The Compound

Hi Everyone,

I know many of you are waiting to hear about my experience at the ReThink Methane Conference on Tuesday.  I’m writing up a report for our internal use, and I will share details with you all soon.  I made a lot of great contacts, potential industry partners, and even some advice one where to look for funding opportunities.  I want to finish that report first, then I will share my thoughts with you all.

I have mentioned before we are pursing a grant from the ARPA-E OPEN 2018 funding round.  We are finalizing our concept paper and should be done shortly.  We are the only company in the world that has developed a series compound engine configuration for a rotary engine, and our funding request is to complete our research on this engine.  This amazing technology removes almost all noise from the exhaust (93%) which is crucial for the quiet operation of a VTOL vehicle in urban areas.  In addition, because this is essentially turbocharging and supercharging simultaneously, you get far greater engine efficiency.  But, we do have some work to do to complete the development of this engine, and we hope to receive grant funding from ARPA-E for this.  In terms of applications, this design can be used efficient biogas/sourgas generators and for small 1 kW generators with extremely low operational sounds, which is a requirement for the ARPA-E GENSETS program.

In addition to the ARPA-E funding, we are also pursuing other opportunities.  We recently got past the first approval phase for funding by Elemental Excelerator, and they now want us to submit a full application.  So I will be working on that application, as they offer $1,000,000 in funding for breakthrough technology in energy.

OK – just a short post today, I have to run and I will give you all a more detailed report on the ReThink Methane Conference in the next day or so.

BTW – the picture at the top of this post is the only photo we have of the Skycar M400 flight before Moller International shareholders.  For *whatever* reason, no one at Moller thought to take video!!!!  I’m upset as you are, but at least we have this photo.

Best Regards – Dave