KIOR and the DOE

I now have the terms under which the DOE would have loaned KIOR money.  The DOE had read the Shaw Report and was aware that KIOR had little chance of succeeding in their Alchemy.  Therefore the DOE imposed strict requirements and would only loan KIOR a small fraction of the Billion Dollars KIOR wanted.

Of course these real terms were unacceptable to Khosla and KIOR and the company pretended they voluntarily dropped out of the loan application and they went on to raise money in their IPO that ended up being a disaster to investors.  KIOR also hyped the arrival of Con D Rice as a board member to support the IPO and the subsequent boondoggle that they were a “reality” to replace vast amounts of fossil fuels through use of their white mystery catalyst that converted pine trees to diesel.

The state of Mississippi still has their fraud suit against Khosla and the other folks who hyped the thermodynamic lie.  Shareholders have their lawsuits.  The SEC has their investigations.  And Obama has Khosla involved in building his Billion Dollar Presidential Library.

The lesson learned from the KIOR caper is that the Shaw Group did a good job pointing out that KIOR was likely to fail and the DOE prevented another Billion Dollars going down the drain to a contributor to the President and the Democrat Party.  Con D also learned a lesson that she looks like a fool and not quite Kosher for having insider traded shares in KIOR for a profit while she was a director on the company’s board and while she was an advisor to Khosla the man who has now been shown to be a thermodynamic idiot with his myriad failures at Cello, Range, KIOR, Gevo, LS 9, Calera, and others.

I learned that the staff at the DOE is willing to help a citizen get information under the Freedom of Information Act and that the DOE prevented another Solyndra from happening even though Vinod Khosla had the ear of President Obama.  The outcome of the lawsuits against Khosla et. al. is still unknown but Vinnie did learn that the second law of thermodynamics applies to him as well as that he cannot prevent surfers from reaching Martin’s Beach on the California coast.  Let’s hope President #45 helps science in America become great again and that thermodynamic imposters like Khosla never become energy gurus again.