Vinod Khosla, the venture capitalist who brought us Range Fuels, and is now ready to swap technology. The process that he touted so many years while the Soperton plant was under construction is no longer what he said it was, according to Robert Rapier latest blog, in which he quotes another source: “before it was ever built, it was known by many that it would have performance issues given the past failures of the technology in small scale with low hydrocarbon loaded fuels.”
In Treutlen County, we are wondering, if Range Fuels knew that problem way back when, why did they spend tens of millions of tax-payer dollars to build the plant?
THE RANGE FUELS WORST CRITIC SAYS: "In a nutshell, I view this as hogwash for reasons I detail below," as he went on to describe the continuing hype by Khosla leading to bankruptcy of one of his other ventures, Biofuels, to the closing of the Range Fuels plant.
Rapier wrote about the years of delays, cost overruns, and the volume estimates that were continually reduced. Range Fuels finally ran a "batch", who knows how much?
“Why should anyone listen to him?” Rapier said: "Khosla has influenced the direction of our energy policy, and despite his failed prognostications he is still attempting to drive dollars in a specific direction. He is lobbying for money to be spent in certain areas, just as he did for Range Fuels five years ago. The question I would ask is “Why should anyone listen to him?”
"He may be a super nice guy and a genius in the field where he made his fortune, but he is still a novice in the energy field."
Read the whole article and be amazed:
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/01/27/vinod-khosla-and-the-gasificationfermentation-debate/
Local leaders, all super nice guys, are to be complimented for trying to bring something good to Treutlen County, and fortunately the local investment was meager compared to that of the federal government (we, the taxpayers), but we can't brag on the lack of oversight. Why wasn't an expert in the technology retained to look over the whole project from the beginning? Once Rapier's blog posts started appearing in the TREUTLEN E-NEWS, why didn't someone in local leadership give him a call?
As for Mr. Khosla, our attitude and that of all of America should be "Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us."
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