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Bumped across a rather old letter from the (then) GreenFuel Technologies CEO Bob Metcalfe. This was written in Jun 2007, but I thought I'd give a link to it because it lays out some interesting things that happened at the algae energy pioneer company.
What's really funny is that the main problem that the GreenFuel Tech folks faced at that time was overgrowth of algae in the greenhouse - that is, the algae productivity was much more than expected leading to problems in managing orderly growth and harvesting. So they had to shut down the entire greenhouse.
The letter also lays out other challenges and the efforts undertaken to overcome these challenges. The one other challenge that caught my eye was that the greenhouse (construction?) cost was twice as much as expected.
An interesting case study. I liked the final statement from Metcalfe - "I keep asking the trillion-dollar question that led to the founding of GreenFuel: Why expensively sequester CO2 when it can be profitably recycled?"...which in fact happens to be the tagline at their company web site as well
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Outsourcing the expensive greenhouse construction is GreenFuels way of not taking responsibility which is how a smoke and mirrors corp works.
ReplyDeleteExcess optimism and flawed management team ethics caused the fall of Greenfuel Technologies. The Board allowed scientific standards to be ignored and irrogant managers to run the company, now it is nothing but a empty lab stuck in a warehouse.
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