[thinkcontext]

This was more than one in a portfolio of investments that didn't work out. He was feted on TED and other venues and hailed as a greentech prophet for making grand pronouncements about how ethanol from wood chips was going to crush oil on a very short timeline. In addition to all the investor money, he secured substantial federal and state money for his projects. But his technology could not do what he promised, see the article talk about misleading statements about yield he talked about publicly vs what was actually happening. And to this day no non-corn ethanol company in the US has been able to be economic even with huge incentives.