Things are moving in Michigan. ProNewables, a new company based in Kalamazoo teamed up with Kalamazoo Valley Community College to deploy the Green Machine throughout the Midwest to capture waste heat and turn it into energy.
The Green Machine, manufactured by the ElectraTherm, Inc. can produce power from a wide array of heat sources including industrial waste heat, engines, biomass and solar thermal installations.
http://www.electratherm.com/images/green_machine.jpg
Why Michigan? "The Midwest has the manufacturing facilities, the labor pool and the demand to apply the Green Machine abundantly to applications including stationary engines, boilers, geothermal and solar thermal sites," said Bill Olson, Vice President of Business Development at ElectraTherm.
Michigan's factories, power plants, paper and steel mills, food processing facilities and other heavy industry produce enough waste heat to power thousands of Green Machines, according to data in a recent study by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Where did the money come from? The Windquest Group, an investment management firm, teamed up with ProServices ., a specialized trades contractor. The resulting company will sell, install and maintain the Green Machine to support industry throughout Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Approximately two-thirds of the fuel burned to generate power in the United States, and up to half of industrial energy consumption is lost, according to a DOE Report.