Inspiring Green thinking can be contagious.
Newport Beach Indy’s photographer, Jim Collins, recently attended the Toshiba Golf Classic. Collins caught the green bug, and the only remedy is to share.
So, on a weekly basis, all NB Indy columnists gather to talk about the current issue, yak it up, and the only defense is a really good offense with this creative local bunch. Collins, as genuinely excited as I have ever seen him, says there is this guy who I gotta meet, a kindred spirit, and that he has the pictures to prove it. That is all I need from a green buddy. So I made the call to Steven Wilburn, president and CEO of FirmGreen Energy of Newport Beach.
Next thing I know, I am sitting in Wilburn’s office, enjoying the serenity offered by a magnificent view of Newport Harbor, in an office just below the old John Dominis on PCH. Listening to sustainable thinking, observing a passionate entrepreneur is what a day at the spa must feel like for my wife, a source of fresh energy.
Wilburn is an engineer, a resident, and a decorated Marine veteran of Vietnam. While at Allied Signal Corp., he managed the successful development of more than $300 million of alternative-fuel energy generation projects. His latest endeavors, among others, focus on two areas: the sourcing and distribution of cost-effective, greenest Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), and development of technology to make solar panels more efficient.
“A BTU is a BTU,” says Wilburn, referring to a British Thermal Unit, how energy is quantified. He believes if consumers are educated, they will choose his CNG. So he patented gCNG, to separate FirmGreen from other offerings, as a cost-effective, green option. FirmGreen has spent a decade perfecting proprietary technology to extract renewable methane from landfill gas, or other biogas.
All our garbage that sits in landfills gives off gases. FirmGreen then converts that to CNG, which sounds simple enough but is quite a process. Some other landfill byproducts are already establishing markets, like carbon dioxide, which is fixed into pellets. Those pellets are used in things like graffiti abatement or cleaning industrial gunk.
Once the gCNG, the cleanest fuel commercially available as cost-effective BTUs for vehicles, is extracted, it is then ready for distribution to the emerging fleets of CNG vehicles. FirmGreen is actively seeking opportunities to partner with municipalities, utilities, future rent-a-car fleets, anyone who has CNG fleet vehicles, to provide the fuel.
They can perform “wet fueling,” by having a FirmGreen vehicle pull into the lot where the CNG fleet is parked overnight and efficiently refuel. In some cases, drivers suffer from “range anxiety,” where they don’t want to drive too far from a CNG fuel station. So FirmGreen developed mobile distribution capabilities, and is the AAA of CNG.
At the Toshiba Classic, FirmGreen provided CNG transportation in the form of a Green Shuttle for fans and Green Pickup, to really make Toshiba’s EWaste Drive a green event. They also showcased, for the first time, their solar offerings by green-powering the event’s Demo Area, California Pizza Kitchen, sports bar TVs and massage chairs.
The Firm in FirmGreen is important to Wilburn, as evidenced in the other focus product and solution for solar. Rather than compete for manufacturing of new solar panels, FirmGreen is developing technology to make existing and future solar panels more efficient, to squeeze every BTU out of a panel, and out of the sun. With this strategy, they believe local jobs can be created, in scale, to support the solar industry with smart inverters, and facilitate the “magic” in the system.
At the Toshiba event, fans were able to experience the technology that facilitates solar energy use. FirmGreen also has a product, a “Flex Solar Array,” that allows for portable energy generation for such applications as on a boat, or to aid emergency first-responders. FirmGreen has shipped a unit to Japan, and it is being utilized by emergency workers there to generate power for medical devices, lights, water pumps, etc.
Great green stuff from a local, with an expectation of more to come. I shared this story with my two young kids. They wanted to make sure that I took the time to thank Wilburn for his service to our country. Semper Fi.
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