Dr.-Ing. Klaus H. Hemsath

Born in West Germany I went to the Technical University in Berlin to earn a degree in mechanical engineering. After several semesters, I switched over to chemical engineering with special emphasis on Fuel Technology. For a couple of years I carried out research in coal combustion and taught a laboratory course in experimental fuel technology.

After being selected as the first German representative I accepted a job at the prestigious International Flame Research Foundation in Ijmuiden, The Netherlands. For four years I was in charge of preparing, directing and analyzing large scale experiments on very large coal, oil, and natural gas flames. After expressing interest in flame radiation, I was given the opportunity to make many radiation measurements inside and outside of flames. By combining such data with three-dimensional temperature, concentration, and particle size measurements, I was able to predict flame radiation from a wide variety of flames. This work earned me a doctorate in chemical engineering and heat transfer.

While still working at the research station, I received and accepted a job offer from a well respected American company, which designed, fabricated, and installed large scale, high temperature industrial production equipment. I was able to quickly make some major inventions and contributions and had assignments as research engineer, test engineer, process engineer, and director of R&D. Continuing success led soon to the promotion as Vice President of Corporate R&D. This position was created for me and I was charged with establishing a corporate R&D center and carry out work for a multitude of corporate equipment manufacturing divisions. Times were good and the new R&D center soon attracted external customers, who wanted certain process or equipment improvements. In a couple of years the center grew to well over 100 employees, the majority of them engineers with advanced degrees and doctorates.

It all came to a sudden stop when a Wall Street Firm purchased the stock of the NYSE Corporation I was working for. It then sold all its divisions and made a large profit by taking advantage of an undervalued stock.

Within a few months I had set up my own product development company and quickly attracted continuing support from previous and new customers. The company grew and prospered for about ten years when it was suddenly forced to close its doors due to deregulation efforts by a US government agency. A change in the tax treatment of R&D expenses had made further technology development efforts by my major customer financially unattractive.

In the meantime, I had used some of my inventions to set up a small component manufacturer and I had attracted financing to buy a NYSE equipment manufacturer, which we took private. Life was good again until European and Asian steel manufacturers started dumping steel products onto US markets. Our US government did not react fast enough and a large percentage of our customers went bankrupt after struggling for many months. Our sales volume hit bottom too and disappearing cash flow made a continuation of business too difficult. So we closed shops, again.

This time, I took a different path. Several of my customers were very much interested to acquire US Patents for marketing purposes and to prevent direct copying of their newest products. As Corporate Vice President I had begun earlier to devise strategic plans for several divisions that would allow them to offer more proprietary products and to distinguish themselves from technologically less capable competitors. Such product differentiation could be used effectively for increasing profit margins in highly competitive markets.

For several years I worked with customers formulating plans and helping them to execute by supervising the patent application process. Marginal product improvement ideas were significantly improved and numerous patent awards resulted. By assuring that marketing considerations were made an essential part of the invention process, additional technological advances were made and much more valuable patent applications were submitted and obtained.

Finally, I decided to retire and enjoy my hobby. When working in the Netherlands I had learned sailing and I have been boating ever since. When coming to the USA I lived near the Great Lakes. I enjoyed long distance cruising and visited many of these gorgeous lakes. However, seasons up North are short. So I decided to move to Florida, enjoy the sunny climate, and live closer to my grandkids.

While working, I had always wanted to examine closer the issue of global warming. Working all my life with the application of heat and energy, I felt confident that I could find out whether global warming was a real threat or an issue of only peripheral impact. To my great surprise, I found that global warming is indeed the existential threat described by Al Gore. Worse yet. I had to conclude that presently proposed solutions, including those promoted by the IPCC of the United Nations (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), will not provide the solutions we must implement very soon or the Earth will suffer permanent and irreversible harm. I suddenly had found the subject that I could consider a worthy challenge and I decided to devote the rest of my active life to make contributions for overcoming this imminent, undeniable danger for future generations.

During my career I was awarded more than 60 US Patents. All of them deal with fossil fuel combustion, heat transfer, chemical processing, energy conversion, heat applications, energy conservation, energy efficiency, or related technologies.

Repeatedly I have been in charge of very large, multi-million projects that resulted in sizable installations, which lasted considerably longer than one calendar year to complete. I understand project management and have practiced it. I know that it will take decades to transform the world’ economies from fossil fuel based economies to a new type of economies that depend instead on renewable and alternate energy sources.

My recent experiences have also taught me that it takes seemingly forever to promote my book and have readers take note of my arguments and conclusions.

Therefore, I am now trying to break into the speaking circuit. I am offering my services to explain why we are in a much more precarious situation than commonly acknowledged. We still can avoid the worst effects of global warming if we react. But we must act very fast and must make the correct decisions. We cannot afford to make mistakes!

By nature I am not a pessimist and instead have a “can do” attitude. I believe we can stop global warming. However, we are still missing practical solutions. I am confident that I can propose many of them.

During my career I found out, that only very few people have the ability to envision long term plans and have the ability to conceive long term strategic visions. Halting global warming entails the application of a multitude of complex technologies. I have proved that I can forecast technological developments. However, I do not claim that I can predict political developments.

I am convinced that I have found one such solution that can be implemented without damaging world economies.