Goldman Sachs joins Shell investing in Iogen's cellulosic ethanol process

[JohnWxy]

http://www.iogen.ca/news_events/press_releases/2006_05_06.html

May 1, 2006

Ottawa - Iogen Corporation announced today that Goldman Sachs & Co. of New York has invested $30 Million (CDN) in its renewable cellulose ethanol technology.

"Goldman is the first major Wall Street firm to make a commitment to cellulose ethanol," says Iogen CEO Brian Foody. "Renewable fuels like cellulose ethanol are one of the main options President Bush recently highlighted to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.

Goldman's investment gives it a minority stake in Iogen, the only company to be operating a demonstration facility that converts agriculture materials like straw, corn stalks, and switchgrass to ethanol. Goldman joins the Royal Dutch/Shell Group as a major investor. The funds will be used to accelerate Iogen's commercialization program.

(more)

[DianaForRussFeingold]

1. Check this out ! Should be on the market in the US! If Gore

0-60 mph in 4 seconds, 240 mph top speed, 180-200 miles per charge. No mainstream car company wants to touch it! Yet how much have you heard about the Koenigsegg CCR or Bugatti Veyron? If only someone willing to mass produce an EV had $400 million+ for development crash testing, and such to mass market an EV and bring battery costs way down, to around $200-300/kWh. 50 kWh will give midsize cars about 200-250 miles range. The car companies don't want us driving EVs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA6cGs2Ji3I&mode=related&search=%20electric%20car Air,electric,water,solar and even magnetic levitation,The US is so far behind...
:yoiks:

[benburch]

2. I am sot sold on EVs.

They are not "green" due to the fact that battery recycling is very toxic and badly done.

I think we need to investigate flywheel energy storage for cars.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

4. What if the battery lasted 500.000 miles?

They came a long way with batteries.Every car should have a solar panel on it's roof.I guess that's a lot to ask for. Check out what our vice president is investing in."Vice President Dick Cheney's financial advisers are apparently betting on a rise in inflation and interest rates and on a decline in the value of the dollar against foreign currencies. That's the conclusion we draw after scouring the financial disclosure form released by Cheney recently". By Kiplinger's Personal' This really upset me,What is wrong with US Savings bonds! I guess I put my money where my heart is,with the USA! just think if the people in power in this country invested in Green Technology!FinanceMagazine;http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/CheneysBettingonBadNews.aspx?GT1=8283


I will google flywheel energy storage,I don't know much about that. Here's some more energy ideas,Air car; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbRB1NyAMpA&mode=related&search=%20electric%20car Here is a good short documentary,24 minutes, Peak Oil and Free Energy; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4OAVq3VpEU&search=peak%20oil
Thank you,diana:pals:

[NNadir]

3. Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is great news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tremendous!!!!!!!!!!!

I will certainly sleep easier now that the global climate change crisis has been solved by the Capitalist Investment firm Goldman Sachs combining with Iogen.

I was inspired to go over to Iogen's website where I was absolutely stunned by their progress.

I checked out their facilities! Outstanding!

http://www.iogen.ca/company/facilities/index.html

Iogen operates the world's first and only pre-commercial demonstration facility where clean-burning cellulose ethanol fuel is made from agricultural residues. The demonstration plant, located at 300 Hunt Club Rd. East in Ottawa, is designed to prove the feasibility of Iogen's cellulose ethanol process by validating equipment performance and identifying and overcoming production problems prior to the construction of larger plants. The plant can handle all functions involved in the production of cellulose ethanol, including: receipt and pretreatment of up to 40 tonnes per day of feedstock; conversion of cellulose fibre into glucose; fermentation; and distillation. Wheat, oat and barley straw are used as raw materials. The plant is designed to produce up to 3 million litres of cellulose ethanol per year.

40 tons per day of feedstock!!!!!!!!

Wow.

Cool.

Dynamite.

3 million liters/year.

Three million liters. That would be almost 19,000 barrels if ethanol were oil equivalent, which its not.

Given that United States oil consumption is 20,000,000 barrels of oil per day http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbbl_m.htm I am thrilled to learn that Iogen's yearly production would be enough to supply the entire US for 1.4 minutes.

And here I was thinking that the solution to our energy woes was not significantly in biofuels. I guess those cool old capitalists at Goldman Sachs have shown me a thing or two.

[JohnWxy]

5. note: the point of this post is that Goldman Sachs - one of the old line

investment banking houses on Wall Street. GS is NOT a venture capital outfit. They are very conservative and don't get involved in any enterprise where they feel the risk is too great. And GS's threshold for risk is very low. IT's news that such a risk averse outfit such as GS would put a penny into cellulosic ethanol.

NOt that I didn't get a laugh out of the 'Caddie Shack' mentality of one of the comments.

(But, please spare me eating your congealed nostril matter. Call me an old stick-in-the-mud but, that I do NOT consider entertaining.)

[NNadir]

6. Two of my cousins are senior executives at Goldman Sachs.

Like you, they don't know any science either.

Goldman Sachs is not necessarily impressed by the future of ethanol, since it is probably the case that there are hardly any people in that investment house who understands the first thing about technology.

What they do understand is how to exploit hype. As old as it is, Goldman Sachs knows how to buy and sell hype as well as anyone.


Here are the reports on the April, 2006 stocks of ethanol in the United States:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/monthly_oxygenate_report/current/pdf/819mhilt.pdf

Once again, the point about the ethanol lah-lah land is obviated by the fact, in spite of massive subsidies, the entire ethanol industry barely matches 0.1% of US oil demand. There is no evidence, although there is plenty of hype, that the industry is any position to scale up by thousands of percent. In fact there is evidence to the contrary:



The fellows at Goldman Sachs however, don't give a rat's ass about that though.

The fact is that the units of energy are still the exajoule. All the hype in the world will not change the fact that the entire ethanol industry has yet to make it to a single exajoule.

And now, even if we want to call reality snot here, even if we want to pretend that the little purple line (to which ethanol is a tiny contributor) isn't weeny in the ethanol lobby, once again is the piece de la resistance:

[JohnWxy]

7. "Two of my cousins are senior executives at Goldman Sachs."..

As I said before, in real life, when I see people like you coming - talking loudly to themselves (they'd straighten the world out, if only somebody would listen), I walk carefully in a semi-circle around them.

Let me guess, your great- great-granddaddy was Gallileo and another cousin was Albert Einstein, right? LOL.

You like to compare ethanol to the total energy production for the U.S.- from all sources, for all purposeds, not just transportation. Here is a meaningful statistic: Ethanol produced in 2005 amounted to about 3% of the gasoline demand. Sometime during 2008 it should reach 5%. HOw much of that fuel you were talking about as an alternative to ethanol was produced in 2005? A few thousand gallons?...at what cost? LOL!

Of course, the current status of anything doesn't equate to what the situation will be next year or several years in the future. Maybe that's a concept that's too deep for you to grasp. You see, things have a way of changing. (some Greek said: "the only thing constant is constant change.". Maybe it was Aristotle (another relative of yours?? Expecting things to remain static isn't terribly realistic, but I don't think reality is your strong point.

Maybe you should try a getting a real life instead of existing as a simulated person (World's Greatest, yet somehow undiscovered, Brilliant Scientist - whose entire body of work consists of adolescent posts to DU.). Oh my, if only they would recognize your great brilliance!

Sorry, I shouldn't do that (most of the time compassion constrains be from commenting). I should be more compassionate and urge you to seek professional help. HEre's hoping you do.

[NNadir]

8. Still don't know what an exajoule is, eh?

This is hardly a surprise.



:rofl: