Misunderstanding re: demo plantHi guys - just thought I'd clarify something, as there appears to be some lingering misunderstanding with respect to the $30 million US DOE funding.
As you know, this $30M grant was foregone by Lignol earlier this summer, in order to advance commercial opportunities. This occurred for a reason: Lignol's engineering plant design and future plans no longer fit the grant guidelines. The reason: their plans were too big.
Some of you still appear to really have put a downer on this stock because of its ineligibility for the grant. However, I would not. The reason why Lignol is no longer eligible is that their engineering plans no longer fit the DEMONSTRATION plant criteria.
Indeed, the DOE funding was for a “Demonstration of Integrated Biorefinery Operations for Producing Biofuels and Chemical/Materials Products” plant. Lignol has decided to SKIP the demonstration plant step, and is going straight to a commercialization size plant. Basically, based on their partners, technology, trials and anticipated needs they made their plans bigger and bolder.
So, while it would be nice to get $30 million (real nice!), this would mean that Lignol would be forced to build a demonstration plant. What they WANT is a COMMERCIAL class plant. Straight to real profit. None of this interim step stuff.
In my opinion, receiving $30 million to build a demo plant would have put the company behind by a NUMBER of years before they would go real big and bold, which is what they are planning now. Any company still eligible for a DOE grant is, in my opinion, behind LEC by a number of years in the race for commercialization.
Best,
WP
PS: Pages 3 and 4 of the latest MD&A supports the above, for those of you who want to check language used by the company and the DOE.