Jun 17 2010
At an event sponsored by the City of Irvine Chamber of Commerce, Cake Energy, LLC, a privately held waste energy recovery company, introduced its Duplex Integrated Bio-solids Solution (DIBS) to a panel of Executives from local Venture Capitalist companies, Private Investors and Business Consultants.
Out of 15 companies invited to present their Business and Financial plans, Cake Energy was voted Best Overall Business and received a $10,000 check from the Chamber of Commerce and its sponsors.
“We are excited at this recognition of our technology, our business plan, and investor opportunity,” said Cake Energy CEO Peter Douglas. “Investors are a lot more thorough in their analyses these days and the strong recurring revenue in our financial plan obviously caught their attention.”
Douglas continued, “The goal of this company is to design, develop, own, and operate our processing plants, which are a viable solution for the elimination of sewage sludge, right at the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The revenue model is to charge a flat fee per ton of sludge processed, plus fees for the recovered byproducts. Our process air- dries and atomizes wet sludge to a dry powder Bio-genic fuel to be fluid fired in suspension to sterilize and deodorize the gasses. Waste heat from that process is recaptured to heat incoming fresh air for the initial drying process.
Each ton of sludge processed will produce approximately:
- 1150lb (138 USG) of water condensate from water vapor sterilized at very high temperatures,
- 43lb of sterile, fine grain sand that has many applications in construction related materials, and
- 330 lb of excess dry fuel with resident energy equivalent to 3500 CF of natural gas or, .3Mw of generated electricity at 20% conversion.
It is a truly unique process and is protected by four USA and PCT patent applications, currently in-issue.
“The interest we are receiving from WWTP’s in our ‘Turnkey’ business plan is particularly exciting,” added Douglas. “No doubt the attractive Monetized Contract, bank financing package we are able to offer has a lot to do with that. Our initial projects will be investor funded, but as the performance of this technology becomes known we expect to see this funding program playing an increasing role in future contracts.”
Cake Energy’s VP Marketing, Richard Sherman, stated, “The DIBS technology is setting a new industry standard for the elimination of sewage sludge. This technology will enable wastewater treatment plants to avoid the ecologically dangerous practice of dumping sludge in a landfill or calling it bio-solid fertilizer as a socially acceptable way of getting rid of it. Because we produce and use our own fuel within an enclosed operation, the capital efficiency of this technology is significantly improved. The process operates at ambient pressure on a compact footprint of 50’ x 50’.”
Mr. David Van Toor, Principal, No Plan B, Business Consultant, and a judging panelist, commented, “Cake Energy's offering is a practical implementation of a 'Big Idea.' I was impressed, as impressed, by the impact their plants can have (for) municipalities on multiple levels, as I was by their ability to create manufacturing jobs here in California. To take a problem like sewage waste, and eliminate it in a way that results in valuable by-products while actually creating energy in the process is extraordinary.”