It all started with rising fuel prices, curiosity and a few mason jars. For two years, Carl Neff researched ways to increase the gas mileage in his 1997 Chevrolet Blazer. When the makeshift hydrogen fuel cell made from old glass jars failed, Neff turned to H2 Pure Power’s hydrogen canisters. Now, along with his father Gary and brother Clayton, Neff plans to start a family-owned and operated business installing the generators in cars and trucks in the Flathead Valley.
“I’ve always been interested in alternative energy sources,” Neff said while working alongside his father and brother last week to install their first canister at H2 Pure Power’s workshop in south Kalispell. “Not only will it help provide jobs for the community, but no matter what it affects everybody.”
The potential of clean energy production in the West, particularly in Montana, made headlines recently when a study released June 10 by The Pew Charitable Trusts ranked this state among the lowest nationwide in clean job growth between 1998 and 2007. Gov. Brian Schweitzer disputed Pew’s findings and, as chair of the Western Governors’ Association, said he and his fellow governors have vowed to remain committed to clean energy technologies, which, according to Pew, employed 2,155 Montanans in 2007.
As jobs in the timber and manufacturing industries have declined in the Flathead, and as the area’s economy continues to look for ways to diversify, it’s too early to predict whether clean energy will supplement some of the lost jobs in Northwest Montana. But there is, at least, a growing consensus about the area’s potential.
“The future looks really bright for our specific department, because efficiency in part is going to become an even more important component of our business,” Ross Holter, Flathead Electric Cooperative’s director of energy services, said.
Last year, FEC created two new positions in its Energy Services Department to support home energy audits, insulation and window replacement programs, and the new Montana Home Construction program, Holter said. The company also contracted with energy consulting and certification firm KEMA to conduct audits, which created the need for the firm to hire additional staff.
This week FEC fires up the turbines on an innovative new generation plant at the Flathead County landfill harnessing methane gas generated by the waste into electricity.
In total, Holter said, FEC has about 163 employees, of which four jobs would qualify as part of the clean energy field.
Across the valley, clean energy operations are sprouting up, from mom and pop shops where locals are running small biodiesel businesses, to potentially bigger operations. At the F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company, officials are looking into building a cogeneration plant to derive energy from the steam process used to dry out wood.
Back at H2 Pure Power’s installation workshop, five trucks sat parked in a large garage, their hoods popped and engines waiting to be converted from gas guzzlers to clean hydrogen-powered machines. On a nearby table, inventor Jerry Nezat wielded a torch with a 6-inch flame generated by his hydrogen canister invention.
The fuel generator looks like two simple, rectangular plastic boxes – one clear, the other white. One box holds the key to Nezat’s design, stainless steel plates leached of iron and “nano coated” to create at least 20 times the actual space of the plates, thereby producing more hydrogen. The second box houses the newly created HHO gas, which is a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.
“Clean air is the big benefit of this,” company founder Mary Meadows said. “The engine compartment burns up all particulates to get zero emissions.”
Meadows, an environmental medicine doctor who previously ran a clinic in Texas, and Nezat, a self-described amateur inventor with a strong chemistry and manufacturing background, linked up last year and hatched a plan to help Flathead Valley residents achieve better gas mileage.
H2 Pure Power employs five people in their plant and provides opportunities to about 20 mechanics and manufacturer representatives. They also hold seminars all over the state, where attendees have been numbering in the hundreds.
“I’m excited to be in Montana, creating jobs and a better economy,” Meadows said. “We’re kind of a preparation and stepping stone for a whole new energy field. It’s like being at the doorway, like what Bill Gates was at. We have a chance to help Montana be a shining star.”
Looking back on the 2009 Legislature, Schweitzer expressed disappointment that certain bills he believes would have bolstered jobs in the clean energy industry failed to make it through the session. Despite that, he argues that Montana’s alternative energy production is expanding at a respectable clip under his tenure. In an interview with the Beacon last week, he said he did not understand where the Pew study got its numbers.
“I don’t know what they’re considering for jobs or where they got their info,” he said. At one wind farm in Montana, for example, he said there are 360 employees. “No state is increasing their wind generation rate as fast as we are.”
But those jobs are far east of the Flathead. In northwest Montana, Schweitzer said it was difficult to assess job growth in the clean energy sector since the area doesn’t manufacture traditional renewables, grow many crops to be used for biofuel or have much potential for wind power. For now, any growth will be at the hands of small businesses headed by fledgling entrepreneurs.
Schweitzer recently stepped up as chair of the Western Governors’ Association, an organization composed of governors throughout the West to address policy and governance issues. The annual meeting, which was held in Park City, Utah, last week, will meet in Whitefish next year. Schweitzer expects about 600 attendees from dozens of countries.
He said his focus as chairman will be to build remodeling for transmission corridors in order to ramp up the state’s wind and solar power capacity.
“We quadrupled the grid when I became governor,” he said from Park City in a press conference to wrap up this year’s WGA meeting. “Wind and solar and geothermal are all things the West can offer, but transmission is so much a part of that.”
While the Flathead Valley can look forward to being a part of Montana’s clean energy conversation on a larger scale when the WGA comes to town, for now, residents like the Neffs are continuing to do their part to spur economic growth.
The family is hoping to open up their installation shop by winter. And while Gary dreams of eventually growing the business to reach clients in Helena and Billings, Carl knows where to find his first clients.
“It all starts here, in the valley,” he said.