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Cashing In On Green
MN Valley Business
March 31, 2009
By Tim Krohn
A green energy venture near Rapidan started at Greg Hawkinson’s thermostat. More precisely, with the monthly heating bill he gets in the mail.
His rural home, built in the cheap electricity days of the 1970s, is heated entirely with electricity.
“The bills were $700, $900 a month. We started tinkering with things, and the next thing we were designing things,” said Hawkinson, CEO of Green Duck Energy Solutions.
While he and a team of colleagues and friends didn’t find a magic bullet for his heat bills, they are designing and marketing a variety of lower-powered solar panels, including some that attach to the roofs of golf carts and flexible panels that light up billboards and signs.
Small startups like Green Duck, and major players such as a the Finland-based turbine gearbox manufacturer building an $8 million plant in Faribault, are being actively courted by local economic development officials hoping to grow jobs and create a new economic future.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty said creating green jobs is the bright spot amid the recession.
“It’s a huge opportunity,” said Pawlenty in a recent interview. He said the state needs to ensure more research and development are done in the state, which will lead to more green products produced here.
And, he said, rural Minnesota should be well poised to tap into much of the clean economy, particularly renewable energy.
“It’s very promising ... if you look around the greater Minnesota landscape, you’ll see a great deal of movement.”
Helping green startups
Tom Riley, new business development director with Greater Mankato Growth, said the area has many existing companies capitalizing on the push for clean energy.
“Look at things like the Wilmarth plant recycling waste. We have a lot of local investors in wind farms in southwestern Minnesota. Schwickert’s is doing a lot with solar lighting and making huge moves into green roofing. The big local generator companies are looking at alternative fuels for generators instead of diesel,” Riley said.
What existing businesses and new ideas need most, Riley says, is easier access to the business, technical and financial help that’s available and a clear commitment — in funding and assistance — from the state.
“We need to help those people with entrepreneurial enterprises. There are a lot of resources out there, but there are a lot of separate groups with separate budgets. There’s no unified place for people to get help.”
Riley said he and others, including Minnesota State University, are trying to connect people with the help that’s available and do it without duplicating what someone else is doing.
He said the area already has a powerful base of clean energy research and support. Colleges such as MSU are deep into research on biofuels. The Agricultural Utilization Research Institute in Waseca is continuing work on alternative uses for crop wastes, using ash as farm fertilizers, and other research.
The University of Minnesota’s Southern Outreach and Research station in Waseca performs crop research, including more organic farming that reduces the use of oil-based products.
Community and technical colleges, including in North Mankato and Worthington have partnered with MSU and others on renewable fuel research, including wind and solar.
“If you can bring all these resources together for someone in the wind industry or other industries, it’s a powerful tool to attract and develop those businesses,” Riley said. “We need to help them connect the dots.”
Green Duck
A pair of large work shops on Hawkinson’s rural Rapidan home serves as the base for Green Duck Energy. The place has all the look and feel of a startup on a tight budget. Wall dividers provide office space that is shared with a shop where solar panels, batteries tools and a variety of projects in various stages are scattered.
“We’re trying to go from a startup to a real company,” said Hawkinson. Known as “Tank” to his friends, Hawkinson has a diverse background that includes real estate sales and bartending.
Hawkinson met Rich Lehmann, the firm’s president, nearly 30 years ago in the Army. Lehmann, who practices law in Los Angeles, spends much of his time here as the company, which launched in July 2007, evolves.
Other partners in the venture are Zac Lyons, whose family owned the Square Deal where Hawkinson worked, and Sue Prosser, who had a home-based graphic design business.
Lehmann, who had a lifelong interest in the subject, said the friends began serious discussions about renewable energy business possibilities three years ago. The problem as they saw it was that most green business ventures tend toward big projects, such as wind farms or big home solar projects, or oddities such as solar calculators.
“We’re trying to show there’s a lot in between,” Lehmann said.
Green Duck (greenduckenergy.com) is focusing attention on thin, flexible solar panels they are using to power golf carts and for lighting signs and bus stops.
The 4-pound solar panel for golf carts simply has a self-adhesive backing that attaches to the roof of the cart and some retrofitting to power the batteries.
Green Duck believes there is a lucrative market in using similar solar panels for lighting signs and bus stops because it’s expensive to trench in new wiring — and the added electric costs — for signs and bus stops, especially those far away from a power source.
“If you want a nice lighted sign out in front of your parking lot, you don’t have to dig a trench to it,” Lehmann said.
Hawkinson said the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented to greatly expand the use of renewable energy resources.
“The technologies are there. It just requires a lot of tweaking and adding to them,” Hawkinson said.
Green Duck is working with several manufacturers, mostly in the Midwest, who take their ideas and design and manufacture the items for them. If the business thrives, they hope to work with area manufacturers to produce products.
“If the government really pushes us to change from an oil-based economy to a sustainable or at least partially sustainable economy, I think there will be an explosion of ideas and businesses getting into it,” Hawkinson said.
And Lehmann says there is plenty that homeowners can do with existing products to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint.
“You can buy solar and wind mini-plants and make your power monthly instead of buying it. Some of the solar panels can last 20 years. It already makes sense for people to do these things at the home level.
And inexpensive changes, such as using compact fluorescent light bulbs and adding insulation, can make significant differences. “You can go totally off the grid if you want, but you can also get 30, or 50 or 75 percent off the grid,” Lehmann said.
Where to start
Virtually every state, county and community wants to attract clean-energy jobs, but knowing how to do that is a challenge.
The new green economy can be small startups such as Green Duck or heavy hitters already established in the industry.
In Faribault, Finland-based Moventas is building its first North American assembly plant.
The 75,000-square-foot plant will assemble wind turbine gearboxes and bring a $4 million payroll for 90 employees.
John Frey, recently retired dean of the college of Science, Engineering and Technology at Minnesota State University, said any community can attract green jobs if they go at it methodically.
“The common denominator, no matter the size of the town, is they need to look at their resources. It requires an audit from an outside source,” Frey says.
In fact, he believes small towns will have an advantage. “If we do go with renewable energy, it’s going to be a non-metropolitan enterprise. It’s going to be the Comfreys and Walnut Groves that will benefit because they will be producing our bioenergy, whether it’s wind or biofuels.”
He also thinks communities of all sizes need to create a specific plan for reducing energy use. “Conservation is going to have to be a key element. We need to look at our buildings and our building materials and how we handle our wastes.
“Every community needs to say, ‘Where do we want to be in 2025?’ They need to say at least 25 percent of their energy needs to be renewable by then and then try to top that goal.”
Frey has been actively involved at MSU on alternative energy projects and has in the past year or so focused on a partnership with Sweden.
MSU is the Minnesota headquarters and one of three higher-education partners in the new International Renewable Energy Technology Institute, created by Sweden to collaborate with the United States on new renewable-energy technologies.
Last fall, MSU co-hosted International Bioenergy Days, and last month Frey made a trip to Sweden, considered the leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Frey said they want to bring Swedish technology to America and need to ensure the licensing, codes and rules are standardized to allow for it.
“There is a lot of good technology across the world,” Frey said.
“If you talk to the Swedes, they say this is not just an environmental thing, but very big business. The success they’ve had going to self-sufficiency and sustainability has energized their economy. There’s great job creation.”
Frey said people may not all agree on the severity of global warming but said going renewable will be necessary because the price of carbon-producing products are going to increase as government puts a higher price on carbon emissions.
“Right now the lower price of gas is distracting people. But we need to get together and say over the long run we need to be carbon neutral and energy independent. Sweden sees those both as being business issues.”
He said the national focus on renewable energy will propel innovation. “As people push toward a negative carbon footprint that is going to open up ideas that haven’t been considered before.”
But, he said, government will need to help with the costly investments to get things moving.
“If you look at gasification, which will become much more common, it will require a lot of wood and grasses. But you have to have the plant before people will invest in the rest of it and that is where state and federal money can come on board.”
Frey believes the state is behind compared to states such as Iowa.
“They’re really pounding the pavement to get industries and jobs. I think we’re kind of in a shell here, and we think that if there is an answer to our problems, we have to come up with it ourselves, when, in fact, the international community has the answers,” Frey said. “We just need to swallow a little of our pride and admit that.”
J. Drake Hamilton of the Twin Cities-based group Fresh Energy said communities can capitalize quickly in the green economy by taking advantage of the federal stimulus money.
She said the current 9 million clean energy jobs in America could become 37 million jobs by 2030.
Hamilton was appointed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty to serve on the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group, which made recommendations to the Legislature.
Beyond longer-term projects such as wind farms, she said a quick difference can be made by investing in energy efficiency and conservation.
“Getting all our buildings insulated. Getting all our lighting retrofitted. Those kinds of things that save money and energy are the best investments that government can make,” she said.
MN Valley Business
March 31, 2009
By Tim Krohn
A green energy venture near Rapidan started at Greg Hawkinson’s thermostat. More precisely, with the monthly heating bill he gets in the mail.
His rural home, built in the cheap electricity days of the 1970s, is heated entirely with electricity.
“The bills were $700, $900 a month. We started tinkering with things, and the next thing we were designing things,” said Hawkinson, CEO of Green Duck Energy Solutions.
While he and a team of colleagues and friends didn’t find a magic bullet for his heat bills, they are designing and marketing a variety of lower-powered solar panels, including some that attach to the roofs of golf carts and flexible panels that light up billboards and signs.
Small startups like Green Duck, and major players such as a the Finland-based turbine gearbox manufacturer building an $8 million plant in Faribault, are being actively courted by local economic development officials hoping to grow jobs and create a new economic future.
Gov. Tim Pawlenty said creating green jobs is the bright spot amid the recession.
“It’s a huge opportunity,” said Pawlenty in a recent interview. He said the state needs to ensure more research and development are done in the state, which will lead to more green products produced here.
And, he said, rural Minnesota should be well poised to tap into much of the clean economy, particularly renewable energy.
“It’s very promising ... if you look around the greater Minnesota landscape, you’ll see a great deal of movement.”
Helping green startups
Tom Riley, new business development director with Greater Mankato Growth, said the area has many existing companies capitalizing on the push for clean energy.
“Look at things like the Wilmarth plant recycling waste. We have a lot of local investors in wind farms in southwestern Minnesota. Schwickert’s is doing a lot with solar lighting and making huge moves into green roofing. The big local generator companies are looking at alternative fuels for generators instead of diesel,” Riley said.
What existing businesses and new ideas need most, Riley says, is easier access to the business, technical and financial help that’s available and a clear commitment — in funding and assistance — from the state.
“We need to help those people with entrepreneurial enterprises. There are a lot of resources out there, but there are a lot of separate groups with separate budgets. There’s no unified place for people to get help.”
Riley said he and others, including Minnesota State University, are trying to connect people with the help that’s available and do it without duplicating what someone else is doing.
He said the area already has a powerful base of clean energy research and support. Colleges such as MSU are deep into research on biofuels. The Agricultural Utilization Research Institute in Waseca is continuing work on alternative uses for crop wastes, using ash as farm fertilizers, and other research.
The University of Minnesota’s Southern Outreach and Research station in Waseca performs crop research, including more organic farming that reduces the use of oil-based products.
Community and technical colleges, including in North Mankato and Worthington have partnered with MSU and others on renewable fuel research, including wind and solar.
“If you can bring all these resources together for someone in the wind industry or other industries, it’s a powerful tool to attract and develop those businesses,” Riley said. “We need to help them connect the dots.”
Green Duck
A pair of large work shops on Hawkinson’s rural Rapidan home serves as the base for Green Duck Energy. The place has all the look and feel of a startup on a tight budget. Wall dividers provide office space that is shared with a shop where solar panels, batteries tools and a variety of projects in various stages are scattered.
“We’re trying to go from a startup to a real company,” said Hawkinson. Known as “Tank” to his friends, Hawkinson has a diverse background that includes real estate sales and bartending.
Hawkinson met Rich Lehmann, the firm’s president, nearly 30 years ago in the Army. Lehmann, who practices law in Los Angeles, spends much of his time here as the company, which launched in July 2007, evolves.
Other partners in the venture are Zac Lyons, whose family owned the Square Deal where Hawkinson worked, and Sue Prosser, who had a home-based graphic design business.
Lehmann, who had a lifelong interest in the subject, said the friends began serious discussions about renewable energy business possibilities three years ago. The problem as they saw it was that most green business ventures tend toward big projects, such as wind farms or big home solar projects, or oddities such as solar calculators.
“We’re trying to show there’s a lot in between,” Lehmann said.
Green Duck (greenduckenergy.com) is focusing attention on thin, flexible solar panels they are using to power golf carts and for lighting signs and bus stops.
The 4-pound solar panel for golf carts simply has a self-adhesive backing that attaches to the roof of the cart and some retrofitting to power the batteries.
Green Duck believes there is a lucrative market in using similar solar panels for lighting signs and bus stops because it’s expensive to trench in new wiring — and the added electric costs — for signs and bus stops, especially those far away from a power source.
“If you want a nice lighted sign out in front of your parking lot, you don’t have to dig a trench to it,” Lehmann said.
Hawkinson said the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented to greatly expand the use of renewable energy resources.
“The technologies are there. It just requires a lot of tweaking and adding to them,” Hawkinson said.
Green Duck is working with several manufacturers, mostly in the Midwest, who take their ideas and design and manufacture the items for them. If the business thrives, they hope to work with area manufacturers to produce products.
“If the government really pushes us to change from an oil-based economy to a sustainable or at least partially sustainable economy, I think there will be an explosion of ideas and businesses getting into it,” Hawkinson said.
And Lehmann says there is plenty that homeowners can do with existing products to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint.
“You can buy solar and wind mini-plants and make your power monthly instead of buying it. Some of the solar panels can last 20 years. It already makes sense for people to do these things at the home level.
And inexpensive changes, such as using compact fluorescent light bulbs and adding insulation, can make significant differences. “You can go totally off the grid if you want, but you can also get 30, or 50 or 75 percent off the grid,” Lehmann said.
Where to start
Virtually every state, county and community wants to attract clean-energy jobs, but knowing how to do that is a challenge.
The new green economy can be small startups such as Green Duck or heavy hitters already established in the industry.
In Faribault, Finland-based Moventas is building its first North American assembly plant.
The 75,000-square-foot plant will assemble wind turbine gearboxes and bring a $4 million payroll for 90 employees.
John Frey, recently retired dean of the college of Science, Engineering and Technology at Minnesota State University, said any community can attract green jobs if they go at it methodically.
“The common denominator, no matter the size of the town, is they need to look at their resources. It requires an audit from an outside source,” Frey says.
In fact, he believes small towns will have an advantage. “If we do go with renewable energy, it’s going to be a non-metropolitan enterprise. It’s going to be the Comfreys and Walnut Groves that will benefit because they will be producing our bioenergy, whether it’s wind or biofuels.”
He also thinks communities of all sizes need to create a specific plan for reducing energy use. “Conservation is going to have to be a key element. We need to look at our buildings and our building materials and how we handle our wastes.
“Every community needs to say, ‘Where do we want to be in 2025?’ They need to say at least 25 percent of their energy needs to be renewable by then and then try to top that goal.”
Frey has been actively involved at MSU on alternative energy projects and has in the past year or so focused on a partnership with Sweden.
MSU is the Minnesota headquarters and one of three higher-education partners in the new International Renewable Energy Technology Institute, created by Sweden to collaborate with the United States on new renewable-energy technologies.
Last fall, MSU co-hosted International Bioenergy Days, and last month Frey made a trip to Sweden, considered the leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Frey said they want to bring Swedish technology to America and need to ensure the licensing, codes and rules are standardized to allow for it.
“There is a lot of good technology across the world,” Frey said.
“If you talk to the Swedes, they say this is not just an environmental thing, but very big business. The success they’ve had going to self-sufficiency and sustainability has energized their economy. There’s great job creation.”
Frey said people may not all agree on the severity of global warming but said going renewable will be necessary because the price of carbon-producing products are going to increase as government puts a higher price on carbon emissions.
“Right now the lower price of gas is distracting people. But we need to get together and say over the long run we need to be carbon neutral and energy independent. Sweden sees those both as being business issues.”
He said the national focus on renewable energy will propel innovation. “As people push toward a negative carbon footprint that is going to open up ideas that haven’t been considered before.”
But, he said, government will need to help with the costly investments to get things moving.
“If you look at gasification, which will become much more common, it will require a lot of wood and grasses. But you have to have the plant before people will invest in the rest of it and that is where state and federal money can come on board.”
Frey believes the state is behind compared to states such as Iowa.
“They’re really pounding the pavement to get industries and jobs. I think we’re kind of in a shell here, and we think that if there is an answer to our problems, we have to come up with it ourselves, when, in fact, the international community has the answers,” Frey said. “We just need to swallow a little of our pride and admit that.”
J. Drake Hamilton of the Twin Cities-based group Fresh Energy said communities can capitalize quickly in the green economy by taking advantage of the federal stimulus money.
She said the current 9 million clean energy jobs in America could become 37 million jobs by 2030.
Hamilton was appointed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty to serve on the Minnesota Climate Change Advisory Group, which made recommendations to the Legislature.
Beyond longer-term projects such as wind farms, she said a quick difference can be made by investing in energy efficiency and conservation.
“Getting all our buildings insulated. Getting all our lighting retrofitted. Those kinds of things that save money and energy are the best investments that government can make,” she said.
Copyright 2008-2010 Green Duck Energy Solutions, Inc.