Fire from the Dragon: Green Entrepreneur Harnesses Truck Energy

New America Media, News Report, Ketaki Gokhale, Posted: Apr 22, 2008

Editor's Note: Innovative Entrepreneur Terry Kenney believes he can help the Green Movement by using diesel fume spewing big rigs, and he's testing out his idea at the Port of Oakland. Ketaki Gokhale is a reporter for New America Media.

OAKLAND, Calif.—It came to Terry Kenney while he was sleeping—a crystal clear vision of an apparatus that would harness the kinetic energy of gargantuan, smoke-spewing trucks to light up homes and businesses with energy that was safe, renewable, and completely clean.

At the time, Kenney was struggling to make it in the music industry, and had no appreciable background in science or technology. Armed only with some logistics experience from his 10 years in the military, and a firm conviction that his idea could make the world a better place, Kenney set out on the hard road to securing funding.

Everybody said it was impossible. His father-in-law, who made a model of the invention to trot out before potential investors, told him in a moment of honesty that his idea just wouldn’t work.

Fast-forward eight years, and here’s Kenney, dressed in a crisply ironed shirt and slacks, standing in the compound of the largest terminal operator at the 255-acre Port of Oakland. A long line of trucks snakes its way to the San Francisco Bay, where two cargo ships wait to be loaded. One truck rumbles at about 15 miles per hour over a group of narrow plates embedded in the asphalt, and a moment later, a solar-powered shed beside the road begins to groan and rattle ominously.



They’re the sounds of a dream coming true. Kenney cobbled it together from components manufactured all over the world—road plates from South Korea and Mexico, tubing and solar panels from different U.S. vendors, and power stations assembled in Mexico.

As the trucks power at low speeds across the plates, they compress a tank of hydraulic fluid under the road, which in turn creates a series of pumping actions that turns a generator to produce electricity. By June, Kenney projects the apparatus, which he dubbed the “Dragon Power Station,” will be producing 5,000 to 7,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each day—enough to power up to 1,750 homes.

The energy produced will be sold to SSA, the Oakland terminal operator that hosts the Dragon, at a discounted rate. The electricity the machine generates will cover only 5 percent of the operator’s energy needs, but represents huge savings for the company—and a chance to jump on the green bandwagon.

An estimated 2,500 trucks pass through SSA’s Oakland facility every day, filling the air with carcinogenic diesel fumes and soot, which can cause asthma and other respiratory ailments in port workers and local residents.

“When we heard about these road plates from the port, we thought it would be a great idea for us to get on this, to help clean up the air here,” says Sandi Lira, vice president and general manager of SSA’s Oakland terminal. “We’re always interested in doing good for the environment, and we’re also interested in saving money.” The company is likely, according to Lira, to install the road plates at its other terminals across the United States.

The plates Kenney developed for trucks are wide and sturdy. They were designed to weather the crushing force of trucks weighing up to 180,000 lbs. He developed a smaller version of the road plate for sedans and other passenger cars, which he hopes to one day see installed at high-traffic theme parks and toll bridges.

Given how quickly Kenney’s invention has caught on, that future doesn’t seem all that distant. In addition to the Port of Oakland, he has also started installing trial versions of the Dragon at the Port of Long Beach, Calif., at a heavily trafficked border crossing between the United States and Mexico, and at the loading sites of European supermarket giant Sainsbury’s. Most recently, Kenney was approached by executives from a Fortune 500 company, who believe his invention is their ticket to “going green.”



But convincing venture capital firms that the Dragon could be a good investment for them, too, has been an uphill battle—and part of it may have to do with race, Kenney says. “As an African American entrepreneur, I’ve found it extremely challenging for me to raise the sufficient capital required to evolve my company,” he explains. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, because I believe in the work we’re doing, and I want to keep the focus on that. And it’s a natural impulse to want to help your own.”

Still, Kenney has managed to rustle up $4 million in funding for his venture, mostly through private investors, fired up by the potential of his idea, and banks. It’s hard work, trying to find money this way, but he seems to prefer it that way. His band of followers is small and incongruous—it includes a Korean bank, a GPS industry baron, and a manufacturer of ice. “There’s a reason God won’t let me find a VC,” he says with a laugh. “With VCs, you have to give up some of your vision…With media and capital investments, we can change the world.”

Kenney grew up with his 10 siblings in a rough neighborhood in Paris, Ky. His parents often had trouble making ends meet, but they did a good job raising their children, Kenney says. Most of his old schoolmates are still in Paris, and many are unrecognizable, he says, because they’re so strung out on drugs.

“You’d never have thought a kid from Kentucky—who grew up in the land of green pastures and Secretariat—would end up joining the army, moving to California and starting an energy company…God works in mysterious ways. I’m transformed. Music used to be my passion, and I don’t really think about it anymore. But if you want to talk about energy, I’m ready to sit down any time.”

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