Fuel Wars

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“It puts us in a position where we have to put our heads down and move fast,” Mandich says. “Most of us at Range Fuels are new to the energy business, but we have great people and we are doing something that few young companies get to do, compete against the old, multibillion-dollar oil companies. They are slow to move and slow to mobilize, so we have to have velocity and establish our own footprint. We have to learn how to scale up — scalability is huge in the energy business — but we’re from a culture that is used to adapting. You have to be fast when you’re out to change the world.”

Worthington, who spent nearly an hour discussing the problems and limitations of ethanol production, ended his conversation in a way that should make every scriptwriter sit up and take notice. “Of course,” he says. “If we can get a significant scientific breakthrough whereby you can manufacture ethanol cheaply enough, then you’ll turn the world upside down. Then you’ll see every car manufacturer retool to make ethanol-fueled cars, and you’ll see gasoline disappear perhaps forever. The question is whether that technology will ever exist.”

Khosla, Mandich and Range Fuels are betting heavily that it already does.

Biomass, It's a Gas, Gas, Gas

At the heart of the question of whether America is on the verge of a clean, cheaper energy source that can replace our dependence on oil is an ethanol-producing system with the unlikely name of the Klepper Pyrolytic Steam Reforming Gasifier (PSRG).

Developed near Denver by inventor Bud Klepper, PSRG was purchased in July 2006 by investor Vinod Khosla, who was on the prowl for undiscovered renewable energy technologies. Khosla founded Range Fuels to take advantage of PSRG, or K2, as it is called. Since then, K2 has been secreted away from the public.

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