June’s Green Tech Meetup took place for the second time in the more spacious confines of the Wittemeyer Court Room in CU’s Wolf Law Building. Announcements included the formation of the Green Tech Happy Hour, which will be held on the 4th Thursday of every month at 6:00 pm in Boulder’s St. Julien Hotel. Four presentations followed organizer Kris Wiesenfeld’s opening remarks:
Infleksion, presented by Managing Director Brian Kromer, has developed the Stationary Model software tool. This software effectively records the emissions from fixed point pollution sources such as a coal burning electricity plant or large server farm. According to the EPA, stationary sources of carbon emissions represent over 70% of the US total. Infleksion believes its software can serve as the nexus between the increasingly complicated environmental compliance regulations issued by Federal and state governments and corporate America, where large companies need to keep track of their carbon producing assets. With the software installed, a company can submit specific queries about a region or its own operations and print reports based on filtered criteria. Eventually, Infleksion hopes to market a vast data library from its accumulated knowledge of the over 800,000 carbon producing stationary assets in the US.
Liquid Asset Development, presented by President Gregory Majersky, seeks to mitigate water borne disease and cleanse acid mine drainage by way of its Concrete Water Filtration System. Majersky considers the global water situation “dire,” with over a hundred million deaths resulting from waterborne disease by 2020. In addition, carelessly discarded slag from mining operations poisons the drinking water with heavy metals in many developing nations. Liquid Asset Development has designed a concrete filter – essentially a block of normal concrete minus the sand – that is a low cost method for remediating the toxicity of acid mine drainage while significantly reducing water borne bacteria. Using the company’s construction design yields a filter that has a 15-25% void structure, allowing 3-8 gallons of water to pass through every minute. In addition, the filter is impervious to frost crystals, can trap the metals from mine drainage, and is 100% recyclable. Each filtration unit should last six to seven months in the field. The results of extensive bench testing of the product are available on the company’s website.
SolarTech, presented by Lambert Bunker, is a manufacturer and integrator of solar concentrator systems, or platforms that magnify and reflect sunlight up to 400 times its original strength onto solar cells that convert the light into electricity. The firm, with over thirty years of research in the solar marketplace and projects connected to the grid going back a decade, has recently completed a system that produces 50 kilowatts at $1.85 per watt. The firm, both supplies the specialty lenses for the concentrator and oversees the engineering, installation, and maintenance of the systems it installs. SolarTech is currently focused on the mid-size commercial and municipal markets in which to sell its land-based, high-sunlight systems. Bunker made the case that because the company only produces a few specialized parts for the product, as an integrator it can “mix and match” the best products from the rest of the industry.
CLEANtricity Power, presented by CEO Daniel Sullivan, produces a vertical axis wind turbine suitable for generating power in low wind environments. These turbines are suitable for residential power generation in areas not served by utilities, a market that grew over 70% in 2008. Company estimates predict the market for these low-wind mills will explode thirty-fold over the next five years. CLEANtricity, founded by three CU Leeds MBAs, plans to complete a ten unit beta production run in the fourth quarter of 2009, with full production coming online during the first half of 2010. Sullivan also noted that, along with providing the turbine, the company also expects to sell a battery that would store power generated by the unit for up to six days.
The Green Tech Meetup is held on the second Thursday of every month and is designed to provide a time and place for technologists interested in alternative energy, alternative transportation, energy efficiency, green building, and recovery/recycling technology. The event is sponsored by Access Venture Partners, Sequel Venture Partners, Infield Capital, Green Spark Ventures, and the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. The group’s next meeting will be Thursday, July 9. For more information, visit the group’s website.
