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@Lionel Bottom line, is Don has been working on this technology since 2005. This video was done when they had the bench model little plant and had finally landed on the right catalyst to finish off the process. Whoever was their marketing people at the time then started shouting from the rooftops, like they were going to be up and running within months! Of course, as soon as they scaled up from that bench model plant, the boiler heat system didn’t work in continuous flow, so had to be changed. Then the catalyst permits, AEP, and pretty much everything else that could happen, happened along the way from coming out of the garage to being a commercial scale facility. It’s one of the reasons you won’t see too much aggressive marketing between 2016 and 2019. Until we actually moved into the big facility in Aldersyde, people didn’t want to hear that we were “almost there” anymore. If you look at GEVO’s history it’s similar. Their founder created the technology several years ago, the stock ran up on initial expectations, and then fell from grace. It came back up once they actually got the commercialization scale questions answered, and they are off and running like we are (even slightly before us).
We joke about us being an “overnight success 16 years in the making”, but it’s not really that funny. It was a long, frustrating and expensive path for Don and Cielo, where Don didn’t even take a personal salary for almost a decade. What we are seeing now, is thousands of followers instead of dozens, and thousands will soon become hundreds of thousands and hopefully millions. Everyone wants to learn everything they can about the company, and will come across the 16 years of trials and tribulations. If youtube had existing back in the 80’s, I often wonder how many videos of Steve Jobs declaring he has the best computer in the world built, years before that first apple actually came to life, would exist? These days, with the instant access to media, people get to see all of these new technologies as they “fail forward”, and all the real work that goes into getting to the finish line, and some see it as a cautionary tale when in reality its the way every great idea USUALLY gets there.
@Lionel Bottom line, is Don has been working on this technology since 2005. This video was done when they had the bench model little plant and had finally landed on the right catalyst to finish off the process. Whoever was their marketing people at the time then started shouting from the rooftops, like they were going to be up and running within months! Of course, as soon as they scaled up from that bench model plant, the boiler heat system didn’t work in continuous flow, so had to be changed. Then the catalyst permits, AEP, and pretty much everything else that could happen, happened along the way from coming out of the garage to being a commercial scale facility. It’s one of the reasons you won’t see too much aggressive marketing between 2016 and 2019. Until we actually moved into the big facility in Aldersyde, people didn’t want to hear that we were “almost there” anymore. If you look at GEVO’s history it’s similar. Their founder created the technology several years ago, the stock ran up on initial expectations, and then fell from grace. It came back up once they actually got the commercialization scale questions answered, and they are off and running like we are (even slightly before us).
We joke about us being an “overnight success 16 years in the making”, but it’s not really that funny. It was a long, frustrating and expensive path for Don and Cielo, where Don didn’t even take a personal salary for almost a decade. What we are seeing now, is thousands of followers instead of dozens, and thousands will soon become hundreds of thousands and hopefully millions. Everyone wants to learn everything they can about the company, and will come across the 16 years of trials and tribulations. If youtube had existing back in the 80’s, I often wonder how many videos of Steve Jobs declaring he has the best computer in the world built, years before that first apple actually came to life, would exist? These days, with the instant access to media, people get to see all of these new technologies as they “fail forward”, and all the real work that goes into getting to the finish line, and some see it as a cautionary tale when in reality its the way every great idea USUALLY gets there.
