Small biz tech STARTUP.

• Author: Peterson, Eric

COMPANY

Cool Energy Inc.

INITIAL LIGHT BULB Sam P. Weaver founded Cool Energy with his father, Sam C. Weaver, and his brother, Dan Weaver, after a Christmas toy provided inspiration.

Sam C.'s background in nuclear energy led to a longstanding family conversation on how power plants and industrial facilities could reclaim waste heat and convert it to electricity.

Then came Christmas 2005 and the American Stirling Co.'s coffee cup Stirling engine. Robert Stirling's eponymous engines converted waste heat into mechanical energy during the Industrial Revolution, and the toy turned the waste heat from a cup of joe into 250 revolutions per minute. It captivated the Weavers.

Cool Energy now has seven employees, with Sam P. Weaver serving as CEO and his father as chairman of the board. (Dan Weaver is an investor.)

IN A NUTSHELL Cool Energy was born from the idea for a low-temperature Stirling engine that didn't require combustion.

The result of five years of research and development, the company's SolarHeart Engine converts low-temperature waste heat into electricity to be used onsite or sold back to the grid. After four prototypes that advanced the concept from 30 watts to 3 kilowatts, Cool Energy's final 20-kilowatt prototype is currently in the design phase, and Weaver says he expects to build it in early 2014 and subsequently scale up production.

Thanks to better materials and more surface area to facilitate heat exchange, existing SolarHeart Engine prototypes operate at about 22 percent efficiency at 300 degrees Celsius...