CARIBOU — Could hay be the next big thing in the biomass to energy market? Jim Trussler, the CEO/Co-founder of LST Energy — a start-up company commercializing a patented system to burn hay in traditional furnaces and boilers — thinks that it could be.
Trussler, via conference call, will be giving an overview of his concept at a meeting of the Northern Maine Development Commission’s (NMDC) Economic Development Partnership. The meeting, which is open to the public, will take place this morning at 9 a.m. in the NMDC board room in Caribou.
“For more than a year now the Economic Development Partnership has served as a convener of sorts for sharing ideas and providing occasions where people of like mind and purpose are able to explore and discuss matters that influence our economy in remarkable ways,” said Alain Ouellette, planning and development division director for NMDC.
Accord to NMDC officials, scientists have been unsuccessfully trying to find a method to use hay for conventional heating applications for decades — but LST Energy found a way. The system has been tested over two winters by the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. This breakthrough enables new opportunities for farmers to monetize hay crops, entrepreneurs to process the hay into fuel pellets and consumers to cut their heating costs in half.
Trussler is a longtime entrepreneur and certified accountant specializing in international tax and finance. Over the past decade and a half he has been involved in six startups ranging from emergency medicine to 3D innovations, social media apps and precision metal products.
Additional information about Trussler and hay-to-energy can be found on YouTube, http://youtu.be/0r4gtk1jMo0.
The meeting is free to attend, but space is limited. To register, please contact Judy Dinsmore at 498-8736 or by e-mail at jdinsmore@nmdc.org.
