Lakeland Company Has New Solution for Refrigerated Transport

http://www.theledger.com/article/20120205/NEWS/120209674
LAKELAND | An ex-cop might have come up with a big breakthrough for the transportation industry.

Brian Arnold, a former police officer in Auburndale and Tampa, has designed a device that uses kinetic energy to power refrigeration units on semi trailers and train cars.
Called the Wedway Refrigeration Power System, the device would eliminate fuel costs from diesel-powered refrigeration units and also reduce trucks' carbon emissions. Arnold and fellow board members with Lakeland-based startup Emerald Technology Partners say the Wedway could have major implications for refrigerated shipping.
"Think about a company like Publix. If they didn't have to put refrigeration fuel in their trucks, what would that do for their bottom line?" says Arnold, 40, of Lakeland.
The patent-pending Wedway is a gear-based system mounted on a trailer that captures the energy from wheel rotation. The kinetic energy is fed to a generator powering the refrigeration unit, and custom-designed batteries are used to keep the unit running at least 36 hours while the vehicle is stopped.
For extended stops, the Wedway can be plugged into a power source to charge and continue operating.
Emerald Technology Partners — comprised of Arnold and three other law enforcement veterans — sought outside help in developing a working prototype of the Wedway, but officials say its design is entirely the product of Arnold's tinkerer's mind.
"I've always taken stuff apart just to see how it works," Arnold said. "When you spend as many hours as I did in a patrol car, you're seeing things (like trucks on the highway) and always thinking."
The Wedway will soon get a chance to prove itself. Emerald Technology has partnered with the University of Central Florida's Center for Advanced Turbines and Energy Research, which is building a full-scale version of the Wedway. The device will be put through a series of road tests using a refrigerated trailer on loan from an unnamed, international food transportation company.
"I think the most attractive thing to us is the simplicity of it. It's (made using) mostly off-the-shelf components, which is hugely beneficial to bring it to market quickly," said Mark Ricklick, a post-doctoral student and lab manager working on the project at UCF. "It's kind of an obvious solution, and we're surprised this is the first time it's been attempted."
Even if the tests are successful, Ricklick says the Wedway will have to meet numerous government standards before it can become a sellable product. There also is the matter of convincing skeptics.
"People are hesitant to transition to a drastically different technology. That will be part of the challenge," Ricklick said.
Michael Quill, an Emerald Technology board member, says the company has yet to estimate a market price for the Wedway, but says the payback in fuel savings (possibly tens of billions of dollars annually for the U.S. transportation industry) and lower maintenance costs should make it very competitive with conventional refrigeration units. The resulting lower expense in shipping perishable foods might also help in dealing with food inflation, he said.
"We're looking at a product that will, in our minds, potentially revolutionize the way we do business in the transportation industry — emissions for environmental reasons, fuel costs, maintenance costs, and hopefully a reduction in our cost of foods," Quill said. "We are dedicated to producing energy through pure motion. This works."