Datasets:
title: 'House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015483)'
source: 'House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)'
sourceUrl: https://www.justice.gov/epstein
date: '2026-01-01'
category: House Oversight
eftaNumber: HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015483
ocrPages: 1
ocrChars: 2176
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engine: engine undisclosed (ep-nov-12.greg.technology mirror)
externalSource: greg-ep-nov-12
externalLicense: not granted
externalCredit: ep-nov-12.greg.technology
externalUrl: https://ep-nov-12.greg.technology
MATTER BIOFUEL Frack'er Up Natural gas is shaking up the search for green gasoline BY DAVID BIELLO AM SPEEDING DOWN New Jersey's highways, has been called the "olive economy" —companies that are neither bright green nor darkest black, but com- alcoholic biofuel brewed from stewed corn ker- bine environmentally-friendlier technologies with old- nels. As I drive through the outskirts of the town- er and dirtier ones in order to compete. In fact, Primus ship of Hillsborough, in the center of the state, I see may become a leader in advancing this kind of technol- that spring has brought with it a bounty of similar "bio- ogy. "We can be as dark as you want or as green as you mass," as the fuel industry likes to call plants. Trees want," says geologist, serial entrepreneur, and Primus line the road and fresh-cut grass covers the sidewalks salesman George Boyajian. as I pull into the business park that is home to Pri- In July, President Barack Obama gave a major mus Green Energy-a company that has been touting speech on climate change that described natural gas a technology to transform such biomass into a green as a "transition fuel" towards the "even cleaner energy and renewable form of gasoline. economy of the future." But Primus's trajectory raises But there's a hitch. The boom in hydraulic fracturing, the question of whether natural gas is a boost on the or "fracking," a technique in which horizontal drilling road to a genuinely green fuel, or if it is prolonging our and high-pressure jets of water are deployed to release addiction to dirty modes of transport, and taking us on gas trapped in sedimentary shale rock, has made natu- a detour from a low-carbon path. ral gas cheap and plentiful. That's not bad for Primus, At the Primus headquarters, I first meet Primus's whose technology can make gasoline from natural gas, chief chemist Howard Fang in front of a prototype of biomass, or even low-grade coal, such as lignite or peat. a Primus conversion machine. Fang, who joined the This versatility makes Primus a potential part of what company for what he calls his "semi-retirement," is ILLUSTRATION BY PETER & MARIA HOEY 23 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015483