Synfuel Company With $25 Million Green Loan Calls Emergency Conference

An East Bay synthetic petroleum company that received $25 million from the Department of Energy's controversial loan-guarantee program may be headed for trouble after calling a special investor conference. 

Emeryville, California-based Amyris Inc., which describes itself as an "integrated renewable products company…providing sustainable alternatives" using "industrial synthetic biology," has a regularly scheduled earnings conference on February 27. But the company will hold "an investor update regarding its progress and near term goals" this Friday. 

It could be good news! The company's most recent report claims $31 million in product sales for the third quarter of 2011 — a 41 percent increase over the previous-year period. But Amyris, which is in the business of "commercializing" (greenspeak for "trying to sell") its No Compromise® line of synthetic petroleum products, has been clobbered in the stock market lately. Following the conference announcement, a Raymond James analyst downgraded the company. 

Then again, those analysts hate America. And what bureaucrat's imagination wouldn't be fired by a company that converts plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules to produce a range of renewable ingredients with potential uses in products from diesel and jet fuel to cosmetics, flavors and fragrances?

But it does raise a few questions: If Solyndra was Bush's fault and Ener1 was China's fault and Beacon Power was Solyndra's fault, will Amyris be the first official victim of the Natural Gas Genocide? Also, does natural gas have an official villain yet? The Emir of Qatar, maybe? And finally: Amyris? Will the cutesy names never stop? 

Enjoy [?] the soothing [?] harmonies of William Byrd's "Though Amaryllis Dance in Green"…