In Al Gore's book, Our Choice, he mentions Mantria as the business example of a company with a business model around biochar and the promise of biochar as a carbon sequestration solution. Mr Gore may have invented the Internet, but he did not fact check the details about Mantria. Here are his errors:
Troy Wragg and Mantria were presented an award at the Clinton Global Initiative and Bill Clinton was pictured next to Wragg on stage. Al Gore gave some legitimacy to Mantria by including the company in his book, see excerpt below, and Mantria maximized this exposure with their promotional video, see Mantria's Meeting with World Leaders.
Mantria presented these opportunities as if they were actually endorsed by Clinton and Gore, providing credibility to their capital raising. Did any of these "endorsements" sway investors to invest?
- "Commercial-scale biochar plant" - the plant was not even close to commercial scale, at best it was a barely-functioning pilot plant.
- "Opened in August 2009" - how do you define open? There was a structure and equipment that looked like a plant, but it was not operating, therefore not open by my definition.
- "Sells biochar" - no biochar was ever sold prior to the SEC action in November 2009. Wragg said at a biochar conference in August 2009 that Mantria was producing 4 tons per day and it was caught on video. See Biochar Conference August 9-12, 2009: http://mantria.weebly.com/video.html
Troy Wragg and Mantria were presented an award at the Clinton Global Initiative and Bill Clinton was pictured next to Wragg on stage. Al Gore gave some legitimacy to Mantria by including the company in his book, see excerpt below, and Mantria maximized this exposure with their promotional video, see Mantria's Meeting with World Leaders.
Mantria presented these opportunities as if they were actually endorsed by Clinton and Gore, providing credibility to their capital raising. Did any of these "endorsements" sway investors to invest?
RSS Feed