... here is more info, and a slightly different slant on the
story, from various Golden State sources:
Virgin Fuels' role in the alternative fuels sector is simply as an
investment in Cilion Inc., reportedly $200 million. The company is
headquartered in Goshen, California. Shai Weiss has been appointed
Chief Executive of Virgin Fuels, at Branson's request. It is a
separate "umbrella" entity, apparently just a distributor. Weiss
was formerly Managing Director of Products for UK's largest cable
communications company, but has little experience in biofuels or
agriculture. Not to worry - the business-end of it is mostly in
procurement and distribution of Cilion's ethanol. The technical
end is almost in place. already and consists of a number of small
advances - none of which are attributed to Branson.
Cilion was formed a few months ago in June to build and operate
ethanol plants which will be "cheaper and greener" than standard
corn-to-ethanol plants. Specific details have not been given but
are fairly well known. Cilion plans to build seven plants by 2009
with a total of about 500 million gallons capacity. The first
three plants are expected to be in California. One source
indicates that Gallo, the worlds largest vintner, is a big player
in either this or a competing venture.
IOW - these new startups will most likely be using Ag-waste from
Californias immense argricultral base as the feedstock for
cellulosic ethanol, and possibly using waste heat from
cogeneration to distill it- if, that is, the non-distillation
(filtration enrichment) process in not perfected in time. Perhaps
some of both. The final cost to Virgin will reportedly be less
than corn-based ethanol, and the fuel is fully renewable and does
not require food grain.
"This is a very exciting investment for Virgin and the new company
will make a substantial contribution to meeting Governor
Schwarzenegger's goal as stated in his recent Executive Order,
calling for California to produce a minimum of 20% of its own
bio-fuels by 2010," Branson said in a statement. Insiders hint
that this might occur before 2010 as Silicon Valley capital is
also poised to enter the fray.
Branson reportedly has prior personal contacts with the California
Guvernator. Despite Branson's "slant" - given in other interviews
(mostly European) - he seems to have been initially recruited to
get involved in this project by the Californians - and not the
other way around - i.e. not as the "inventor," which is how he
likes to portray himself as (probably picked that up from reading
AlGore's fine book).
Jones
