Wind Harvest International Eyes Potential for Small Turbines

Wind Harvest International Eyes Potential for Small Turbines

There has been an acceleration in the adoption of renewable energy, especially wind power. As wind energy has demonstrated a solid return on large projects, there is the opportunity for novel applications to be applied to unique situations. Like all technologies, innovation in Wind Power is increasing its versatility and potential applications. Kevin Wolf, co-founder of Wind Harvest International, is using his novel wind turbines to take advantage of new opportunities.

Currently, Wind Harvest is working to better capture wind energy.  Wind power has been having a renaissance in the US.  But there is the underutilized wind that Kevin Wolf thinks their turbines can capture.  The wind closest to the ground. Typical turbines can’t use this resource because the wind near the ground is too turbulent, but Wind Harvest has developed a solution that looks like it could work.  By using H-type turbines with two connections per vertically aligned blade rows of these can be installed under the tall turbines.  There they can leverage economies of scale and existing land, roads, and infrastructure with large project developments.  In the process, this gives the wind farm owner and the rancher who lease their land to increase income from their windy properties.

Wind Harvest’s technology makes use of the coupled vortex effect; when arranged in close proximity to one another, a pair of H-type wind turbines create a synergistic effect. They anticipate this will increase wind speeds through the rotors. They anticipate their compact turbines having the ability to produce electricity at night because in most wind farms in places like California, the wind blows all night long many nights of the year.  When installed in existing wind farms, especially with batteries, Wind Harvester turbines aim to increase energy capacity to meet demand that would be provided by gas peaker plants and fossil fuels.  They can be built and maintained a lot easier. This means they can create jobs in the local community, both in their manufacturing and maintenance. 

If you want to learn more or get involved, check them out and see their fundraiser on WeFunder.

Wind Harvest International will also be presenting at our Spotlight Investor Night on November 12th.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Osato Evbuomwan is a CSU Sacramento Mechanical Engineering Graduate Student who is the newest associate at CleanStart. Growing up in Nigeria with smog from backup diesel/ gasoline generators inspired Osato to work towards building a sustainable future for the world. 

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BlueTech Valley, Buchalter, Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz

College of Engineering & Computer Science at Sacramento State

Sacramento Moves up ACEEE Rankings

Sacramento Moves up ACEEE Rankings

At CleanStart, we like to watch city rankings on green and sustainability to see where our region sits.  ACEEE’s City Scorecard is a notable one. This year, Sacramento improved, moving from 20th to 17th out of the 100 Largest Cities in the US. Every year the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy puts out its City Clean Energy Scorecard. The Scorecard compares efforts by US cities to make buildings and transportation more energy efficient and increase the utilization of renewable energy.

While we have a leading utility in SMUD, and the City of Sacramento has continually supported sustainability, we must take continual actions to fight climate change and support sustainability. Sacramento improved its score in Transit, Community Activity, and Utility/Energy. This corresponds to the activity you might see just living around Sacramento, from more bike lanes to shared mobility, fast charges, and SMUDs Sustainable Communities initiative.  

While scoring better than most, Sacramento lost points on building standards, specifically enforcement. It is essential to address this because emissions from buildings are a significant portion of greenhouse gas emissions.  Also, building emissions impact underserved communities who live in and around older buildings more. There is a push to electrify buildings and replace and update older buildings to make them more efficient. For example, SMUD and Sacramento Metro Air Quality Management District support consumer and commercial replacement of old dirty equipment (like stoves and lawnmowers). 

If you want to see the rankings, you can check them out here.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas is the Executive Director of CleanStart. Thomas has a strong background in supporting small businesses, leadership, financial management and is proficient in working with nonprofits. He has a BS in Finance and a BA in Economics from California State University, Chico. Thomas has a passion for sustainability and a commitment to supporting non-profits in the region.

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BlueTech Valley, PowerSoft.biz, Revrnt, Synbyo, Califronia Mobility Center

CEO Crash Course Alumni announced as CalSEED Winners

CEO Crash Course Alumni announced as CalSEED Winners

Four Companies who completed CleanStarts CEO Crash Course applied for and won California Sustainable Energy Entrepreneur Development (CalSEED) Grants. These grants of $150,000 were awarded to 28 companies.  212 companies applied and were put through a rigorous review process.

Four Companies who completed CleanStarts CEO Crash Course won.

Descriptions from CalSEED here.

EV Life, LLC is building the first online platform that gives drivers everything they need to switch from gas to an electric car. They will create an EV climate loan and lending platform that saves most drivers over $200 per month on an electric car loan by incorporating thousands of dollars in EV rebates and incentives into the upfront financing of each car. The platform will have algorithms that analyze applicants’ creditworthiness and their eligibility for EV incentives in order to offer them the most affordable EV auto loan on the market.

Hago Energetics, Inc. aims to help farms become more profitable by converting farm waste to high-value products, such as hydrogen and valuable carbons. They break down organic matter, such as food scraps and animal waste, in conditions with no oxygen to produce a biogas that is later decomposed to hydrogen and carbon; this hydrogen is expected to sell at a lower cost and lower carbon footprint than the current methods.

Tolo Inc. aims to create a new artificial intelligence tool using high-resolution imagery for remote inspection of utility assets. It will allow inspectors to identify risks to electrical infrastructure, including foliage clearance violations and equipment degradations that inspectors could ordinarily miss in the field, reducing the risk of utility-caused wildfires.

Waterhound Futures, Inc. will demonstrate a cloud-based predictive modeling and analytics software that enables companies and municipalities to optimize performance and cost efficiencies of water and wastewater treatment, ultimately reducing the use of energy and freshwater in conventional treatment processes.

Congratulations to them, and we hope more companies see CalSEED and similar grant opportunities as a viable path forward.  If you want help finding grants and partners, check out Empower Innovation and OpenGrants. Make sure to sign up for CleanStarts Newsletter for more opportunities. 

 

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas is the Executive Director of CleanStart. Thomas has a strong background in supporting small businesses, leadership, financial management and is proficient in working with nonprofits. He has a BS in Finance and a BA in Economics from California State University, Chico. Thomas has a passion for sustainability and a commitment to supporting non-profits in the region.

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, Moss Adams, River City Bank, GreenbergTraurig

BlueTech Valley, PowerSoft.biz, Revrnt, Synbyo, Califronia Mobility Center

New Fast Electrode Gives Batteries a Big Boost

New Fast Electrode Gives Batteries a Big Boost

(Image from NAWA Press Release) 

Based in Rousset, France, north of Marseille, NAWA Technologies just announced they had a new way of making carbon electrodes for lithium-ion batteries that would markedly improve their performance.   NAWA claims that their technology can improve power by a factor 10, energy storage by up to a factor of three, extend the lifecycle by up to a factor of five, and reduce charging time down to minutes instead of hours.  At the same, they claim they can make these superfast electrodes at the same or lower cost than current technology.  This is another in the series of dramatic advances in batteries that been quietly moving forward for years.  It is likely there are many more to come.  

NAWA achieves this recent step by aligning the carbon nanotubes in carbon in a single direction, rather than the random jumble in ordinary carbon.  They do this with a coating process which they claim to have mastered and demonstrated on high-speed production equipment.  The electrodes will work on many battery types, not just lithium-ion.  

NAWA is also working another breakthrough technology, not yet ready for prime time.  They are using a nanotube structure to overcome problems in substituting silicon for lithium.  That’s one to think about.  If the industry could move from rare, expensive lithium to ubiquitous silicon it could drop prices to the floor.  It could also lead to another doubling in energy density.  Those changes could open the door wide to replace ICE’s in propeller-driven planes, launching a commercial electric airplane industry.  Don’t underestimate how much better and cheaper batteries will get.

NAWA’s first customer for its “vertically aligned carbon nanotube” electrodes is French battery manufacturer Saft.

To learn more, read the news release from NAWA and this article from New Atlas

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, EYBlueTech Valley, Revrnt, Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz

College of Engineering & Computer Science at Sacramento State

“Green” Steel and Cement:  Cutting Back on Coal Use to Cut Carbon Emissions

“Green” Steel and Cement: Cutting Back on Coal Use to Cut Carbon Emissions

Clamping down on carbon dioxide emissions is going to mean a focus on eliminating coal use as the worst fossil fuel.   Most of the attention on cutting back on coal has been on the electric power sector, but there are other big uses.  The other big uses of coal in the industry are in the manufacture of steel and cement.  A recent announcement of a $500 million investment in a new “coal-free” steel mill bringing 1,000 jobs to Pueblo, Colorado, is a reminder that technology is moving toward eliminating coal in those industries as well.  The plant in Pueblo is part of a three-decade trend in shifting steel production from the use of raw iron ore in huge integrated steel mills to the use of recycled steel and iron in “mini-mills”.  Now 42% of the steel in the US comes from recycled material and 86% of all steel used is recycled (much more than for aluminum, by the way).  The heart of a mini-mill is an electric-arc furnace that melts the compressed junk cars and other scrap.  The EVRAZ steel mill in Pueblo has just signed a deal with Lightsource bp to buy 300 MW of electricity from a solar farm to feed the furnace.  (Read the article here and another here.)  The solar plant’s output will actually be sold to utility Xcel Energy and an equivalent amount will then be delivered to the mill.  There are 112 mini-mills in the US that potentially could do the same thing.

Shifting integrated steel mills off coal is not easy.  Coke from coal is a key part of the process.  But there are some advances that could change that technology to direct reduction of iron oxide ore using electricity, as is used in the reduction of aluminum oxide ore (bauxite) to metallic aluminum.

Cement is even tougher to make carbon-free because an inherent part of the process is to calcine (bake) calcium carbonate to drive off carbon dioxide and produce lime (calcium oxide).  That process today dumps about 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air every year, more than comes from the airline industry.  Even if the calcium carbonate was heated electrically (which now is very expensive) to eliminate coal use, the carbon emissions from calcining would remain.  There are some clever ideas to change the whole makeup of cement to one that cures by absorbing carbon dioxide rather than by mixing with water.  That would present an interesting way to sequester huge volumes of carbon dioxide, but so far it is just a lab demo.  

Charging for carbon dioxide emissions in one way or another would hasten the adoption of these new technologies.  But the good news is that there are possible options for dramatic reductions even in these old and huge industries.  And ditching coal does not necessarily mean ditching jobs.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, EYBlueTech Valley, Revrnt, Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz

College of Engineering & Computer Science at Sacramento State