The latest ethanol non-fan? Bill Gates
Photo by Domain Barnyard. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.
Bill Gates is taking a big hit to get out of his ethanol investments. According to the Sacramento Bee and Earth2Tech, Gates' investment firm, Cascade Investment, has sold off over two million shares of Pacific Ethanol since April. The sales are coming at a loss, but Pacific Ethanol CEO Neil Koehle told the Bee that Gates' sell off isn't worrying him. Sure, it must be comforting that one of your early investors is moving from a 20 percent share to only 10 percent and losing money while doing it. This Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog post wonders if the sell-off is purely PR (does Gates the philanthropist want to be seen supporting biofuels in the food vs. fuel debate?) or simply financial (the Pacific Ethanol stock has lost about half its value compared to a year ago, after all, and had to stop building an ethanol project in Imperial Valley).
[Source: Earth2Tech, Sacramento Bee, Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dagny McKinley 10:41AM (6/05/2008)
Curious the reason. Could be with food wars breaking out, we should conserve our corn for food not fuel. But then where does that leave us with polluting the environment? What alternatives to gas do we have?
Dagny McKinley
www.onnotextiles.com
organic apparel
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jpm100 11:29AM (6/05/2008)
Maybe we should conserve our fuel for food?
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giyad 11:36AM (6/05/2008)
there are many alternatives... ethanol is not going to be our future and thats for sure. IMO it breaks down to two finalists:
1. Hydrogen
2. Batteries
I think Hydrogen is in our near future and batteries are in our far.
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meme 2:16PM (6/05/2008)
"I think Hydrogen is in our near future and batteries are in our far."
Yeah, wake me up when there's A) any semblance of a hydrogen infrastructure, B) its chemical properties radically change, and C) it doesn't take 2-4 times as much energy as a BEV.
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philmcneal 12:58PM (6/05/2008)
u really think so #3? Even if a volt managed a decent ev range in the future a e85 engine would be more efficient than a fuel cell power plant that costs way more.
since there's already an infrastructure to build ethanol capable engines, but not mass produce fuel cell stacks...
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jpm100 1:16PM (6/05/2008)
Although the impact of Corn Ethanol was, imho, distorted or sensationalized in the media recently, its a moot point. It is too expensive.
But some amount of Cellulosic Ethanol is in our future. How much is possible/allowed is a question.
But I'm betting there will be more miles travelled on Ethanol in 5-10 years time, than oil from ANWR. That's whether its openned up or not.
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Peter 3:13PM (6/05/2008)
EEstor ultracaps will save us all!
Ok, just kidding.
Neither Hydrogen nor batteries are an energy source. We will need more energy production before we spend much time arguing what carrier we will use, though batteries certainly look the winner for a carrier, hyrdrogen is the far future or never.
Energy Sources in the future: As oil declines we will see more:
Coal, Nuclear, and token renewables (solar/wind).
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James 6:08PM (6/05/2008)
The use oil will decline because the whole world will be driving electric cars and trucks some time soon I hope but in the mean time however we need to pray that this gas from alage that Sapphire Enegy says is possable and bio-diesel from alage can hold us over till we can truly say bye bye middle east oil and say hello to clean transportation.
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blacktip007 8:42AM (6/06/2008)
algae is the future...the present and should have been the past...combined with all other energy alt. and if the everyday person gets passionate about it. This algae is the great equalizer.
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