Big Bets On Bio
Georgia must be feeling left out of the party so the Atlanta newspaper did this piece - not long on local stats but a nice read about big investors. I’d also like to thank the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the nice pics of the celebs.
Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Airways, is the alternative-fuel industry’s latest avatar. Last fall, at Turner’s urging, Branson pledged $3 billion to finance for-profit renewable energy projects. Roughly $400 million will help build ethanol refineries in the United States including, possibly, a factory in the South.
Sir Richard has already made a move in Indiana as reported here.
The total capital investment in these projects will be in the region of $336 million (€260 million).
This is a nice global review of ethanol, highlighting Brazil (rightly so, given their huge lead in ethanol production). It appears Bill Gates and the Google twins favor Brazil. Now if we can convince them to regenerate the rainforest.
Bill Gates acquired a share in three new plants in Brazil’s western state of Mato Grosso do Sul. Even Google’s Larry Page and Sergei Brin have revealed plans to invest in Brazilian ethanol.
None of these are slow witted individuals. There must be some serious money to be made here. I just hope it’s from the market, not from someone else’s taxes.
- Posted in : Renewable Energy
- Author :Rt
Comments»
If you are really worried about whether the profits will come from people’s taxes then you need to campaign to change the tax reigime in the US for many things, not just biofuels which typically get Federal State and Local tax breaks, but then so does oil I guess. You can read more at http://www.icis.com/blogs/biofuels
Indeed, one of the things this new Congress has done is to repeal some of the tax breaks the petroleum industry gets. They even had the audacity to go after the royalty free contracts written for some of the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. I encourage everyone to use easy, impartial tools like http://thomas.loc.gov/ .
I also encourage everyone to be on a first name basis with their various reps (but there really are several). Not everything has to be a complaint, sending compliments gets even more attention.
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