Everest Sciences Inc.

Founded:

2000


Core Business:

Development of high-efficiency intake air systems for electricity-producing gas turbines


Employees in 2007:

1


Employees in 2006:

1


Goal:

To install his Everest Cycle intake systems on additional turbines and then license or sell the technology


Driving Force:

The rising cost of energy, which makes more expensive turbine intake systems economical and desirable

In a modest office at a Van Nuys industrial park sits a piece of machinery built mostly from catalog parts that has the look of a high school science project.

But the Everest Cycle air intake system, a collection of metal boxes, tubes and cables, is actually high science with the potential to boost the country’s energy efficiency to boot.

The Everest Sciences Inc. system uses a patented water evaporation process to cool the air that flows into gas turbines, increasing electricity-producing efficiency by as much as 30 percent.

And while there are other technologies that cool turbine intake air, inventor and company co-founder Les Schlom claims his is superior, using less water, generating colder air and requiring no environmentally-dangerous chemicals to clean the water. The cooler air is needed because it is denser, and dense air makes the turbine process more efficient.

Others are starting to believe him.

In the past three months, the seven-year-old company has sold two of the $500,000 systems to companies that operate turbines to produce electricity for their industrial plants.

“When I was told about his equipment I was skeptical,” acknowledged Jim Leach, president of San Juan Capistrano-based Dana Technologies Inc., an energy systems engineering company. “So, I invited (Schlom) over. He got on the train and came down to see us and we cleaned off the white board and went to it. He can support his technology really well. I was impressed; I did my best to sink his ship.”

Indeed, Leach was impressed enough to work with Schlom to install one of the machines at a Bakersfield food processing plant. (The identity of the plant cannot be disclosed because of a confidentiality agreement.)

Another system is used by Sonoco Products Co. at the packaging company’s plant in Brantford, Ontario, Canada.

Gas turbines produce electricity by spinning electrical generators, but in the process suck in enormous amounts of hot atmospheric air that needs to be cooled something just about certain in Bakersfield in August, for example.

Competitive methods for cooling turbine air include standard refrigeration and fogging, which works similar to the air misters that spray on Palm Springs sidewalks in the summer.

In comparison, Everest’s system indirectly lowers the temperature of intake air by cooling the temperature of the air inside a tube that runs into the intake. This air is cooled by evaporating moisture on the exterior surface of the tube.

“Indirect evaporative cooling has been a lab curiosity for years,” said Schlom, a 74-year-old veteran air conditioning engineer whose workspace looks like a hobbyist’s tinker shop with metal parts stacked and hung about. “People understood that if it could be harnessed it would offer a very energy-efficient method of cooling air.”

Deep roots

Schlom studied mechanical engineering in the 1950s at a variety of local universities and graduated with a degree in the field from California State University, Los Angeles.

After school he was the chief engineer of his family’s local air conditioning business, M. Schlom and Sons. Then in 1974 he began to work with the concept of indirect evaporative cooling as it applied to air conditioning after learning another firm had been developing the technology.

“I took a look at their work, and said, ‘No, it isn’t right.’ And it took me three or four days to make it better,” Schlom said.

The result was a new business called Energy Labs that he founded in 1975 to manufacture large air conditioning equipment based on the process. Schlom sold the company in the early 1980s and worked as a consultant until founding Everest Science in 2000 with the idea of applying evaporative cooling to electricity-producing industrial turbines.

The company got off the ground with $500,000 from outside investors and another $250,000 of personal money from Schlom and co-founder Andy Becwar, who handled finances and business affairs until he died earlier this year.

Frank DiNoto, a Houston-based energy systems consultant who works with Schlom, said the Everest system is preferable to other cooling methods for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it wears less on turbines by keeping moisture from entering the turbine. It’s also extremely durable, with the cooling system able to work in a variety of settings without extensive purification.

“(Schlom) uses at best potable water and at worst strained sea water. You also don’t have highly concentrated chemical-laden water floating in the environment. It uses less power to operate than any of the other systems,” DiNoto said.

It took Schlom two years to build the first prototype and make it operational. But Schlom who works alone and admits, “I don’t like employees” built his last one in five months; he figures with contract help and outside manufacturing he should be able to produce 10 a year, now that the device has been standardized.

“Right now we are ready to build and deliver them,” he said. “The market is absolutely huge.”

The market may be huge, but still there will be obstacles for Everest to penetrate it, not the least of which is the dominance of Mee Industries Inc., a Monrovia firm that makes a fogging system installed on 700 turbines worldwide.

The Mee Industries system is less expensive and simpler that the Everest Cycle system.

“What we do is pretty simple: We atomize water into very small droplets and spray it into the inlet of the turbine,” said President Thomas Mee.

As a result, the Mee systems are far cheaper, costing $50,000 to $250,000 depending on the size of the turbine. Still, even Mee acknowledged that some turbine owners may be attracted to cooling systems that do not spray water into turbines.

“We pretty much dominate the market,” Mee said. “We are kind of the last man standing. So, there might be some manufacturers that are interested in (indirect evaporative cooling).”

Schlom, who hopes to eventually license or sell the Everest Cycle technology, said he figures over time turbine operators will come to see the advantage of his system especially if energy costs continue to rise, as is projected.

“There is an impetus to improve the performance of these plants,” he said.