For Immediate Release

November 15, 2008

By:  Mary Jane Grinstead, MJC Inc.

Growth Dimensions Announces Commercialization Award Winner

 Packer Engineering receives grant for prototype

Belvidere, IL – November 15, 2008 – Growth Dimensions of Belvidere and Boone County, Inc., a public-private corporation for economic development, has awarded the first Biomass Commercialization Award to Packer Engineering of Naperville, IL, a diversified, multi-discipline, full service engineering firm.

Growth Dimensions encourages economic development through investment in research and commercialization projects. The organization has the authority from the US Department of Energy to award funds for projects that lead to marketable biomass products or processes. The Commercialization Awards program focuses both on strategic technology development and on commercialization.

“Our goal is to create the dual benefit of biomass product platforms as well as  a critical mass of projects that flow through our region that can be spun out and commercialized,” says Mark Williams, Growth Dimensions executive director. Growth Dimensions was recently recognized by the International Economic Development Council for the organization’s sustainable and green initiatives.

Packer Engineering is developing a gasifier which uses biomass waste to generate electricity and produce heat. Packer will use the $80,000 Biomass Commercialization Award to build a prototype of the gasifier and test out the design.

The project has two components: efficiently converting crop waste into gaseous fuel and then producing electricity and using that electricity to produce fertilizer. Packer is working with N-Ovations of Savannah, IL and Northern Illinois University on the project. The three are the co-recipients of a $1 million US Department of Agriculture grant for research efforts that relate to this project.

“The origin of this project came from research we were doing on space-based manufacturing,” says Packer Engineering Senior Director Peter Schubert, Ph.D. “Our founder challenged us to see what we could do to advance that research to help farmers. We started applying our methods of vaporizing materials on the moon to vaporizing materials on the farm to extract gases to make electricity and heat.” 

There about 2 million farms across the US. Packer is designing a system that will be safe, reliable, and that a farm hand can run. The input is crop waste; the output is electricity plus heat which can be used on the farm, sold back into the power grid through net metering, or used to produce fertilizer.

“We’ve been very aggressive in pursuing the total solution with the farmer,” Schubert says. “We are visiting equipment manufacturers and farmers to find out how can the farmer do the best job of gathering the biomass from field, storing it, and chopping it up properly. Our design intent is to make a device that the farmer can start up in about an hour and a half in the morning and it will run for 22 hours unattended.”

Packer expects to have the gasifier prototype up and running in March and anticipates that by summer they will have enough information from the prototype to construct a business plan and model to take the next steps toward commercialization. “Our goal is to increase jobs and revenue in the Rockford area by eventually doing manufacturing there,” Schubert says.

“At Packer Engineering we are passionate about alternative energy research,” Schubert says. “The gasifer is one of several initiatives we are working on. We have five patents and are working with Argonne National Labs on storing hydrogen on a vehicle. We are researching electrical generation using space solar power—putting solar panels in orbit and beaming energy with low density radio waves back to the earth.”

Growth Dimensions provides the Biomass Commercialization Awards through a competitive, merit based open solicitation process on a first-come, first-served basis. The award value is based on proposal detailed costs, scope, tasks, and deliverables of each project. To be eligible, projects will have non-federal government matching funds equal to $1.60 for every $1 of award granted.

Growth Dimensions (www.growthdimensions.org) is a 501 C (6) public-private corporation for economic development founded in 1979. Growth Dimensions coordinates and manages the strategic initiative projects that are identified in the Belvidere-Boone County Economic Development Strategic Plan. Growth Dimensions also serves as an advocate with developers to troubleshoot issues that might impact their development plans. The organization maintains close contact with the city, village, and county officials and development staff regarding development codes and standards. Growth Dimensions is also the lead liaison for manufacturing companies in Boone County, regarding public sector issues and the delivery of economic development services.