[Brief translation]
"This can be an enormous push," the president of a university-launched engineering venture firm Xenesys Inc., Kiminao Satomi felt strongly when he learned about President Bush's State of the Union address in which he claimed that America is addicted to oil and called for spending 2.1 billion dollars on development of alternative energy sources.
Xenesys Inc. undertakes experiments to commercialize the power generation system that takes advantage of temperature differential in seawater in Kuwait. Even though constructing the power plants takes an enormous amount of money, operation costs for the system are inexpensive as it is not influenced by weather conditions and there is no need for fuel. The technology has suddenly begun to attract attention while deterioration of situations in the Middle East makes oil prices unstable.
The number of inquiries on the technology from small island governments has been increasing lately, and completion of a new contract by the fall and commencement of electricity supply to those countries next year are predicted. The president Satomi expects the energy policy shift in the United States might let the Japanese government consider targeting their technology for Official Development Assistance.
The company's technology is based on the Uehara Cycle theory proposed by the former professor at Saga University Haruo Uehara. Warm surface seawater evaporates light liquid ammonia, and the vapor turns a turbine to generate electricity and then is condensed by cold deep seawater to be used again. The same cycle continues.
The Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995 motivated the president Satomi, who was a proprietor of a brewing-machine developer in Hyogo, to venture into the new business. "I felt like starting to do something good for society when faced with devastated brewing industry in Nada District, Kobe," said the president. The former professor Uehara's research theme had been of interest to the president Satomi for a while.
The president Satomi has dispatched his staff to the professor's research room at Saga University since 1997, and even after Dr. Uehara retired, the company has continued researching in the experimental plants at Institute of Energy, Saga University. The president shows his confidence, saying technical obstacles are almost overcome. Engineers account for 70% of the staff in the company, and it spends 200-250 million yen on investments in research and development activities and cooperates with a major titanium manufacturer Kobe Steel, Ltd. in regards to development of titanium-type heat exchangers.
According to the general manager of Xenesys Inc. Koyohiko Aiba, operating costs for the technology are merely one-tenth of thermal power generation although even small-scale plants cost 10 billion yen to construct. The president Satomi acknowledges their main challenge from now is reducing construction costs. A test run in Kuwait was selected as the 2005 model project and subsidized by Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO). Since the vast majority of lands are covered by desert and the birth rate is higher than Western countries, Kuwait has great interest in seawater desalination, which provides daily life water. The experiment in Kuwait scheduled this summer is getting a lot of attention.

The importance of manufacturing technology and know-how for sales
According to a section manager of Titanium Department in Kobe Steel, Ltd., Xenesys Inc. is a venture firm that has the ground to develop an original technology that any other companies have never tried. As Xenesys Inc. already has specialists needed for each technical field, they will need to improve their sales capabilities and have a record of sales to take their project forward into its next stage. Marketing strategies and manufacturing technology are the keys to success for Xenesys Inc., Okamoto pointed out.