The Technology that Put Man on the Moon is Taking Back the Planet!

Zero Emission Energy Plants, Inc. (ZEEP) recognizes, along with many others in the industry, that new technology is required to address the numerous energy issues facing the world today. There is a tremendous need to produce not only more energy, but do it in a way that is both environmentally friendly and cost effective. ZEEP is dedicated to securing the best available technology to help meet these needs.

The ZEEP leadership team has been working independently in the energy industry for many years and we firmly believe that gasification is the best process for solving these energy issues. Gasification enables the conversion of abundant coal reserves to environmentally friendly fuels cheaply, reliably and flexibly.  It represents the best method of avoiding combustion of coal and allowing for the conversion of coal into clean fuels either directly or by the use of various off-the-shelf products and processes. 

The problem with most gasification processes is with the gasifiers themselves.  Although gasification has been widely studied for many years and has been commercially available for more than 50 years, most gasifiers represent only marginal advances from the gasifiers used in the 1940's.

It was against this backdrop that the principles of ZEEP began an exhaustive search to find answers.   If gasification was to take its rightful place as a technology leading the world out of the dark ages, then it was going to have to take a completely new approach to an old problem. 

Enter Rocketdyne. 

The ZEEP principals first became aware of the work that was being done at Rocketdyne (Boeing at the time) on gasification in the late nineties.  It made sense that the leaders in aerospace would have a hand in this much needed technology. The group of scientists that developed the rocket engines that put man on the moon, would, not surprisingly, have a hand in creating the solution.  Their experience and creative approach to gasification created the engine of change that clean energy, the moon-shot of our generation, represents.

It is widely known that the most efficient energy conversion device ever created is the rocket engine.  Thus it would take rocket scientists to solve the dilemma of building a better gasification engine.  Rocket engines developed by Rocketdyne are commonly delivered at a cost/power ratio that is unheard of in the electric power industry. Consider $10/kw for a rocket engine versus $2500/kw for the construction of a typical new power plant.

Although these numbers are clearly not an apples-to-apples comparison, they illustrate a very important point. While the energy industry was making little progress in making efficient, reliable, inexpensive gasifiers over the last 50 years, one group, over that same period, was creating reliable, efficient energy conversion engines and doing so at a cost unheard of in traditional energy circles.

In the last thirty years of rocket manufacturing, no rocket made by Rocketdyne, the rocket manufacturing arm of Boeing, resulted in a failure of mission or man. It was this failure-is-not-an-option approach that made the wizards and technology at Boeing/Rocketdyne so compelling to the principles of ZEEP.

It may not be intuitively obvious what carry-over there may be from a rocket manufacturer to a manufacturer of gasifier engines.  There are three major points of intersection in these two areas that bear pointing out:

1.) They are both Energy Conversion Engines (ECEs).  Whereas the two devices may not strike the casual observer as being similar, both the rocket engine and the gasifier are converting available feedstock into a more desirable form of energy.  In the case of a rocket engine, one is taking various liquid or solid feedstocks and converting them into propulsion.  In the case of a gasifier, one is taking various solid feedstocks and converting them into a more desirable form of fuel, which may incidentally result in propulsion in the case of hydrogen, gasoline, diesel or other liquid or gaseous fuels produced through gasification being used as a transportation fuel.

2.) Management of heat.  Carnot first taught us that to understand the heat cycle of an engine or the thermodynamic cycle of an engine is to understand the design implications and theoretical limits of an engine’s efficiency.  Practical experience, as well as science, has taught us that to manage heat is to manage reliability and longevity of any engine.  The rocket scientists of Rocketdyne have become the unquestioned experts at the management and manipulation of heat.  It is this expertise from design to dissipation that allows the experts at Rocketdyne to design and maintain a better “mousetrap” when it comes to gasification.

3.) Moon shot R&D.  In 1994 United Technologies Corporation (UTC) bought Rocketdyne from Boeing to take all that rocket experience and marry that with its own massive $2.5 B Research and Development (R&D) budget, making it the most respected aerospace company since that time. UTC married the newly acquired asset, Rocketdyne, with its aircraft engine turbine world leader, Pratt and Whitney, forming Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne.  This newly formed entity, also known as PWR, has become a gold mine of R&D know how, and been-there-done-that experience.  Fifty years of federal and private dollars in chasing the moon and beyond, combined with its current R&D budget has enabled the merged entity to become a national treasure of R&D.  It was for such a time as this that these treasures are once again available to be used for the good of mankind in holding with the tradition of the original moon shot objectives.  PWR’s research scientist are leading the way into a new frontier of energy independence, energy security, and environmental responsibility.  It is this leadership in R&D that allows for a top down objective-based design that has allowed the scientists and engineers at Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne to build a completely new approach to gasification that is truly disruptive in scope and scale.  From their early work on conceptual design, to their most recent work in various pilot plants, to the recently announced work with ZEEP, ExxonMobil and others yet unannounced, PWR is finally ready to unveil the gasifier worthy of such a team.

In addition to PWR, ZEEP will be establishing relationships with other technology partners in key areas such as gas turbines, compressors, etc… These leading technology partners will allow ZEEP to fulfill its commitment to construct and operate multiple Energy Centers throughout the world. ZEEP will use PWR gasification technology as the core technology at the heart of these Energy Centers.