Boulder City man misses fund-raising goal for booth at clean energy summit
There’ll be no nuclear reactions at the National Clean Energy Summit.
A Boulder City man trying to buy a booth at the upcoming event missed his Monday fund-raising goal.
Gary Vesperman, a retired technical writer and environmentalist, hoped to raise $3,500 for an exhibit booth at the summit, scheduled for Aug. 30 at Aria. He planned to use the display to promote alternatives to fossil fuels and renewable energy, including a power cell fueled with the radioactive metal thorium.
Vesperman is helping inventors nationwide get the word out about their devices. His “Energy Inventions” booth would have allowed summit attendees, including event cosponsor and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to test and observe some of the devices.
The Review-Journal featured Vesperman in its Sunday Business section, but no one stepped up with aid before the late Monday deadline, Vesperman said Tuesday. It’s a disappointment for Vesperman, who said the government should pay engineers and scientists to test some of the inventions, rather than giving them unemployment benefits.
Vesperman said his ideas went beyond a booth at the summit.
“My vision was to fill up dozens of empty commercial buildings in Henderson and Las Vegas with huge enterprises developing and manufacturing energy inventions,” he said Tuesday. “It is such a shame to lose this opportunity to personally present to (Reid) a realistic way to create thousands of clean-energy invention jobs.”
Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.
