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New Technologies: From Lithium Ion Batteries to Butanol

With businesses ranging from genetically engineered yeast that boosts ethanol production to solar windows to wind turbine blades and more, 14 Midwestern companies presented green technology investment opportunities at the Midwest Alternative Energy Venture Forum November 29 at the Charles M. Harper Center.

All Cell Technologies

All Cell Technogies makes a wax that prevents lithium ion batteries from overheating in plug-in hybrid cars and for use in other industries. To experiment, All Cell converted a City of Chicago municipal car to a hybrid and doubled its fuel economy, said Robert Anderson, chairman and interim CEO. The $6 billion lithium ion battery business is expected to grow to $22 billion in five years and to $50 billion in ten years, he said.

Bias Power

Bias Power eases energy consumption by offering low-wattage, standby power supplies for such home and business technology as lighting, audio, climate control, and security sensors. “These supplies are built with proprietary technology and offer product design engineers a complete, drop-in solution for fast time- to- market,” the company said in its business description.

Genetically engineered enzymes produced by C5Ÿ6 Technologies, Inc. increase the productivity of converting corn to ethanol by 10 percent, enable soy meal to be converted to ethanol, and convert biomass to a biofuel using a dry mill process technology. The company has received a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Chromatin, Inc.

Chromatin, Inc. creates new chromosomes from scratch through gene-stacking technology. This breakthrough in agricultural biotechnology raises feedstock quality to cut costs and speed conversion to fermentable sugars used in biofuel production. “Executives in the ag- biotech space have said that the technology’s game-changing. It’s the kind of once in a generation advance that they’ve been hoping for,” said Daphne Preuss, Chromatin president and CEO.

Clean Urban Energy, Inc.

Clean Urban Energy, Inc. optimizes heating and cooling efficiency in large commercial buildings in metropolitan areas. It will use computer models to kick out hourly temperature setpoints to economize thermostat control, said Vincent Cushing Jr., president and CEO, reducing utility bills by 20 percent to 40 percent. Buildings in Chicago can be pre-cooled at night, when cheaper coal-fired energy rates are in effect, compared to gas-fueled electric energy used during the day in most markets. “As energy use grows in large cities, you can’t build power plants, underground transmission is way too expensive, so you have to find ways to meet that growth without those two traditional options,” Cushing said. 

Eden Park Illumination, Inc.

Eden Park Illumination, Inc. has developed a prototype of low-cost, low-energy flexible lighting. Gary Eden, cofounder and chief science officer, said lighting devours about one third of the world’s electricity production. Eden Park’s lamps will be made from chemically processed aluminum foil or aluminum wire fabric, less than a millimeter thick, saving the need for ballast, reflectors, and heavy metal housing. Lights will be flat in the future, Eden said. His lighting lasts five times the lifetime of incandescent bulbs, he said. It can be used in homes, offices, or in industries for polymer curing, plasma displays, and phototherapeutic devices for medical applications.

ePower Synergies, Inc.

Bruce Wood, president and CEO of ePower Synergies, Inc., rode one of the firm’s personal transporter electric vehicles, the “RIDE,” into the presentation. The company, spun out of John Deere three years ago, also will make the “MoBee Truk” and the “EV-Smart,” an advanced electric vehicle that can go 65 miles per hour with a 100-mile range. “What we have works and it’s marketable and it’s ready,” Wood said. Vehicles will be assembled in a factory being renovated by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2008.  

Firefly Energy, Inc.

Firefly Energy, Inc. has made a less expensive, lighter weight battery for vehicles by replacing lead battery plates with a type of foam. “This product technology delivers to battery markets a performance associated with advanced battery chemistries (nickel metal hydride and lithium), but for one-fifth the cost, and can be both manufactured as well as recycled within the existing lead acid battery industry’s vast infrastructure,” the company said in its business description. The battery also has potential use in hybrid electric vehicles.

Green Tech America, Inc.

Green Tech America, Inc. has genetically engineered yeast to be used to make cellulosic ethanol more efficiently. Using the yeast, coproducts of the process can be made and sold. “This will make ethanol production very profitable,” said Nancy Ho, founder and president, who pioneered the technology.

MicroLink Devices

MicroLink Devices makes low-cost, high efficiency gallium arsenide-based solar cells used in concentrators. Gallium arsenide-based cells run at 35 percent efficiency, compared to 17 percent for the traditional silicon-based cells, said Glen Hillier, research and development manager.  The company is developing solar cells which lift off a thin substrate of gallium arsenide and track the sun.

SmartSpark Energy Systems

Among various green tech products made by SmartSpark Energy Systems are Solar Bridge products, which halve the costs of residential solar installations, said Brian Precious, director of marketing. The company eliminates complexity of such installations through a little black box, called a solar inverter, which plugs into a regular outlet. “Rather than taking power out of the grid, it will actually be putting power into the grid,” Precious said of the plug. The product also optimizes solar power derived from panels. The $1 billion solar market of 2006 is expected to grow 30 percent to 40 percent a year, he said.

SunPhocus Technologies

SunPhocus Technologies incorporates solar cells into window glass, allowing them to be placed on additional surfaces besides rooftops. A semitransparent holgogram film concentrates sunlight onto the cells. By integrating solar cells into glass building materials, installation can be financed through a mortgage, said Monica Cook, director of research and development. Enough building surfaces can be covered to provide half the U.S. electricity needs, the company estimates.

Tetravitae Bioscience, Inc.

Tetravitae Bioscience, Inc. has developed an improved way of making bio-butanol, using a proprietary strain of bacteria. Unlike ethanol, butanol is blendable with gasoline at any percentage, said Jay Kouba, vice chairman and CEO-designate. Also, butanol added to gasoline increases the ability to add ethanol. Butanol has “very high octane” and is low corrosion, he said. “Any of the existing infrastructure for gasoline can be used for butanol directly,” he said, “and in fact automobiles can run on pure butanol without modification.”  The proprietary strain of bacteria doesn’t give off byproducts in the fermentation process and consumes all sugars simultaneously and not sequentially.

WebCore Technologies, Inc.

WebCore Technologies, Inc. winds fiber glass and foam into large boards for use in wind energy and other industries. Composite material can replace aluminum fan bases on jet engines, but the company is focusing on replacing steel windmill blades with the lighter, longer-lasting material. In the next 11 years it estimates a $1.4 billion opportunity to use the material in the wind industry in the United States alone, said Dan Hutcheson, company president. The company aims for 25 percent of that market, or between $300 million to $350 million of revenue.

- Mary Sue Penn