Seattle's Imperium Renewables plans to rule biodiesel (Paul Allen)

[lindisfarne]

Wednesday, June 21, 2006
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/274677_imperium21.html
Seattle's Imperium Renewables plans to rule biodiesel

By ROB DIETERICH
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Imperium Renewables, a 2-year-old Seattle company backed by billionaire Paul Allen, plans to control 40 percent of the growing U.S. market for diesel fuel made from vegetable oil by 2009.

Imperium said last month that it will build a plant in Grays Harbor that will be the largest biodiesel refinery in the U.S. The plant, set to open a year from now, will make 100 million gallons a year. Three more of that size are planned by the end of 2008, Imperium Chief Executive Martin Tobias said Monday.

The U.S. last year produced about 75 million gallons of biodiesel, which is made mostly from soybeans, according to the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group in Jefferson City, Mo. Output will reach 1 billion gallons a year by 2009, Tobias said.

"We're probably the most optimistic biodiesel producer in the country right now," said Tobias, the founder of Loudeye Corp., a company that provides technology for Internet audio and video downloads. "We're building a 100 million-gallon refinery when last year the entire market was 75 million gallons."

<snip>

[satya]

1. This is not exactly the way I'd like to see it developed, though.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy to hear big bucks investors are interested; but I would much rather see local co-ops formed to produce and distribute the fuel wherever possible. What I DON'T want to see is the creation of another resource monopoly.

The market is far greater than 75 million gallons. That may be how much the US produced last year, but the potential market is every user of diesel in this country. How much does the shipping industry alone consume?

[dcfirefighter]

2. Damn near impossible to have a monopoly on refineries

As long as there are no regulations against them, anyone with the money can build one.

It's a lot easier to monopolize an oilfield (or a couple thousand square miles of farmland). Regardless of what money you have, you cannot build a new oilfield, or another acre of space.

Landownership is the mother of all monopolies.