Xyleco - 60 Minutes

[jpatter666]

So, 60 Minutes does an interview with the founder of Xyleco which makes it sound like it's the Second Coming. Solutions for obesity, fuel, plastics, you name it.

Glassdoor reviews are brutal.

Anyone heard of this company and what's the *real* story? EJ? GRG55?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marshal...el-60-minutes/

[Mega]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Hmmmmm
Tesla coils
Cold Fussion........


Pump & Dump

[shiny!]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Another Theranos?

Would be fantabulous if it's for real.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

So, 60 Minutes does an interview with the founder of Xyleco which makes it sound like it's the Second Coming. Solutions for obesity, fuel, plastics, you name it.

Glassdoor reviews are brutal.

Anyone heard of this company and what's the *real* story? EJ? GRG55?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marshal...el-60-minutes/

I know plenty more people have probably read Walden Pond than been there. I'm not too far away. And I like walking in the woods. Here's the thing: It's famous and so crowded and noisy and just off the highway (Rt. 2). So anyone saying they spent time there inventing stuff is probably selling you a bill of goods. Much better walking right up the road in Carlisle. Anyways, I've got family that work a stone's throw away from Xyleco. Shouldn't be too hard to ask around and find someone who knows someone who worked there.

I've known people who tried to work on this problem from different angles before. Cellulosic ethanol is not new. A lot of money went into this type of thing about a decade ago, pushed out at first under W. Bush, then one big more push when the Stimulus came out. I think down at UT they were trying this angle. We were trying something else around here. Other folks have tried approaching things a different way entirely and genetically modifying switchgrass and other plants. The crux of the problem, as I've understood it, is that the holy grail is really finding a way to profitably extract useful energy from non-food plants that can grow on marginal land. Part of me always suspected that it might be an unattainable goal. People have been modifying plants to maximize energy content as food for several millennia. Seems to me that it's going to be tough to beat that by throwing tech at marginal plants on marginal land. So you can come at it basically from two angles, right? Modify the plants to be something much closer to calorie-dense food and yet somehow still grow with minimal inputs on marginal land (not easy). Or you can just scoop up all the crap on marginal land that's growing now and come up with some electro-chemo-mechanical means of getting useful quantities of energy out of the stuff at competitive prices (still not easy).

They sure have filed an metic ton of patent apps though. Might be some intrinsic patent troll value to the operation just off of that.

[vt]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Brazil has been using plants for fuel for decades. The U.S. uses corn to create ethanol, while Brazil uses sugarcane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

[jpatter666]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Brazil has been using plants for fuel for decades. The U.S. uses corn to create ethanol, while Brazil uses sugarcane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

I'd watch the video (or read the transcript). They are claiming this is far better.

Perhaps Medoff's most consequential discovery is how to extract the plant sugars and convert them into to environmentally-friendly biofuels: ethanol, gasoline and jet fuel.
Lesley Stahl:And I'm told that you call this thing a still.
Marshall Medoff: It is a still.
Lesley Stahl: It is a still?
Marshall Medoff: It's actually making alcohol right now. Alcohol that you can drink, or you can put in your car, or you can do both.
Marshall Medoff: Here we are, on the road again.
Lesley Stahl: So Marshall, I am driving a huge truck on biomass fuel. It doesn't feel any different than normal gas to me.
Marshall Medoff: No. It wouldn't. No.
Medoff's ethanol is much better than regular corn ethanol in terms of greenhouse gas emissions - 77 percent better, according to a study that was independently reviewed.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Brazil has been using plants for fuel for decades. The U.S. uses corn to create ethanol, while Brazil uses sugarcane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Yeah, the grail is cheap cellulosic ethanol rather than food ethanol from corn or sugarcane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol

[jpatter666]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Yeah, the grail is cheap cellulosic ethanol rather than food ethanol from corn or sugarcane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol

Robert Armstrong, the former head of MIT's chemical engineering department, joined Xyleco's board of directors after Medoff told him about the electron beam accelerator, his inventive way of breaking down biomass.
Bob Armstrong: The electron beam is truly a game changer.
Lesley Stahl: I was told that it's the Holy Grail, getting access to the sugars.
Bob Armstrong: People at MIT are working on it, people in the national labs but nobody's gotten it done yet.
Lesley Stahl: Has Xyleco done it?
Bob Armstrong: Xyleco has done it.
Marshall Medoff: Yeah, he knew I did it, yeah. Of course, MIT couldn't get it done.
He's right about that. He outsmarted MIT and now he's lured some pretty powerful men to his board of directors, including former Shell Oil executive Sir John Jennings, and three former cabinet secretaries – Steve Chu of the Department of Energy, George Shultz, former secretary of state and former defense secretary, William Perry.

[sunpearl71]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Looking at the range and background of investors and the board, it does appear to have shades of Theranos, Shiny.

However, if they can deliver even on one of the promises, that would be great.

A major challenge for companies developing technologies in this sector (broadly classified as industrial biotechnology) is scaling up to real life, commercial production volumes.

I have worked with a few start-up companies and a large company in this sector on their commercialisation and seen this first-hand.

What works at the lab level may not work in small scale field tests. What works at field tests level may not work at pilot plant level. Companies succeeding at pilot scale fail at commercial scale. The reason is the variability in chemical processes with increasing scale/volume.

From the interview, it appears that they have set up their pilot plant, so one final hurdle to cross before full commercialisation.

It will be interesting to watch their progress from here on.

[sunpearl71]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Yeah, the grail is cheap cellulosic ethanol rather than food ethanol from corn or sugarcane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol

Yes, cellulosic ethanol is considered the solution to the food vs fuel conundrum. If more and more of the available land is used for corn or sugar based ethanol, the land allocated for food crops shrinks.

Cellulosic ethanol offers a way out by using any plant matter either from marginal land, with all the challenges you highlight DC, or from agricultural waste such as hay.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

That's the trick, right? I mean, it's not like big players didn't try. DuPont had a 5 year run with a scale-to commercial plant in Tennessee. It didn't outlive the subsidies very long. Then they built a full-blown commercial scale plant in Iowa. It too was sold off a couple of months ago. It took them over a year to find a buyer. This stuff ain't easy.

[jpatter666]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Looking at the range and background of investors and the board, it does appear to have shades of Theranos, Shiny.

However, if they can deliver even on one of the promises, that would be great.

A major challenge for companies developing technologies in this sector (broadly classified as industrial biotechnology) is scaling up to real life, commercial production volumes.

I have worked with a few start-up companies and a large company in this sector on their commercialisation and seen this first-hand.

What works at the lab level may not work in small scale field tests. What works at field tests level may not work at pilot plant level. Companies succeeding at pilot scale fail at commercial scale. The reason is the variability in chemical processes with increasing scale/volume.

From the interview, it appears that they have set up their pilot plant, so one final hurdle to cross before full commercialisation.

It will be interesting to watch their progress from here on.

Bingo. And they tap-danced all around this. We've seen lots of "trans-formative" technologies which have potential, but still have yet to scale at affordable levels.

Time will tell, but I agree if even one of their promises pans out, I'd take it.

[Milton Kuo]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

I suppose it has to be said by someone.... Watching the video and reading the transcript, nothing about the technology is obviously a lie to me. But what an unfortunate name the inventor has: Medoff, which I believe is a variant of Madoff. Also, George Shultz as a board member? This dolt was outed as the senile, old fool he is when he was on Theranos' board and initially turned against his own grandson when the grandson indicated that the company was a fraud. Chu and Perry have technical chops so maybe they're useful in some way although Perry is very old. Perry's age reminds me of Aswan Damodaran's comment about what his initial thoughts were upon seeing the names of the board members of Theranos, "What? You're still alive?!"

[jk]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

I suppose it has to be said by someone.... Watching the video and reading the transcript, nothing about the technology is obviously a lie to me. But what an unfortunate name the inventor has: Medoff, which I believe is a variant of Madoff. Also, George Shultz as a board member? This dolt was outed as the senile, old fool he is when he was on Theranos' board and initially turned against his own grandson when the grandson indicated that the company was a fraud. Chu and Perry have technical chops so maybe they're useful in some way although Perry is very old. Perry's age reminds me of Aswan Damodaran's comment about what his initial thoughts were upon seeing the names of the board members of Theranos, "What? You're still alive?!"

i had the same reaction- couldn't suppress a smile when i saw "medoff." nonetheless, chu is a serious guy. i hope they're real and i hope they succeed.

[Techdread]

Re: Xyleco - 60 Minutes

Just grow hemp and be done with it.

That plant grows so quickly and it does not even need soil to grow.