Why MTPV? An Energy Industry Veteran’s Perspective

Mark Little is an independent board member on MTPV’s Board of Directors.  Over his 37-year career at General Electric, Mark served in diverse senior leadership roles in operations, research, strategic planning, joint venture development, and product management. Subsequently, as GE’s CTO and head of Global Research, Mark developed fundamental technologies to help GE compete and grow in business sectors including energy, oil & gas, transportation, healthcare, and aviation. Mark now helps other organizations by working with business leaders and boards as an advisor and mentor.
 
 

As a leader in the energy business at General Electric, my roles included running the Power Generation business where we produced gas turbines, steam turbines, wind turbines and combined cycle power plants.  I have acquired struggling energy businesses and helped them become significant profit contributors, and I have nurtured new businesses to success.  As CTO and head of Global Research at GE, I oversaw thousands of researchers and scientists developing advanced technologies in a broad range of businesses including aviation, transportation, healthcare, consumer goods, financial services, oil & gas, and, of course, energy where we had a strong focus on increasing efficiency, reducing cost and developing renewable solutions.  After a 37-year career, I retired from GE in late 2015 with a broad experience base in energy, technology, and innovation.

With such a background, you can imagine that I have seen an array of break-through energy generation concepts that span the technology spectrum, but most of them fail to make it past the experimental stage.  Because of this, it was with some skepticism that I agreed earlier this year to meet with the MTPV team to learn about their technology to recover the energy in waste heat and convert it into clean electric power, their EBLADE Power Platform.  To be honest, I was expecting to see an early stage science experiment on a lab bench, far from commercial readiness, but instead I was blown away to be shown a product which is:

• At scale for implementation
• Fully functioning
• Operating in a 24×7 continuous duty cycle
• Going through lifetime test evaluation
• Demonstrating meaningful efficiency
• Enabled with real-time metrics, instrumentation, and automation
• Ready to be deployed in real-world test environments

I recognized immediately the significance of the research and development that had gone into bringing a product of such technical sophistication to a level of maturity and, ultimately, simplicity in its design execution.  This was a product that was much closer to market entry than I had dreamed possible.

Waste heat recovery is not a new concept.  Long-standing solutions such as steam turbines in combined cycle power plants are well understood.  These designs are mature and have reached a point where improvements in efficiency and cost are achieved incrementally over time.  MTPV’s approach using semiconductor chips to convert heat directly into electricity is a radically different approach that can leverage and build on the manufacturing process, investment, and scale that are already in place for the semiconductor industry, which in the early years of this new MTPV technology will help to accelerate cost reductions and performance improvements.

In addition, most other waste heat recovery technologies require a large physical footprint, are quite invasive to the industrial processes they are extracting heat from, and require complex supporting systems.  By contrast, the MTPV solution is unobtrusive, is very easy to deploy, requires very little space and is very low maintenance.

Finally, some modern heat recovery approaches are using new and potentially volatile phase-change fluids to improve efficiency, resulting in the potential for safety risks when deployed.  MTPV’s solid-state approach poses no such risk, so in the unlikely event of a system issue, the downside for the industrial process would be minimal.

A lifetime of experience in the energy sector has taught me that the market for this product is significant and, once it has established lifetime performance metrics and been optimized for cost, that the commercial upside for the EBLADE Power Platform would be very substantial.  My excitement for the technology, the advanced stage of product development, and the depth of knowledge on the MTPV team is what quickly led me to agree to join the MTPV Board of Directors as an independent Board member.

Since joining the board I have seen continued progress in core technology research, a long-term roadmap of meaningful improvements, very promising life-cycle test results, and a clear line-of-sight to highly competitive electricity generation products.

The first set of target industries that will be ideal for the MTPV product, such as glass, steel, and oil & gas, will present a major opportunity to generate clean electric power.  If that were MTPV’s only market it would be very substantial, but MTPV’s product roadmap will enable systems that can handle lower temperature industrial heat creating a market opportunity many times larger, an exciting prospect indeed to help our clients improve both their economic performance and environmental impact.

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Crossing the 400ppm CO2 Threshold: What it Means, Why it Matters

Colin Lacey leads Product Management and Marketing for MTPV with more than 25 years of experience in product management, services creation, and business development in both global Fortune 500 companies and emerging market technology companies.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been tracking the levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere since the 1950s from the Manua Loa Observatory in Hawaii.  While there is a predictable fluctuation in the month-to-month readings on an annual cycle, the overall trend has been an almost perfectly linear increase over time.  The data shows that September is typically the annual low point for CO₂ readings, but in 2016 the September readings exceeded 400ppm for the first time, resulting in the first full year cycle with readings consistently above 400ppm (1).

CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses (GHGs) such as methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons and others, collectively known as CO₂ equivalents, trap heat in the atmosphere resulting in climate change. NASA notes that global climate change has already had a directly observable effect on the environment with shrinking glaciers, the shifting of plant and animal ranges, and altered flowering cycles.  Humans are experiencing these changes with accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.

CO₂ emissions come from transportation, industry, commercial & residential, and agricultural activities.  The largest single contributor to emissions in the U.S., however, is the generation of electricity, emitting 30% of the total (2).  In response to this, the EPA’s Clean Power plan has established an ambitious goal of cutting GHG emissions to 70% of 2005 levels by 2030, and initial energy industry plans for compliance are due this year (subject to ongoing litigation).  The imperative to reverse our current direction is clear – CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere by natural processes at roughly half of the current rate of emissions from human activities, so efforts that only stabilize global emissions will not reduce the levels of GHGs in the atmosphere, just limit their rate of increase (3).

So what does MTPV offer to contribute to the reversal of this pressing trend?

Implementing the MTPV EBLADE^TM Power Platform results in the reduction of both CO₂ and CO₂ equivalent emissions by reducing the energy demands on traditional on-grid power plants and by reducing the use of on-site diesel-powered generators in off-grid applications.  In the U.S., grid-based electricity sources emit an average of 1.222lbs of CO₂ per kWh produced (4).  That equates to 5190 metric tons of CO₂ annually per megawatt of power. In off-grid situations, where the site is generating power using traditional diesel generators with significantly lower efficiency and emissions controls than are achievable at an on-grid power plant, the positive environmental impact of the EBLADE^TM Power Platform is amplified.

MTPV solutions not only reduce the emissions of CO₂ and its equivalents but  also reduce the thermal emissions of both the heat source site and its on-grid power supplier.  For each megawatt of electricity produced by MTPV annually, we remove almost 30 billion British thermal units (Btus) of heat emissions from the waste heat source (which would otherwise vent into the atmosphere) and avoid the creation of twice that heat being emitted from a power plant, a net positive impact of roughly 90 billion Btus per megawatt annually.

CO₂ emissions are a global challenge, and as new economies enter a rapid growth phase we have seen their emissions scale accordingly, easily outpacing the investment and effort made in more mature economies to curtail the growth of, or even reduce, their emissions. The simple fact is that our atmosphere is not constrained by borders or economies, and therefore a concerted global effort is warranted to contain the effects of global climate change.  While a wide array of approaches will be required to reverse the trajectory of our atmosphere’s CO_2, I am encouraged by the prospect that clean electricity from MTPV’s technology can contribute strongly to the solution of this pressing challenge.

 

(1) https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2016/09/23/note-on-reaching-the-annual-low-point/
(2) https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/us-greenhouse-gas-inventory-report-1990-2014
(3) http://nca2014.globalchange.gov
(4) https://www.epa.gov/energy/egrid

“No Machine May Contain Any Moving Parts”*

 

* Arthur C. Clarke, “The City and the Stars”, 1956

Thomas Ortman is the President & CEO of Concurrent Design, a provider of complete electro-mechanical design and build services for new product engineering design and development. He is also a founding partner of the CleanTX Foundation and co-founder of the Solar Energy Entrepreneur Network.  He is guest blogging for MTPV this month.

I was at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) recently and reminded once again of their US Energy Use chart, which may be the single most interesting visualization of data that I have ever seen.  This chart (below) attempts to capture the entire energy flow of the United States in a single page, clearly representing all the energy sources as inputs and all the resulting energy consumption and waste as outputs.  One can spend hours pondering and contemplating the real world implications of each one of the lines on this chart (and believe me, I have!).

The LLNL chart looks at energy usage in Quads, which represents the amount of energy in one quadrillion (or 10¹⁵) BTUs.  If you are like me, that definition doesn’t help too much, so think of a Quad as roughly equivalent to the amount of energy in 45 million tons of coal, or 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, or 170 million barrels of crude oil.

Let’s consider the Transportation energy flow in the chart above – from 27 Quads of energy input, only 5.66 Quads were converted into useful energy output (i.e., motion).  Where did the rest of the energy go?  A little bit of sound and an awful lot of heat. This is clearly a sub-optimal system and one that screams to be replaced with something better.  The good news is that in this case we already have a clear line of sight to an effective answer.  Electric vehicles make a compelling case to replace internal combustion engines for transportation: –

• Efficiency: 75%-90% efficiency versus 20%-30%
• Reliability: 3 moving parts in the motor versus 100 or more in a combustion engine
• Air Quality: the vehicle is as clean as the energy it is charged from, which is constantly improving as the traditional grid modernizes and the mix of renewable energy sources increases

Now let’s consider the right-hand side of the LLNL chart which nets out the ratio of Rejected Energy (waste) compared to the amount of productive Energy Services. As you can see, it reflects 38.4 useful Quads versus 59.1 wasted Quads, or in other terms 60% of all the energy we consume in the United States is wasted.  This level of waste and inefficiency is an outrage to an engineer like me, as I’m sure it is to any conscientious person.

The vast majority of this energy inefficiency is the result of waste heat loss in industrial and commercial processes and transportation.  The MTPV solution for energy production from waste heat, for example, is ideally positioned to address these markets, and their initial target markets in the glass, steel, and cement sectors as well as flaring in the oil, gas, and bio-mass sectors are primed for a solution to efficiently harness the waste heat being rejected in their high-temperature processes.  There is a virtuous cycle in tapping into their heat flows, reducing the temperature of their emissions and at the same time generating clean electric power, thus reducing the demand for grid-based power production and reducing fossil fuel consumption with its associated carbon emissions.

Finally, let’s loop back to the title of this blog – “No Machine May Contain Any Moving Parts”, a quote from science fiction author and visionary futurist Arthur C. Clarke.  I see this as a critical principle for advanced product design, and one that MTPV has already accomplished in its core power generation EBLADE devices.  Their solution is solid state, which improves reliability and efficiency, and provides a high level of flexibility in how and where it is deployed.  As I look ahead I anticipate that more and more engineering challenges will be addressed by such solid state solutions, and in fact, I have already started to think, plan, and execute how to make the systems that we engineer at Concurrent Design, Inc. without moving parts too.  To borrow another quote from Arthur C. Clarke, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” and I consider MTPV’s drive to change the world’s energy equation a step in the right direction.

Note:  if this blog whets your appetite for energy flow visualization, take a look at a highly detailed compilation of energy usage created by Otherlab at http://energyliteracy.com.

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Waste Heat 101

Brian Hubert leads Product & Business Development for MTPV, with deep financial, product, intellectual property, technical and business experience in both small and large companies.  He was formerly a venture capital investor and start-up founder.

 

Since first encountering MTPV five years ago, I have been fascinated by the audacity and magnitude of its mission – the conversion of the world’s waste heat into useful electric power. That’s something which just makes a whole lot of sense – taking the heat energy that our world wastes and converting it back into something of value while also benefiting our environment.

The size of the problem is truly enormous. When you consider the energy we consume in our daily lives, some energy uses readily come to mind such as the gasoline used to power our cars and the natural gas and electricity used to warm, cool, and light our homes. But this is just the tip of the energy iceberg. Far more energy goes into the manufacture and transportation of products and the building up of the infrastructure that surrounds us.

As you see new houses or commercial buildings being built in your neighborhood, have you ever considered the tremendous amount of energy that goes into the materials used in those structures? You might not have ever expected it, but the manufacture of concrete and drywall is incredibly energy intensive because these materials require very high-temperature processing. Even the food that we eat requires huge amounts of energy for the pressurization and pumping of the water used for irrigation, the heating and sterilization involved in canning and food processing, the melting and molding of glass and plastic materials for bottles, and of course the fuel used for transportation of farm staples from the field to the market.

In nearly every case where we consume energy, the majority of that energy is ultimately wasted in the form of heat. Less than 20% of the chemical energy contained in a gallon of gasoline is successfully converted into forward motion of an automobile, whereas nearly all the rest is wasted as heat, much of it in the form of exhaust gasses hot enough to melt lead. When a steel mill repeatedly heats a giant bar of metal to create a steel I-beam destined for an office building or a bridge, effectively 100% of the power used to heat the steel to near molten metal temperatures is ultimately wasted into the air when the steel is cooled in football field sized cooling yards. Even something as abstract as the internet produces large amounts of waste heat, with millions of CPUs operating in thousands of massive server farms around the world requiring enormous air conditioning systems for cooling, which themselves eject waste heat into the air.

So how large is the waste heat energy pool? The IEA estimates worldwide energy consumption from all sources is equivalent to an average power consumption of about 12.3 terawatts (trillion watts), with worldwide financial expenditures of about US$ 6 trillion annually. With roughly 60% of this energy ending up as waste heat, the waste heat opportunity is estimated to be greater than US$ 1 trillion per year and is largely untapped.

At MTPV we are working tirelessly to provide the world with a waste heat-to-electricity solution that revolutionizes the process of converting heat to electricity. To do this, we have chosen to pursue a technology that leverages the compact form factor enabled by semiconductor photovoltaic chips, which are responsible for converting the infrared light found in waste heat environments into electric power, similar to how a solar panel converts sunlight into electricity. Only in our case, the “sun” that shines on our devices is the heat pouring out of a blast furnace, a glass kiln or an oilfield flare. As we and others work to tap this vast energy pool, someday soon even the heat generated by your electric car or consumer electronics will be harnessed and recycled. With so much heat all around us, the opportunities are nearly limitless to improve the world’s energy equation.

 

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Image: Andrew Harbin © 123RF.COM

MTPV Origins

Bob DiMatteo is an MTPV founder and is chairman of the MTPV board of directors.  He led the team that discovered the MTPV (micron-gap thermophotovoltaic) effect.

 

For MTPV’s inaugural blog post the team asked me to share my recollections on the origins of the company – the discovery and evolution of the micron-gap thermophotovoltaic effect.

Like most advances, our work built upon the insights of others, from Seebeck’s discovery of the thermoelectric effect back in 1821 to Planck’s work on electromagnetic radiation in 1900.  It was also the product of the fertile environment at MIT, where I could work with experts in both photovoltaics and  anomalous heat transfer while receiving world-class support from the academic and research community.

Invention is a team sport, and I am truly grateful for the guidance and collaboration provided by early team members Prof. Fonstad, Paul Greif, Mark Weinberg, Steve Finberg, Eric Brown and dozens of other contributors.  This work required a truly interdisciplinary environment, including MEMS (microelectromechanical systems), photonics, electrical and mechanical engineering.  From the outset, it was abundantly clear that these worlds had to be brought together in a new way in order for us to be successful.

My interest was in demonstrating the potential for substantial thermophotovoltaic (TPV) improvement through the energy increase of radiant heat transfer between two materials at very small distances.  This required the integration of two very different scientific endeavors – radiant heat transfer and thermophotovoltaics (TPV).  As TPV had worked to deliver meaningful increases in power density, MTPV promised a breakthrough opportunity.

We were fortunate to be tackling this problem at a time when MEMS technology was advancing rapidly, and we had access at MIT and at the former MIT Instrumentation Lab, Draper Laboratory to the resources and brainpower to tackle these hard problems.

Not much of the solution was available to us “off the shelf”.  The core technology for our work was either purpose built or had to be invented in the process.  Even common materials such as standard photovoltaic cells, that you find in anything from a calculator to a rooftop solar panel had to be purpose-built in order to achieve the very flat, unobstructed surface we needed while its materials had to be optimized for a heat source of up to 1000°C rather than the daylight generated by the sun’s 5800°K surface.

The first demonstration of the MTPV effect was truly gratifying for the whole team, moving beyond all of the individual component milestones we had accomplished to show a working system, even if at very small scale.  The team was very committed to our mission and we recognized the significance of the accomplishment but we knew there was still much work yet to do.  We had a quick celebration lunch at a nearby restaurant and then headed back to the lab to continue the research.  This demonstration resulted in the publication of the first experimental paper on micron-gap thermophotovoltaics in Applied Physics Letters in 2001 and gave us the visibility to secure funds for further development from organizations such as DARPA.

Since that initial demonstration we have continued to advance the technology on every dimension, scaling the size of the device 100 fold, increasing efficiency and reducing complexity and cost.  We have moved from research facilities at Draper Laboratory to our own state of the art development and test facilities in Medford, MA and Austin, TX, and we have secured funding and partnerships from respected names in the worlds of alternative energy investment and traditional energy production, as well as leading global high-temperature industrial process companies.

Looking ahead, I see that the MTPV effect still has so much promise in new applications beyond industrial waste heat.  Over time I expect that it could be used to enhance the performance of concentrated solar systems, hybrid vehicles, distributed energy solutions and home generators among others. There is so much interesting physics for us yet to explore.

 

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