SMU takes ‘green machine’ for test drive

HOT NUMBER: Southern Methodist University is showing off the “green machine” waste heat electricity generator at a geothermal conference starting June 17 on the Dallas school’s campus.

Southern Methodist University is allowing a Texas Gulf Coast company to demonstrate zero-emission electricity generation on its campus.

The equipment, distributed exclusively in Texas and Louisiana by Bay City-based Gulf Coast Green Energy, is called the “Green Machine” because it uses no fuel to generate electricity.

Instead, the closed-loop cycle takes industrial waste heat or geothermal energy, uses it to heat refrigerant, which expands into high-pressure vapor that in turn drives a generator. Waste heat is heat that is generated as a by-product of an industrial process.

The “Green Machine” has been temporarily installed on a boiler at SMU. It’s the first time the equipment has been installed for use commercially, said Gulf Coast CEO Loy Sneary.

Developed and manufactured by Nevada-based ElectraTherm Inc., the equipment generates 50 kilowatts of electricity an hour, which is enough to power 40-50 homes, Sneary said.

“It’s almost a research project that SMU is allowing us to do,” Sneary said. “Texas is the first site for the commercial application.”

The cost of the equipment and the installation at SMU was $130,000, Sneary said. The university hasn’t bought the machine nor does it endorse it, but it is evaluating the equipment to see if the technology works and would be worthwhile for the university, said Michael Paul, SMU’s director of energy management and engineering.

“We think it’s great technology, and certainly we want to look into it,” Paul said.

SMU wanted the equipment up and running to demonstrate it at the International Geothermal Energy Utilization Conference, which runs June 17-18 on the SMU campus. The conference is sponsored by the SMU Geothermal Lab.

ElectraTherm’s “green machine” won “Best of Show” at the 2007 Geothermal Energy Association Trade Show in Reno, Nev. One of its advantages is its small footprint, given that it can fit on a 4-foot by 8-foot skid and stands no more than 6-feet 6-inches tall, Sneary said.

SMU also will use the equipment in the fall to demonstrate the technology to university students, Paul said.

The process of using industrial waste heat or geothermal energy to generate emissions-free electricity isn’t new, according to Paul Fershtand, vice president and senior analyst at electricity broker Live Energy in Grapevine.

But now, with the price of oil running at $139 a barrel earlier this month before dropping to about $131 a barrel at mid-week, the concept is increasingly interesting, Fershtand said.

“With increasing costs, plus greater efficiency, it could make the difference,” Fershtand said. “It wasn’t economically feasible when electricity was a nickel; but now it does make sense.”

The ElectraTherm equipment marks the first time a company has been able to make the process efficient enough to make it commercially viable, said Sneary. The difference is a patented “expander” that is much more simple, more compact and able to operate at much lower temperatures.

Industrial facilities — such as cement or asphalt plants, coal-fired power plants, bakeries and oil and gas wells — are prime targets for the equipment, Sneary said.

The equipment comes in sizes ranging from 30 kilowatts to 500 kilowatts and cost from $2,400 a kilowatt for the smallest one to $2,700 a kilowatt for the largest.

Original Article by Dallas Business Journal at http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2008/06/16/story9.html