KiOR: The Inside True Story of a Company Gone Wrong. Part 4, the Year of Living Disingenuously

Cannon looked ahead when he looked at yields. In the press release, he added:

“Furthermore, our research and development efforts continue to make progress increasing our yields and reducing our capital intensity. Our work continues on our next generation catalyst platform, which we believe can produce a yield of 72 gallons per bone dry ton of biomass when implemented at our full scale commercial facility in Natchez. Moreover, we believe that this catalyst platform will reduce the amount of coke made in our process by up to 25 percent, which would enhance the capital efficiency of our commercial facilities by giving us the ability to process up to 25 percent more feedstock without significant additional capital.”

Cannon did not indicate where the next generation catalyst was coming from. Or when it would be ready. Since Cannon had not responded to the Stealth Team, we can presume it wasn’t coming from them. Yet, no KiOR staff member of the era we communicated with on or off the record had any other firm recollection of any catalyst under development at the time which would create yields in this rage, reduce the coking by the suggested amount, and allow the company to “process up to 25 percent more feedstock without significant additional capital.”

But it was more than that. Processing more feedstock didn’t improve the low yields, or the high variable costs associated, for example, with ruinous catalyst costs. Rather, these fixes addressed capital costs — the process technology remained as damaged as ever.

Was there another stealth technology? One supposes in a company as wrapped in mystery as KiOR, perhaps there’s another breakthrough technology in the wings that would deliver on the promised results for Columbus and Natchez.