by L.A.S.
In November the SEC charged four persons and two companies in a so-called 'green' Ponzi scheme. It targeted elderly investors or those nearing retirement to finance a supposedly green housing community that would use biochar charcoal substitute made from organic waste.
The SEC alleges that the "green" representations were bogus, and investors were falsely promised enormous returns ranging from 17% to "hundreds of percent" annually. In fact, the company's environmental initiatives did generate any significant cash, and any returns paid to investors have been funded almost exclusively from other investors' contributions, the SEC says.
Charged in the complaint were Mantria Corp., Speed of Wealth LLC, Wayde and Donna McKelvy, and Troy Wragg and Amanda Knorr in federal court in Denver. Mantria's only source of revenue has been from its resale of vacant lots for its purported residential communities in rural Tennessee, but those did not generate cash with which to pay investor returns because Mantria provided 100% financing for almost all of its vacant lot sales to buyers using other investors' funds.
Monday, January 4, 2010
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2 comments:
Please don't throw the Biochar baby out with Mantria's Snake Oil bath water.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-247.htm
The thermal conversion technology that they got hold of nefariously, is a solid, important innovation for the capture of energy from waste and low cost sequestration of carbon in soils. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/taxonomy/term/93
All political persuasions agree, building soil carbon is GOOD.
To Hard bitten Farmers, wary of carbon regulations that only increase their costs, Building soil carbon is a savory bone, to do well while doing good.
Biochar provides the tool powerful enough to cover Farming's carbon foot print while lowering cost simultaneously.
Another significant aspect of bichar is removal of BC aerosols by low cost ($3) Biomass cook stoves that produce char but no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing "Three Stone" stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria http://biocharfund.org/
The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).recently funded The Biochar Fund $300K for these systems citing these priorities;
(1) Hunger amongst the world's poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,
(2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,
(3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and
(4) Climate change.
The Biochar Fund :
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
The broad smiles of 1500 subsistence farmers say it all ( that , and the size of the Biochar corn root balls )
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=75
Mark my words; Given the potential for Laurens Rademaker's programs to grow exponentially, only a short time lies between This man's nomination for a Noble Prize.
This authoritative PNAS article should cause the recent Royal Society Report to rethink their criticism of Biochar systems of Soil carbon sequestration;
Reducing abrupt climate change risk using
the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/09/0902568106.full.pdf+html
There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The up coming ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/webprogram/Session5675.html
Senator Baucus is co-sponsoring a bill along with Senator Tester (D-MT) called WE CHAR. Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act!
Individual and groups can show support for WECHAR by signing online at:
http://www.biocharmatters.org/
Congressional Research Service report (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far - both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40186_20090203.pdf .
United Nations Environment Programme, Climate Change Science Compendium 2009
http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/
Al Gore got the CO2 absorption thing wrong, ( at NABC Vilsack did same), but his focus on Soil Carbon is right on;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552/page/3
So that's all about the Green Ponzi Scheme. Thanks for clearing that out.
Kier@Life Insurance Questions
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