BIOFUEL FRAUD: The Cello biofuel fraud case could leave the EPA 60 million gallons shy of its 2010 target for cellulosic biofuels.
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Grassoline it ain't. After a jury ordered a leading cellulosic biofuel company to pony up millions for defrauding investors, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will likely come in 60 million gallons shy of its 100 million gallon target next year.
Late last month, a federal court in Mobile ordered Cello Energy of Bay Minette, Ala., to pay $10.4 million in punitive damages for fraudulently claiming it could produce cheap diesellike fuel from hay, wood pulp and other waste.
Cello's owner, Jack Boykin, allegedly built a sham facility and lured pulp producer Parsons & Whittemore Enterprises to invest $2.5 million in an ownership stake in 2007. In court, Parsons & Whitmore CEO George Landegger said he was unimpressed with the company's facilities, and a string of expert witnesses testified that fuel samples were derived from petroleum sources.
Neither Boykin nor his attorney, Forrest Latta, returned calls for comment, but in statements to the press following the trial, Latta has indicated that Cello's technology has "global potential." Another defendant, Khosla Ventures, a California firm that invested $12.5 million in Cello in 2007, was unavailable to comment.
Although it's no surprise that investors might be dazzled in the rush to hop on board the biofuels bandwagon, the EPA appears to have been duped as well.
Cellulosic biofuel technology is still in its infancy, and the agency and Congress required gasoline blenders to purchase and sell just 100 million gallons next year, less than 1 percent of the nation's proposed renewable fuel mandates. To encourage biofuel producers to meet that demand, the government would establish a credit scheme to set a floor on the wholesale price of $3.00 per gallon—about twice that of corn-based ethanol—if production fails to reach the 100 million gallon mark.
But David Woodburn, an analyst at ThinkEquity Partners in Chicago says that the agency had pinned its hopes on Cello and has not put in place the cellulosic biofuel credit system required to maintain that price point. "EPA was supposed to have prepared it in late June," he says, "In the EPA's eyes, they only need to implement that system if they see a shortfall coming.... Up to now on paper they've totally ignored this credit system."
As reported in earth2tech, Woodburn first realized the EPA would fall short of its target when it released its draft regulatory impact analysis in May. This document listed firms that were to make cellulosic biofuel, and most were on the hook to produce one million or two million gallons by the end of 2010. Cello Energy, however, claimed that its Bay Minette facility would pump out 20 million gallons. The agency also had Cello down for new plants that would produce another 50 million gallons. Woodburn says he grew skeptical of the company after calls and e-mails to the company for verification were never returned.
EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn says Cello estimates were "derived based on commercialization plans from the company. They never gave us volume—only size of the facilities and planned timeline."
So, what's the chance that Cello can still meet its target? "It seemed extremely unlikely three weeks ago before this jury verdict," Woodburn says. "It seems extremely unlikely today. How can you create three additional plants and have them producing in 2010 when ground hasn't been broken yet?"
Woodburn adds that Cello also faces another hurdle, which is that it has no distribution agreements: in other words, no one has promised to buy their biofuel. In the best-case scenario, he says, the nation will produce 39 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel next year and blenders will be on the hook to pay the government a $600 million or more for biofuel credits through a program that still does not exist.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've tried to tell people that cellulosic ethanol by fermention just is not going to work and never has economically.
By far better is gasifying it into syn gas, H2 and CO then by F-T process turn it into most any HC and electricity you want. This is an old well understood process now used the same way by Shell, others to convert NG into diesel.
Gee, speaking about an "old well understood process." How about making gasoline out of coal like we did in Louisiana, Missouri back in the late 1940s. Back then the price was competitive with oil based gasoline. We have probably learned SOMETHING, besides political manipulation of science, in the last 70 years. The US has lots of coal. The conversion process can be tweaked to minimize tailpipe pollution. The only problems are the EPA and the Green Nazi. Oh, and the Socialists running the auto industry.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLot's of coal, eh? Try reading Blackout, but Richard Heinberg.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"by Richard Heinberg" not "but Richard Heinberg", of course.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is very informative!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Nazi Germans were making Petrol out of Coal during WW2
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCon men have no trouble in making grandious promises based on blue sky technolagy and sudoscience and there are plenty of semi-informed people to believe them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen someone of real knowlage tries to raise real questions they are shouted down by the semi-informed who have bought into the wonderful promises.
And just wait and see what the con-men will do with cap'n trade. It'll look like Nigeria, where if you only stole a few $million you've done very poorly.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt amazes me that 'enlightened' people have fallen for the philosopher's stone like scam...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyour comments are good but as a formerly employee who left a good paying job because he was told this was a chance of a life time by cello and khosla ventures .laid off in april 08 and still out of work and my finanical sititions contunie to get worst by the day i think someone owe me
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is ridiculous to assume Americans will be willing to, much less capable of; spending the kind of money that these " Earth friendly" fuels will cost. Are we to go back to horse and buggy to be able to afford to travel to work and all of the random places that we, as a people; must go to in order to make our way of life even possible? How can we move forward as humanity to the future if we cannot afford to even go to work? Some people commute as far as two or three hours (some even more), to go to a job that is not hardly a career choice; nor does it pay enough money to handle their mortgage, rent, utilities AND the rising cost of fuel... along with food costs and the inevitable credit card payment. Whatever these "fuel" company's can produce will not be in enough abundance to keep the costs to an affordable level according to every source that will even address the issue. As the human race, we should strive to move forward to advance our technology as well as promoting our intelligence and making basic necessities something that should not be a struggle to obtain. That would make using all of the resources that are being utilized, for the advancements of automobile travel; a worthy cause and actually give the people that have been paying these costs a reason to believe that they should continue to press on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the former Plant Site Supervisor that got laid off in June 2009, I would like to know now why new employees were hired after the layoff of more then 30 people on both sides of the company. Allen Boykin laid me off and two days before he did this had hired his little right hand man that was fired months before two days before he told me that the company was going bankrupt and there was nothing he could do about it. Just like he told everyone else. I listened to him and his dad telling tall tales for almost a year and a half and was told not to say anything about it to anyone. Later learning that they were putting me down and talking behind my back. I have much information about this plant and the so-called owners inventors of this plant. I knew them for more then 6 yrs. and listened to many different versions of the same story. It is hard to lye to that many people and keep your versions straight. I believed in this process and could run the plant better then the people who made the software. I was ran out of the control room because they did not want to run this facility, dispite the many people telling them to let me run it because if it was going to run I could make it work. Slap me in the face once, and I have kept silent for a long time. But I want to know why they are still to this day out on the facility with employees, even new ones, after everyone was layed off? Why was I laid off only to learn that 2 days before I was laid off he had hired one that was fired to basically take my place? He thinks he is going to said its disgruntle employees or ex-employees, I just want answers. I have many more questions, and know that plant inside out. I know how it works, and know how to run it. Why don't they want to listened. They never wanted to answer questions when asked directly, so lets try to get answers another way. And why has there been little to no coverage on this by the news? This process in my opinion will work and I have more knowledge of why and how, but Allen and Jack don't want to listen. Why are they so reluctent to anyone trying to help, besides I didn't go to college, which they think is the only ones that would know. Give me and all the others that put their blood and sweat into this answers that we all deserve.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a fundamental difficult with using coal for making gasoline and diesel. The Earth stores vase amounts of carbon underground, and if we release all that carbon into the atmosphere we must expect to change the chemical make up of the air. That's way too much carbon to not expect some change to happen. That carbon is in the form of coal, natural gas, and petroleum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, using cellulosic carbon simply sends carbon that is above ground through a cycle where sunlight is used to covert atmospheric CO2 into plant matter which we can process into fuel. Burning the fuel in an engine returns it to free CO2 which, through photosynthesis, becomes cellulose again. It's a cycle we can use to power our vehicles without worrying about the possibility of making changes to the planet that we would regret later. Why wouldn't we power ourselves this way, if we have the technology? Earl A. McCoubrey
Dear former employees of Cello Energy. I would like to discuss your experiences with Cello and get your feedback on the process. I met Allen once before and boy is he a piece of work (He gave me a cursory review of the process and tried to explain how it would work. I then told him its is very hard to overcome 4.5 billion years of evolution for efficiently breaking down cellulose. He then tried to hired me....when I promptly told him, NO). I am a real chemical engineer (+ other backgrounds) with over 15 years of building/operating plants and processes and have a firm understanding of chemical processes, fermentation, biotechnology and 'green' energy sources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease email me at boilerjunkie74@yahoo.com to begin the discussion of Cello and their process.