Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

[Jason& Katie]

i have a novel buried under my bed somewhere. it is one of those 
cyber-apocalypse, computers destroy the world type things written just before 
2000. it didnt really state anything useful, or even really that entertaining 
(thus it is buried under the bed) except there was one passage where the main 
characters were playing with acronyms and they came to the conclusion that gods 
(in the corporate case, demons) DO in fact exist, but only as a collections of 
minds- similar to a computer network- that create a large, intangible, 
intelligent, background program (deity). also described in the form of the 
previously mentioned computer themed acronym as a "G.O.D." or "group overmind 
daemon". Take away the minds and the overall conciousness begins to fade.
  - Original Message - 
  From: Keith Addison 
  To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org 
  Sent: Friday, February 23, 2007 12:32 PM
  Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million




Unless we speculate that the corporate organizational structure is 
sufficiently complex to manifest a form of rudimentary and ruthless 
intelligence that does understand that - the sort of sly stupidity one 
associates with monsters in mythology.


  I'm sure there's that too. Not necessarily stupid. No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.431 / Virus Database: 268.18.3/699 - Release Date: 2/23/2007 1:26 
PM
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Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

[Keith Addison]

ow-it with it doesn't hold a lot of water. Nobody needs the corporate criminals. 

Economics and sanity are not incompatible. Time for sane economics, methinks. 

Hey, I've got a suit. I even wore it once. Required for a job I was commissioned for. Very high-quality suit, tailormade in Hong Kong. Only it wasn't tailormade for me. I bought it for $20 at the Oxfam shop in Central District. The women running the shop recognised a hopeless case when they saw one and took pity on me. They chose the suit, and a couple of ties, sent me to an ace tailor they knew to alter it to fit me, gave me lots of good advice on suits and the wearing of them. I guess they were used to doing the same thing for their husbands. 

I had another suit, but that was in 1969. My dog Max ate it so I decided he probably knew best and gave up on suits. He ate my tie too.

Best

Keith 


-Dawie

- Original Message 
From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Sent: Friday, 23 February, 2007 2:48:24 AM
Subject: Biofuel Digest, Vol 22, Issue 77

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:30:35 +0900
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Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million
Message: 2
Hello Dawie

>Why am I getting the impression that Industry is bending over
>backwards to discredit the whole biofuel idea by applying it in the
>worst possible way? Are they preparing the ground for getting it
>banned?

Hm. It's probably instinctive for big-time suits to favour the
stamping out of small, local, independent outfits, then they can
consolidate the market too, as they put it. Especially when they
can't out-compete the small guys (if they even try). They misquote
Adam Smith and emit noble flatulences about the magic of the
marketplace but what they like is total control, not healthy
competition. Prohibition sure had a lot to do with that. Your seeds
example is a good one and it's already QED, even without terminator.
CP, the Charoen Pokphand Group, East Asia's Tysons, having themselves
virtually caused the bird flu epidemic and spread it far and wide,
then used it as an opportunity to wipe out the remaining small-scale
poultry operators in countries like Thailand and Vietnam by claiming
against all the evidence that the small outdoor flocks were the cause
of the disease and were spreading it. The governments kow-towed, as
usual, and CP's market share went up from 60% to 80% or whatever.
Well, hey, that's progress. Never mind a few million more destroyed
livelihoods and about a billion murdered chickens, as long as it
makes a nice omelette for CP. There's not exactly a shortage of such
examples.

I'm sure Big Biofuels would like to ban homebrewers and the local
operators, Graham Noyes or not, but I doubt they're out to get
biodiesel itself banned, they'd rather take it over. People have been
saying that here for a long time, that there's not much difference
between Big Biofuels and Big Oil, they'll shove us out of the picture
and take it over. World Energy is backed by Gulf Oil, they've got a
deal with Dow over big-time biodiesel production and so on, almost
all the big guys are involved now.

But I don't think they're about to shove us little guys out of the
picture, it's too late for that, we're suitably out of control, IMHO.

It's hard for them to see that the big central top-down model they're
so accustomed to just won't work with biofuels, or not for long
anyway, for instance not once you have to start paying the carbon
costs of transporting the stuff all that way, feedstock in, biofuel
out. Not sustainable, no more so than the big central industrialised
monocrop production that's their oilwell. Not sustainable means it
doesn't have a future, no matter how many millions of dollars you
chuck at it.

By comparison, a US Army report says the US Army won't be able to
fight future wars to secure oil supplies without diversifying the
military's energy supplies, especially into renewables. "The [U.S.]
military needs to take major steps to increase energy efficiency,
make a 'massive expansion' in renewable energy purchases, and move
toward a vast increase in renewable distributed generation, including
photovoltaic, solar thermal, microturbines, and biomass energy
sources," the report said. "Renewables tend to be a more local or
regional commodity and except for a few instances, not necessarily a
global resource that is traded between nations," it said. (Full
repo

Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

[Dawie Coetzee]

Keith - I'm afraid I wasn't paying attention when I first encountered the 
allegation about catalytic converters, General Motors, Johnson-Matthey, and 
some then not very valuable shares in platinum mines. I think it was in the 
late lamented motorcycle magazine AWoL. I was half hoping you could supply some 
detail ...

I've long understood the inappropriateness of using the term "free market" to 
describe corporate capitalism. The suits spout about the benefits of being 
untrammelled, and doubtless most of them believe it. What really benefits them 
is a rather draconian regulatory environment with which they have an exclusive 
ability to comply. Surely there is the odd suit that understands that? Unless 
we speculate that the corporate organizational structure is sufficiently 
complex to manifest a form of rudimentary and ruthless intelligence that does 
understand that - the sort of sly stupidity one associates with monsters in 
mythology.

I'm alliterating today. Oh, now I'm assonating!

But the ability to play chess is not that uncommon. If lots of people can think 
a few moves ahead, why not corporate strategists? And if lots of people can 
second-guess other people thinking a few moves ahead ... 

-Dawie


- Original Message 
From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Sent: Friday, 23 February, 2007 2:48:24 AM
Subject: Biofuel Digest, Vol 22, Issue 77


Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:30:35 +0900
Reply-To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million
Message: 2
Hello Dawie

>Why am I getting the impression that Industry is bending over 
>backwards to discredit the whole biofuel idea by applying it in the 
>worst possible way? Are they preparing the ground for getting it 
>banned?

Hm. It's probably instinctive for big-time suits to favour the 
stamping out of small, local, independent outfits, then they can 
consolidate the market too, as they put it. Especially when they 
can't out-compete the small guys (if they even try). They misquote 
Adam Smith and emit noble flatulences about the magic of the 
marketplace but what they like is total control, not healthy 
competition. Prohibition sure had a lot to do with that. Your seeds 
example is a good one and it's already QED, even without terminator. 
CP, the Charoen Pokphand Group, East Asia's Tysons, having themselves 
virtually caused the bird flu epidemic and spread it far and wide, 
then used it as an opportunity to wipe out the remaining small-scale 
poultry operators in countries like Thailand and Vietnam by claiming 
against all the evidence that the small outdoor flocks were the cause 
of the disease and were spreading it. The governments kow-towed, as 
usual, and CP's market share went up from 60% to 80% or whatever. 
Well, hey, that's progress. Never mind a few million more destroyed 
livelihoods and about a billion murdered chickens, as long as it 
makes a nice omelette for CP. There's not exactly a shortage of such 
examples.

I'm sure Big Biofuels would like to ban homebrewers and the local 
operators, Graham Noyes or not, but I doubt they're out to get 
biodiesel itself banned, they'd rather take it over. People have been 
saying that here for a long time, that there's not much difference 
between Big Biofuels and Big Oil, they'll shove us out of the picture 
and take it over. World Energy is backed by Gulf Oil, they've got a 
deal with Dow over big-time biodiesel production and so on, almost 
all the big guys are involved now.

But I don't think they're about to shove us little guys out of the 
picture, it's too late for that, we're suitably out of control, IMHO.

It's hard for them to see that the big central top-down model they're 
so accustomed to just won't work with biofuels, or not for long 
anyway, for instance not once you have to start paying the carbon 
costs of transporting the stuff all that way, feedstock in, biofuel 
out. Not sustainable, no more so than the big central industrialised 
monocrop production that's their oilwell. Not sustainable means it 
doesn't have a future, no matter how many millions of dollars you 
chuck at it.

By comparison, a US Army report says the US Army won't be able to 
fight future wars to secure oil supplies without diversifying the 
military's energy supplies, especially into renewables. "The [U.S.] 
military needs to take major steps to increase energy efficienc

Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

[Keith Addison]

erate a lot of resentment. Everyone 
>will be trying any alternative, and that might just kill the whole 
>commercial seed industry. So, Industry makes it a health and safety 
>issue, not a small-farming human rights issue. They get people so 
>scared about their GMOs going invasive - doubtless having gone to a 
>lot of trouble to develop GMOs that are sure to go invasive - that 
>they can rely on environmentalists who should know better to insist 
>on terminator genes! That way they can turn around and say, "We 
>didn't want to sell terminator genes, but those damned 
>self-righteous environmentalists are forcing us."
>
>It is the first rule of industrial politics: always make it someone 
>else's fault. That way the moral high ground is used against the 
>party that holds it.
>
>See the pattern. Don't fall for it. Spread the word.

Such a pattern certainly exists. On the other hand, as Napoleon said, 
"Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by 
incompetence."

This is what Adam Smith said:

>Going back two centuries, economists have worried about what Adam 
>Smith described as the tendency of chieftains in a market system "to 
>deceive and even to oppress the public".
>
>"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment 
>and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the 
>public, or in some contrivance to raise prices" ("Wealth of 
>Nations"). He said businessmen always yearn to escape from price 
>competition through collusion.
>
>He didn't like corporations and governments either. He viewed 
>government primarily as an instrument for extracting taxes to 
>subsidize elites and intervening in the market to protect corporate 
>monopolies. "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the 
>security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of 
>the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property 
>against those who have none at all.'"
>
>"Adam Smith commented in 1776 that the only trades that justified 
>incorporation were banking, insurance, canal building and 
>waterworks. He believed it was contrary to the public interest for 
>any other businesses or trades to be incorporated and that all 
>should be run as partnerships."

This is what the Wise Old Man of the Homestead list said: 
"Small-scale capitalism works out fine, but as scale increases the 
departure from real capitalism becomes more pronounced - profits are 
privatized, but costs are socialized. The attendant repair and 
maintenance are left to succeeding generations if possible, if not, 
to present low and middle income taxpayers."

Corporatism is not capitalism, it's feudalism in a suit. It's time 
for people like Fritz Schumacher and Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen to 
have their day, Milton Friedman and Leo Strauss are long past their 
use-by date.

Imperium Renewables indeed, what a name. LOL!

Best

Keith


>-Dawie
>
>- Original Message 
>From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" 
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Sent: Thursday, 22 February, 2007 7:35:47 AM
>Subject: Biofuel Digest, Vol 22, Issue 75
>
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Precedence: list
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
>References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:34:14 +0900
>Reply-To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million
>Message: 11
>How much of the biodiesel that Imperium Renewables makes with this
>scale of operation will be renewable? Industrial monocrops don't
>qualify as renewable, it's not renewable if the production system
>isn't sustainable, and theirs isn't. Or even "clean-burning" - at the
>tailpipe maybe, but the crops are grown with heavy dependence on
>fossil fuels, about half as dyno-diesel, which isn't clean-burning,
>and the other half in the form of fertiliser. Making and transporting
>one kilogram of nitrogen fertilizer releases 3.7 kg of carbon dioxide
>into the atmosphere (that's before they use the stuff). Is the
>resulting biodiesel even carbon-neutral? The same applies to the
>transport costs involved in trucking the crop/oil long distances, as
>such a centralised operation will have to do, and trucking the fuel
>all the way back again to the market. The only "benefit" I can see is
>that it might help free America from it's dependence on ter

Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

[Mike Weaver]

Gotta love the name,

"Imperium"



Keith Addison wrote:

>How much of the biodiesel that Imperium Renewables makes with this 
>scale of operation will be renewable? Industrial monocrops don't 
>qualify as renewable, it's not renewable if the production system 
>isn't sustainable, and theirs isn't. Or even "clean-burning" - at the 
>tailpipe maybe, but the crops are grown with heavy dependence on 
>fossil fuels, about half as dyno-diesel, which isn't clean-burning, 
>and the other half in the form of fertiliser. Making and transporting 
>one kilogram of nitrogen fertilizer releases 3.7 kg of carbon dioxide 
>into the atmosphere (that's before they use the stuff). Is the 
>resulting biodiesel even carbon-neutral? The same applies to the 
>transport costs involved in trucking the crop/oil long distances, as 
>such a centralised operation will have to do, and trucking the fuel 
>all the way back again to the market. The only "benefit" I can see is 
>that it might help free America from it's dependence on terrorist, 
>er, Arab, sorry, Middle Eastern, I mean foreign oil, which is a 
>delusion anyway.
>
>Soy and palm oil indeed.
>
>I see Graham Noyes, Vice President of Sales at World Energy, has just 
>become Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Imperium 
>Renewables instead.
>
>We had a famous tussle with Graham here a few years ago when he said 
>homebrewers would destroy the market with the poor-quality fuel they 
>make, it had already caused widespread problems, and he cited 
>instances. Industry's famous "Peril of the Homebrew" myth.
>
>Graham quickly found himself trying to find the back-pedal gear, but 
>it seemed it wasn't something he used often, and then he went quiet 
>for awhile. But we kept on hassling him about it, and eventually he 
>posted a retraction, admitting that he knew of no case of homebrew 
>biodiesel causing any problems. He'd confidently passed on the 
>accepted industry wisdom without checking it. He also said he'd been 
>impressed by what he'd learnt here about homebrew quality control and 
>quality concerns, and promised to inform industry of the error of its 
>ways when they badmouthed homebrewers. In fact he started a small 
>producers section at the NBB as a result, though I'm not sure what it 
>achieved. Anyway good on Graham, his retraction earned him a lot of 
>respect.
>
>Not long after that World Energy had to recall a consignment of 
>bad-quality industry biodiesel that was causing widespread problems 
>on the US west coast (cars damaged), but it was left to the 
>homebrewer community there to clean up the mess at the consumer 
>level. Just the opposite story! This happened a couple of times 
>there, the other case not involving World Energy.
>
>Strange thing about that consignment was that Graham said it had been 
>tested first as usual like all the biodiesel World Energy markets and 
>the lab okayed it. So then World Energy had it tested at another lab, 
>which didn't okay it at all, it was crap. We wanted to know more 
>about that, how did crap biodiesel get an okay from the first lab? 
>But Graham didn't volunteer any further info. It sure smacked of the 
>many cases in many industries where tests are okayed by a lab by 
>prior arrangement, it just gets a rubber stamp. If the sample that's 
>tested even comes from the production run rather than the company 
>laboratory.
>
>At the NBB confab later that year the NBB laid on a guided tour of 
>the biodiesel factory responsible for the worse of the two recalled 
>consignments. It wasn't just one bad consignment, they kept on 
>producing the stuff. But apparently the NBB didn't even know about 
>it, or didn't care. When small-scalers at the conference asked about 
>it they were told not to "rock the boat" and risk damaging the 
>prospects of a promising emerging industry.
>
>Maybe the NBB doesn't have to bother about it, you can hide a lot of 
>poor quality in B20, and who cares about the marginal whackoes who 
>use B100 anyway, you get the best subsidies and breaks package with 
>B20, that's what matters.
>
>I wonder whether anything much has changed, other than the scale of 
>the production plant obesity problem.
>
>Best
>
>Keith
>
>
>  
>
>> Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million
>>
>>By Caroline McCarthy,  CNET News.com
>>Published on ZDNet News:  February
>>21, 2007, 12:30 PM PT
>>
>>
>>*Seattle-based biodiesel maker Imperium Renewables announced on
>>Wednesday that its Series B financing round has roped in a total of $214
>>million, a possible record for the American biodiesel industry.*
>>
>>The investment comes from two sources: $113 million of private equity
>>and $101 million from a senior secured credit facility that will be
>>arranged by Societe Generale
>>>&oId=2100-9595-6161091&ontId=9595&lop=nl.ex>.
>>According to a statement from Imperium, the funding is beli

Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

[Dawie Coetzee]

Why am I getting the impression that Industry is bending over backwards to 
discredit the whole biofuel idea by applying it in the worst possible way? Are 
they preparing the ground for getting it banned?

It is how they've operated before. Just look at catalytic converters and 
platinum interests.

The GMO thing is just about ripe. Industry wants to sell terminator genes: 
that's all the whole thing is about. If they simply introduce terminator seeds 
they will generate a lot of resentment. Everyone will be trying any 
alternative, and that might just kill the whole commercial seed industry. So, 
Industry makes it a health and safety issue, not a small-farming human rights 
issue. They get people so scared about their GMOs going invasive - doubtless 
having gone to a lot of trouble to develop GMOs that are sure to go invasive - 
that they can rely on environmentalists who should know better to insist on 
terminator genes! That way they can turn around and say, "We didn't want to 
sell terminator genes, but those damned self-righteous environmentalists are 
forcing us."

It is the first rule of industrial politics: always make it someone else's 
fault. That way the moral high ground is used against the party that holds it.

See the pattern. Don't fall for it. Spread the word.

-Dawie


- Original Message 
From: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Sent: Thursday, 22 February, 2007 7:35:47 AM
Subject: Biofuel Digest, Vol 22, Issue 75


Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Precedence: list
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:34:14 +0900
Reply-To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million
Message: 11
How much of the biodiesel that Imperium Renewables makes with this 
scale of operation will be renewable? Industrial monocrops don't 
qualify as renewable, it's not renewable if the production system 
isn't sustainable, and theirs isn't. Or even "clean-burning" - at the 
tailpipe maybe, but the crops are grown with heavy dependence on 
fossil fuels, about half as dyno-diesel, which isn't clean-burning, 
and the other half in the form of fertiliser. Making and transporting 
one kilogram of nitrogen fertilizer releases 3.7 kg of carbon dioxide 
into the atmosphere (that's before they use the stuff). Is the 
resulting biodiesel even carbon-neutral? The same applies to the 
transport costs involved in trucking the crop/oil long distances, as 
such a centralised operation will have to do, and trucking the fuel 
all the way back again to the market. The only "benefit" I can see is 
that it might help free America from it's dependence on terrorist, 
er, Arab, sorry, Middle Eastern, I mean foreign oil, which is a 
delusion anyway.

Soy and palm oil indeed.

I see Graham Noyes, Vice President of Sales at World Energy, has just 
become Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Imperium 
Renewables instead.

We had a famous tussle with Graham here a few years ago when he said 
homebrewers would destroy the market with the poor-quality fuel they 
make, it had already caused widespread problems, and he cited 
instances. Industry's famous "Peril of the Homebrew" myth.

Graham quickly found himself trying to find the back-pedal gear, but 
it seemed it wasn't something he used often, and then he went quiet 
for awhile. But we kept on hassling him about it, and eventually he 
posted a retraction, admitting that he knew of no case of homebrew 
biodiesel causing any problems. He'd confidently passed on the 
accepted industry wisdom without checking it. He also said he'd been 
impressed by what he'd learnt here about homebrew quality control and 
quality concerns, and promised to inform industry of the error of its 
ways when they badmouthed homebrewers. In fact he started a small 
producers section at the NBB as a result, though I'm not sure what it 
achieved. Anyway good on Graham, his retraction earned him a lot of 
respect.

Not long after that World Energy had to recall a consignment of 
bad-quality industry biodiesel that was causing widespread problems 
on the US west coast (cars damaged), but it was left to the 
homebrewer community there to clean up the mess at the consumer 
level. Just the opposite story! This happened a couple of times 
there, the other case not involving World Energy.

Strange thing about that consignment was that Graham said it had been 
tested first as usual like all the biodiesel World Energy markets and 
the lab okayed it. So then World Energy had it tested at anothe

Re: [Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

[Keith Addison]

How much of the biodiesel that Imperium Renewables makes with this 
scale of operation will be renewable? Industrial monocrops don't 
qualify as renewable, it's not renewable if the production system 
isn't sustainable, and theirs isn't. Or even "clean-burning" - at the 
tailpipe maybe, but the crops are grown with heavy dependence on 
fossil fuels, about half as dyno-diesel, which isn't clean-burning, 
and the other half in the form of fertiliser. Making and transporting 
one kilogram of nitrogen fertilizer releases 3.7 kg of carbon dioxide 
into the atmosphere (that's before they use the stuff). Is the 
resulting biodiesel even carbon-neutral? The same applies to the 
transport costs involved in trucking the crop/oil long distances, as 
such a centralised operation will have to do, and trucking the fuel 
all the way back again to the market. The only "benefit" I can see is 
that it might help free America from it's dependence on terrorist, 
er, Arab, sorry, Middle Eastern, I mean foreign oil, which is a 
delusion anyway.

Soy and palm oil indeed.

I see Graham Noyes, Vice President of Sales at World Energy, has just 
become Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Imperium 
Renewables instead.

We had a famous tussle with Graham here a few years ago when he said 
homebrewers would destroy the market with the poor-quality fuel they 
make, it had already caused widespread problems, and he cited 
instances. Industry's famous "Peril of the Homebrew" myth.

Graham quickly found himself trying to find the back-pedal gear, but 
it seemed it wasn't something he used often, and then he went quiet 
for awhile. But we kept on hassling him about it, and eventually he 
posted a retraction, admitting that he knew of no case of homebrew 
biodiesel causing any problems. He'd confidently passed on the 
accepted industry wisdom without checking it. He also said he'd been 
impressed by what he'd learnt here about homebrew quality control and 
quality concerns, and promised to inform industry of the error of its 
ways when they badmouthed homebrewers. In fact he started a small 
producers section at the NBB as a result, though I'm not sure what it 
achieved. Anyway good on Graham, his retraction earned him a lot of 
respect.

Not long after that World Energy had to recall a consignment of 
bad-quality industry biodiesel that was causing widespread problems 
on the US west coast (cars damaged), but it was left to the 
homebrewer community there to clean up the mess at the consumer 
level. Just the opposite story! This happened a couple of times 
there, the other case not involving World Energy.

Strange thing about that consignment was that Graham said it had been 
tested first as usual like all the biodiesel World Energy markets and 
the lab okayed it. So then World Energy had it tested at another lab, 
which didn't okay it at all, it was crap. We wanted to know more 
about that, how did crap biodiesel get an okay from the first lab? 
But Graham didn't volunteer any further info. It sure smacked of the 
many cases in many industries where tests are okayed by a lab by 
prior arrangement, it just gets a rubber stamp. If the sample that's 
tested even comes from the production run rather than the company 
laboratory.

At the NBB confab later that year the NBB laid on a guided tour of 
the biodiesel factory responsible for the worse of the two recalled 
consignments. It wasn't just one bad consignment, they kept on 
producing the stuff. But apparently the NBB didn't even know about 
it, or didn't care. When small-scalers at the conference asked about 
it they were told not to "rock the boat" and risk damaging the 
prospects of a promising emerging industry.

Maybe the NBB doesn't have to bother about it, you can hide a lot of 
poor quality in B20, and who cares about the marginal whackoes who 
use B100 anyway, you get the best subsidies and breaks package with 
B20, that's what matters.

I wonder whether anything much has changed, other than the scale of 
the production plant obesity problem.

Best

Keith


>  Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million
>
>By Caroline McCarthy,  CNET News.com
>Published on ZDNet News:  February
>21, 2007, 12:30 PM PT
>
>
>*Seattle-based biodiesel maker Imperium Renewables announced on
>Wednesday that its Series B financing round has roped in a total of $214
>million, a possible record for the American biodiesel industry.*
>
>The investment comes from two sources: $113 million of private equity
>and $101 million from a senior secured credit facility that will be
>arranged by Societe Generale
>&oId=2100-9595-6161091&ontId=9595&lop=nl.ex>.
>According to a statement from Imperium, the funding is believed to be
>the United States' largest-ever private-equity investment in a biodiesel
>company.
>
>Imperium
>

[Biofuel] Meanwhile - Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

[Mike Weaver]

  Biodiesel start-up hauls in $214 million

By Caroline McCarthy,  CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News:  February 
21, 2007, 12:30 PM PT
 

*Seattle-based biodiesel maker Imperium Renewables announced on 
Wednesday that its Series B financing round has roped in a total of $214 
million, a possible record for the American biodiesel industry.*

The investment comes from two sources: $113 million of private equity 
and $101 million from a senior secured credit facility that will be 
arranged by Societe Generale 
.
 
According to a statement from Imperium, the funding is believed to be 
the United States' largest-ever private-equity investment in a biodiesel 
company.

Imperium 

 
plans to use the money invested for opening new biodiesel plants around 
the world, including in Hawaii and in northeastern states. Meanwhile, 
the company is continuing construction of its Port of Grays Harbor plant 

 
in coastal Washington; it expects to finish building the facility in July.

Cumulatively, the Grays Harbor plant and three other planned Imperium 
facilities are expected to optimally generate up to 400 million gallons 
(10 million barrels) of biodiesel per year by the end of 2008. The 
Washington plant alone will be capable of up to 100 million gallons per 
year, which will make it the largest biodiesel facility in the country.

Biodiesel, which is fuel created from vegetable oils--including, 
potentially, the residual fat and oil from fast-food restaurants--is a 
hot topic these days with all the talk of a need for renewable, 
clean-burning energy sources.

Currently, Imperium and subsidiary Seattle Biodiesel 

 
already operate refineries that produce biodiesel out of farm-grown 
crops like soy and palm oil.


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