To all Greenshifters:
I can see by the postings on this board few posters may have any clue as to what is going on with GERS. I can only speak for myself, but to enlighten others I post this.
On Wed I read the first of the two following articles (excerpted below) in the NY Times at 7:30 am, then placed a limit-buy order before the open for several million shares of GERS at $.004, which were executed at that price, before moving to $.015 in the afternoon. I am not a day trader or pink sheet pumper and dumper, but have been a long term investor in GERS since it was known as Veridium. This was the signal I was waiting for for confirmation of the Obama administration's commitment to ethanol, and I noticed that no one on the board has mentioned these articles, so I assume no one was aware of them, though they are likely connected to the recent price move.
The articles contain two critical economic developments unrelated to any recent GERS press releases (i.e their recent press releases on patents, etc). The first announces a rule-making by the Obama administration that will force ethanol producers to buy Greenshift's technology or buy carbon creditsm as the administration seeks to reduce the carbon footprint of ethonol production, and imposes costs to ethanol producers based on their carbon footprint. It also discusses the formation of a working group to dispense funding quickly for ethanol infrastructure investment and new production. This is enhanced by the EPA's references to Greenshift's technology in their renewable fuels standard contained in a later press release by Greeshift. In a coincidence, the day before this another article the NY Times disclosed that cotton farming in the US is being replaced by corn farming on a intensive scale.
These two developments I believe, may enhance Greenshift's ability to restore/replace its funding commitments for its biodiesel refinery and extraction technologies very soon, as it becomes a monopolist in this space with guaranteed revenuees, driven by government mandates for increased ethanol production, lower carbon footprint requirements, Greenshift's protected technology which is the only option to punitive taxation via carbon credits purchases, enhanced by rising oil prices and declining corn prices which increase the attractiveness of corn ethanol and raise its profitability for producers whose plants now sit idle.
Further, Greenshift's proposed profit model of owning the equipment and selling the extracted corn oil could cause it to be ultimately be valued more like a biotech than an industrial equipment manufacturer, due to potential price appreciation of extracted corn oil as oil prices rise, and exponential returns on its capital costs, and when and if their technology is adopted on a larger scale, profitability should attract a biotech-like P/E ratio based on these intangible properties. Unfortunately the capital investors and lenders need to believe this in order to provide the necessary funding, and this is hopefully going to happen soon.
Rules to Limit Emissions In the Making of Ethanol
05/06/2009
"WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Tuesday proposed rules to limit emissions of climate-changing gases from the manufacture of ethanol, a step that would probably curtail the expansion of corn ethanol production.
In its first major policy steps on ethanol, the administration said it would help producers of biofuels who could not get credit to refinance their operations, and assist them in selling their products through a growing network of retail fuel distributors and by encouraging the manufacture of vehicles to burn it.
It said it was forming a biofuels working group made up of the agriculture and energy departments and the Environmental Protection Agency to coordinate federal actions. A goal of the group is to quickly dispense money allocated in the federal stimulus package and two previous energy bills.
The rule is intended to force the industry to help meet targets set by Congress in 2007 for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from ethanol, even as legislators encourage its production as an alternative to gasoline.
The proposed rules for calculating the emissions of biofuel producers do not apply to plants that were under construction by December 2007. The administration added that it would invest in finding ways to help farmers use crop wastes or other biological materials as fuel.
The proposed renewable fuel standard maintains a quota for 2010 of 100 million gallons of ethanol from cellulosic sources, the woody parts of plants. The ethanol industry was looking for a signal of support from the Obama administration, especially after the collapse of gas prices and a public backlash against corn ethanol based on an argument that its production was helping to push food prices higher.
The efforts announced Tuesday will be led by the Agriculture Department. Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, referring to the stimulus package and other financing, said, ''There is over $1.1 billion of opportunity here, created by the Congress, to assist in building biorefineries in helping existing refineries convert from fossil-fuel power to renewable power.''"
King Cotton's Fall
05/06/2009
"GREENWOOD, Miss. -- Cotton is no longer king of the Mississippi Delta.
The Agriculture Department estimates that 8.8 million acres of cotton will be planted in the United States this year, down 7 percent from 2008 and 42 percent from 2006.
Nowhere has the slump been greater than in Mississippi, where farmers decreased their cotton planting to 365,000 acres in 2008, from 1.2 million acres in 2006. A survey suggested that could fall to 268,000 acres this year.
Cotton acreage has been declining in Mississippi for decades, but it remained the crop of choice for many farmers in the Delta, the fertile region in the northwestern part of the state, where the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers share a flood plain.
The rapid slump of cotton in the United States has been influenced by numerous factors, including weather and the plummeting fortunes of the American textile industry. But lately, the most important factor has been the declining profitability of cotton farming, in contrast to the rising profitability of corn and soybean farming.
Expanding federal mandates for ethanol prompted farmers to plant more corn to keep up with its growing role as an energy feedstock. Also, new corn strains have made the crop more practical in Mississippi's hot climate.
Since 2003, cotton prices have declined nearly 23 percent, while prices for soybeans are up more than 38 percent and corn nearly 65 percent. Cotton surpluses have been stacking up around the globe in part because of rising yields from genetically modified cotton seeds and other technological improvements.
