The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

Biofuels company, Joule ceases operations:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/09/01/how-biofuel-dream-turned-into-nightmare/rt5ve7mE4YUZUOrqdaTqWK/story.html

In the decade after its 2007 founding, Joule Unlimited made a lot of amazing claims about the future of fuel and raised a lot of money to try to back up those claims. Joule was designing a system that would produce diesel fuel or gasoline using nothing more than the sun, carbon dioxide, water, and a genetically modified bacterium. It would be available for about $1.20 a gallon — without government subsidies.

The Bedford company was set to begin construction of a 1,000-acre production plant in New Mexico this year. …the company managed to attract $200 million in financing from investors, including…the German carmaker Audi, which was eager to test Joule’s sustainable fuel.

Last month, though, the company auctioned off its New Mexico facility. Nearly all of the company’s 120 employees were laid off…after Joule was unable to raise more money. Its investors are now looking for a buyer interested in the company’s patents.

…Joule’s prized patent, #9,034,629, was issued in 2015 — just as the company was starting to fall apart. It covered the genetically modified bacterium Joule had developed, and a process for using it to feed off of carbon dioxide, sunlight, and water…and produce fuel.

…John Beneman, an expert on algae-based biofuels, notes that Joule isn’t an anomaly. “There are other companies out there that have raised hundreds of millions of dollars and come up with the same results — either they are walking dead, or ghosts, or resting in peace…”