the marketplace. Primarily self-funded to date, the company is now raising a $2-million second round that will allow it to expand capacity, research and development, employment and a facility in the Cleveland area.

Source: Stan Robinson, Algae Producers
Writer: Gene Monteith