Our Story

Over half century ago, a brilliant visionary inventor by the name of Michael Wilwerding developed a pool table sized prototype machine that harnesses 4 different engineering principles. Electrolysis used at the molecular level, vacuumed distillation, Super-heated steam at low pressure and mechanical motion. These relationships intrigued the state of California in the 70’s and many other renowned academics. Over the 30 years following, Wilwerding invented numerous prototypes intended to remediate the growing world trash problem, sewage waste problem, and used tire issues. In 1988, at a Gary Indiana “super fund site”, the U.S. government released a report analyzing and discussing Wilwerding’s process's ability to break down automotive fluff - the plastics and foam from cars.  Impressed with the results of the process, the U.S. Government called for the immediate need to upscale and automate for commercial use. In the following years, Mike Wilwerding encountered the same obstacles that the current primary inventor Phillip Cauley experienced in his attempt to get this amazing process commercialized to its full potential: greed, control, and the inventors curse — “my money is more valuable than your knowledge.”

In 2004 Phillip Cauley and Mike Wilwerding collaborated (the how’s and why’s how we meet will be told later) on the first up-scaled machine that Mr. Cauley now calls the ARK. Maintaining constant and consistent vacuum while multiple auger screws are spinning and expanding and retracting was a key technological innovation of the upscaled ARK. Mr. Cauley, utilizing his 30 plus years of automation and machinery design to solve this issue, utilizing modern control systems and digital computing power, technologies unavailable before 2000, was able to solve this and many more control issues. The summer of 2007 was the launch of a redesign of the Wilwerding- Cauley collaborative effort which resolved the above-mentioned control issues.

The result was a unit that processed 1 million pounds of tires, 50,000 pounds of coal, 60,000 pounds of hickory, pine and corn, Canadian oil sands, Canadian tailing ponds, 30,000 pounds of shale rock from a US research site in Rifle Colorado and various quantities of corn. That collaborative effort resulted in running the ARK for two whole years at an outstanding 90% efficiency in a 24/7 pilot plant. Tires were chosen to focus on for the high-quality byproducts and the readily available feedstock. All the solvent produced was sold at an average of $6/gallon with a total of 1000 drums made. A steady state of 1000 pounds per hour was achieved and numerous universities, research institutes and investors observed and documented the achievements of the ARK Technology.

However, the “curse of the inventor” struck. Disagreements amongst investors, Mr. Cauley, and Mr. Wilwerding ensued. During this tribulation time Mike passed without fully seeing his technology implemented to begin “cleaning our Earth”. Three years later, the legal battles over the patents and technology rights concluded and a new partnership was formed between Fulcrum Energy and Mr. Cauley.

The current ARK II began its journey in 2010 and has been modified and upscaled to 6,000 lbs./hr. and is shown above six months away from completion. Fulcrum has been instrumental in establishing worldwide patents and initial funding to bring ARK II to commercial viability. But alas “the curse of the inventor” has struck again. In 2012, the economy suffered a huge set back and funding sources were eliminated. The ensuing years have seen numerous Joint venture partners, private investors, Venture capitalist and government entities all fail in funding efforts for numerous reasons the most of which is plain greed.

After decades of Mr. Wilwerding and Mr. Cauley pursuing “traditional financing”, Mr. Cauley has decided to go public with his patents and intellectual property and turn to the new opportunity that crowd funding presents in this era of social media marketing. The ARK Technology is a “once in a lifetime” technology achievement with one process that can eliminate all hydrocarbon waste without any emissions, create excess energy for power generation using trash, and becoming a leading chemical and carbon black provider to a trillion-dollar global market. Mr. Cauley calls for help in BREAKING THE INVENTOR’S CURSE. Anyone who leaves their donation information will be a part of ARK TECH once the ARK II is complete and commercially viable. ARK TECH will have videos tracking progress and construction with the goal of full transparency, community involvement, and outreach. Mike Wilwerding’s goal was to clean the planet, and that goal is the one goal Philip Cauley and ARK TECH will stand behind. The ARK is the one true totally “GREEN” waste to energy technology the world has ever seen, and ARK TECH intends to use this in saving our beloved planet earth.