Earlier this month, I attended WasteExpo for MSW Management magazine. Typically, I find that the construction/dirt moving industry is quite a distance ahead of the waste management industry in terms of technology. But it may be lagging in one category, thanks to Ian Wright, the founder of Wrightspeed. He’s come up with a battery electric hybrid power system that Wrightspeed will be installing on Mack trucks. The system uses an 80-kW gas mini-turbine along with regenerative braking to maintain a charge in a bank of Lithium ion batteries.
I asked Mr. Wright about the logic of putting this particular kind of power system into garbage trucks.…
If he looks and sounds somewhat familiar, it may be because Ian Wright also happens to be the co-founder of Tesla Motors.
And what does this have to do with dirt moving? Especially now that just about everything is being made Tier 4? Maybe we need to look further ahead into the future where our heavy equipment runs on electricity. Could you imagine the savings in fuel? Would you choose to operate iron run by batteries?