Apr 23 2009
Update on CWT IPO - Changing World Technologies- What Can Be Done?
R-SQUARED ENERGY BLOG - Posted March 13, 2009 “CWT and their TDP promises are the poster child for the strategy of “overhype your technology to pull in investors, and hope the technological problems are resolved.” They had endorsements from lots of people, and a gushing article in Discover. But reporters and investors didn’t ask the right questions, and they didn’t do their due diligence, and the result was a lot of dollars flushed down the toilet. The sad thing is, history is repeating itself right now with most of these cellulosic ethanol and algal biodiesel companies. They all have a great story to tell, they are all going to solve the world’s energy problems, and the majority of them will be bankrupt inside of 5 years.” It’s a great concept that CWT- Changing World Technologies had but unfortunately they couldn’t keep their production costs in the range they estimated, $80 is a far cry from $15 and if they had done further research, it’s possible they could have change the way production was done. It’s amazing that this company lasted as long as it did, and how did it get to be 117 million in debt? Where do you get a loan with that amount of cash, with no accountability of what your planning to do with it. The only way this loan will be paid back, is if you can turn this company around. Can it be saved? It depends on what is costing so much money in the production costs. What needs to be implemented into the plant to make it more profitable. It’s great that they know how to turn trash into gasoline and oil but what can be done to turn a profit. It may not be from the process of producing oil, but how it’s made that can be used for other things. Why not take the Methane Gas that is produced by the trash, and use it to supply it’s own hydro? It cost the plant over $900,000 to cover heating costs? Why didn’t they use the methane gas to supply the heat? Or generate the heat from the sewage treatment plant to be used in the process of Thermal depolymerization (TD. We need to combine the processes of renewable energies to create a refined product, and further research can help develop the technologies of the future. Such as Sony City’s use of it’s sewage treatment plant.Sony City uses waste heat from sewage treatment plant -Leonardo Industries By Bruno De Wachter / Published on Thu, 2008-09-04 05:30 ”Heat pump reduces energy and water consumption dramatically. When talking about a heat pump, most people will think of a system taking heat at low temperature from the ground, the air, or a water reservoir. However, other configurations are possible. Sony City, the new Sony headquarters in Tokyo, receives heating and cooling from a heat pump connected to a nearby sewage water treatment plant. By recycling the heat from the sewage plant, the system achieves a Coefficient of Performance (COP) of 5.19, which is exceptionally high. It means that the building receives 5.19 units of energy for each unit of primary energy that is consumed.”
These ideas should make people think about the issues surrounding renewable energies. Let’s not toss these renewable energy companies to the curb too fast. If Thomas Edison had given up on his lightbulb invention we’d all be in the dark. It took him 5,000 tries to develop a workable lightbulb and he also patented 900 other inventions from his so called failures. We can learn from the past, keep plugging on and if it costs us a few dollars then so be it. The government doesn’t seem to mind going into trillions of debt to make an economy work, so why not do the same for renewable energy? It creates jobs, helps the environment and is the wave of the future. It may take lots of money and time to refine the diamond in the rough, but once we figure it all out we will be miles ahead in technology as well as helping our earth to be a better place to live in the years to come.
