June 1st, 2010

VIDEO: The Future or Waste-to-Power from Paul Sellew CEO Harvest Power

BOSTON -

In April we hosted our first Clean Tech Kingpins event at the NEXUS Green Building Resource Center. The goal is to provide a place for young pros in the clean tech industry in Boston a chance to come together, re-charge, make sure we’re not all crazy, become friends and learn from today’s current experts.

Last month I posted video of Les Fritzemier speaking about the research and development work he is doing at Wakonda Technologies on solar thin film and the future of building integrated solar technologies.

Now, I’d like to share with you Paul Sellew’s presentation on the future of organic, waste to power solutions. Enjoy!

If you’re interested in watching all of the presentations right now, go to Clean Tech Kingpins: Clean Energy Adoption in New England.

Coming up in July, September, and then November our next three events will be (in no particular order as we’re still finalizing the details and speakers)

1) CSR: Moving the Mammoths

2) Energy Efficiency: Why is the low-hanging fruit so high?

3) Media: How to we convert non-believers and move the converted into meaningful action?

Also, if you have any feedback on how we could improve the event, please share.

Chris

Tagged biomass, harvest power, organic recycling, paul sellew, Waste to Power |

March 15th, 2010

The VegaWatt: A $0 BILLION Dollar Waste to Power Invention

BOSTON -

Last month I had a phone interview with James Peret, the inventor of the VegaWatt. In the first part of the audio interview we talked about their ideal customers and industry landscape. Currently, the VegaWatt has a little to no competition in the restaurant industry or even in the micro waste to power industry. Any restaurant that makes more then 30 gallons of grease per month is a perfect customer and there are no other current or feasible more profitable ways for them to get rid of their waste.

In this section James discusses why the VegaWatt is a billion dollar opportunity as there are more then 13,000 restaurants in the United States, then you can easily add all the ones in Canada, and Europe to that number and it becomes clear how the VegaWatt is going to be a seriously profitable invention. James is clearly a small, thoughtful, well spoken and amazing inventor. Not only will it be profitable, but it also has a huge environmental and social benefit.

Have fun listening to our discussion!

The $O Billion Dollar Opportunity

In the discussion we talked about:

-Why getting into every McDonalds is not the Vegawatt’s goal

-The number of  us restaurants and how this is a billion dollar opportunity

-The greatest societal benefit is making mom and pops shops more profitable

-How the VegaWatt is an equivalent is increasing revenues by 25% and how that vastly helps local shops

Enjoy!

On a scale from 0 to 10, how awesome do you think to the VegaWatt is?

Tagged James Peret, vegawatt, Waste to Power |

March 2nd, 2010

The VegaWatt: Taking Over the On-Site Waste to Power Industry

BOSTON -

The Vegawatt was invented by James Peret in Boylston Massachusetts. The system turns waste vegetable oil in restaurants into electricity and hot water. The value proposition is simple, they can lease a unit for $435 a month and save over $800 in electricity and fuel you need to buy. Or, you can buy it and get all your money back within 2 years. Simple. Profitable. Green.

The VegaWatt was a runner up in our Boston’s Top 10 Clean Tech Companies competition so I decided to interview the inventor, founder, and CEO James Peret as I organize profiling the winning companies (stay tuned for this, we’re going to be gathering some amazing video interviews and content of their offices and clean tech installations)

The interview is in five parts (so stayed tuned for the rest of the parts!) and the first part I wanted to share with you is where we talked about the Vegawatt’s customers, why they might not buy it, and why the system doesn’t really have any competition.

We talked about a relatively few number of items in this section but James goes into depth and provides great insights into the questions I asked and the competitive landscape in the waste-to-power industry. Listen to it here:

Vegawatt’s Perfect Customers and Industry Landscape

In this section we discussed:

-Why restaurants would NOT want to purchase a Vegawatt

-What their perfect customers look like

-What determines how big of a Vegawatt system a restaurant gets

-Why the Vegawatt has NO competition

-The reason that the system is never a primary heating source and is always supplementing a primary system

Tagged James Peret, vegawatt, Waste to Power |