Habilidades cognitivas

10184 W. Belleview Avenue, Suite 200 Littleton, Colorado 80127

303-933-2200

http://www.ophir.com/

Interviewee: Martin O’Brien, Vice President Ophir Corporation Time of phone interview: 11:00AM November 21, 2006

Technology: Novel Liquid and Gas Pipeline Leak Detection System

Technology Continuum Stage: Stage 2- Development and Stage 3- Demonstration Media: monitor air/water

EPA program(s): SBIR

Sources of funding: EPA SBIR Phase I ($69,958) and Phase II ($224,999) funding.

Ophir also funded some of the expenses internally (NCER SBIR Ophir, 2006) and (NCER SBIR Ophir II, 2006).

Regulation involvement: There are no direct regulations involved with this technology.

Mr. O’Brien said that the regulations regarding pipeline inspection changed about five years ago. The rules changed so that utility companies no longer had to follow a

specified inspection plan, but could come up with their own risk management approach.

Ophir thought that utility companies would no longer want to walk the pipelines, but instead would adopt their new pipeline monitoring technology.

Environmental problem technology solves: Pipelines carrying natural gas or oil may have leaks that release a variety of greenhouse gases including; carbon dioxide, ethane, and methane (NCER SBIR Ophir, 2006). The technology monitors such leaks so that they can be detected quickly and the situation corrected as soon as possible. This will lead to the reduction of greenhouse gases emitted from leaks in gas and oil pipelines. It also will reduce the amount of fuel lost due to the leak and therefore decrease the risk of dangerous explosions.

Environmental impact: The reduction of greenhouse gases will help to keep global warming in check. The environment will also be safer since the leaks will be detected sooner with this technology. This will result in fewer destructive explosions caused by leaks in the pipelines.

Summary: Ophir developed this technology using EPA SBIR funding. Once EPA funding ran out after Phase II, Ophir looked to other sources. They were unable to find a commercial partner or other source of funding. The technology filled too small a niche to have the potential to make a large amount of money. Ophir thought about going through the ETV program, but decided that they would wait until they had customers. The project has been significantly scaled back because there does not appear to be the market that was initially hoped for. Ophir still has a company (Alyeska) that is interested in the

technology, but not immediately. Foresight only provided marginally helpful advice to Ophir; this could be because Ophir has a marketing and business development division.

Mr. O’Brien said that in the right context, Foresight can be a huge help to a company.

(The right context would be a small company that is not thinking about marketing their product.)

Challenges along the way (at what stage): A commercialization stumbling block was finding someone who would pay to package the technology. Most companies only want to purchase a finished product, not actually pay to design the working prototype into a saleable model. After the completion of Phase II, Ophir still needed funding to package the product, so that it was ready to be sold.

Solutions to the challenges (resources used): Ophir is looking for sources of funding.

They are staying in touch with Alyeska, a pipeline company, which is interested in their technology. Now Ophir is waiting to see how interested Alyeska is, and if they are willing to help support the commercialization costs.

Interviewee’s Suggestions to improve environmental technology commercialization:

Mr. O’Brien thinks that EPA can improve their programs by making more of an effort to get the technology commercialized. Some form of support to industry, perhaps as simple as an endorsement to look at technologies developed by the EPA’s SBIR program. He recommends that EPA implement a top down approach to getting the industry involved.

This would mean getting the industry interested in change from top management down.

Mr. O’Brien also commented that EPA investigations into the real needs and cost-drivers of the marketplace would be an important step. Mr. O’Brien feels that EPA needs a reality check to see how the industry will actually react. EPA should find out what the industry will actually spend on a technology, and then focus on funding projects that aim for that price range.

EPA could also meet with executives, as an independent broker. They could encourage companies to invest in EPA sponsored companies/technologies, but they need to understand what the industry will buy.

Major conclusions: The EPA SBIR program was helpful in developing this technology.

The funding helped provide the resources necessary to build and test a working prototype. The market was not what was anticipated at the beginning of this project.

Therefore, the technology turned out to be tougher to market/ commercialize than originally planned.

Nugget of knowledge, interesting fact: There is a huge gap between a working

prototype at the end of Phase II to an end product that companies can actually purchase.

Finding the funding to make that last jump is extremely difficult. For environmentally-driven technology development efforts, some method of bridging the “product

development gap” would be a huge step forward.

Analysis: Mr. O’Brien’s suggestion to have EPA provide a greater push for

commercialization stems from his company’s struggles to convince the power industry to

consider a technology change. His product would provide a much more innovative way for the utility companies to monitor their pipelines, if the companies were willing to consider it. If the technology were able to gain more market pull, it would be able to commercialize because companies would want to use it. Without the market pull, the technology will remain in a state of dormancy because of a lack of funding interest. Mr.

O’Brien also mentioned that EPA could try to figure out the actual drivers of industrial technological change and only fund projects that are aiming to meet those goals at a price that industry will be willing to pay. He did not believe that if EPA were following this practice that Ophir’s technology would have been funded.