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...credits prefer to remain anonymous. Earlier this year, TECO Energy, the holding company for Florida's Tampa Electric, disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had received "more than $50 million from the sale of half of TECO Coal's synthetic-fuel production facilities." The buyer was not named. A TECO official told TIME that "part of the agreement that we signed says that we are not allowed to reveal the name of the purchaser." WPS Resources, the parent company of Wisconsin Public Service, sold a portion of its operation to "a subsidiary...
With some exceptions, the 21st Century version of synthetic-fuel plants uses competing coal-altering processes developed by a handful of companies, which make money by licensing their technology. One is Earthco, a mysterious Las Vegas enterprise whose technology is used in 10 plants in six states. An Earthco founding principal was Jerry W. Slusser, 57, who has been involved in a string of curious businesses. In 1998 a Commodity Futures Trading Commission judge found that Slusser and two of his companies "pilfered millions of dollars from customers using the commodities market to carry out their scheme." Some...
Startec Inc., like Earthco, has a proprietary process for turning coal into synthetic fuel. The Dublin, Ohio, penny-stock company (last week's closing price: 35¢), whose formula is used by nine plants in four states, started life in 1990 as Sports International Inc., owner of Ohio's Columbus Thunderbolts arena-football team. That lasted only a year. The team was sold in 1991, and Sports International transformed into Startec, hoping to cash in on the technology boom. Among its announced ventures was a plan to convert tires to energy. That didn't turn out either, but somewhere along...
Another company that licenses its technology, Headwaters Inc. of Salt Lake City, Utah, was the only company willing to discuss the business in general terms with TIME. So exactly what kind of synthetic fuel is produced? The kind that meets the IRS definition of changing coal's chemical composition. "The tax code does not require you to show a change in the coal's performance," says Headwaters spokesman John Ward, whose company's processes are in use in 20 synfuel operations in nine states. "For the tax credit, you just need to show there has been a substantial chemical change...
Whenever there's a billion dollars to hand out to special interests, influential members of Congress--Democrats and Republicans--are always lurking in the background. After the IRS decided in June to take a closer look at the coal that is being called synthetic fuel, the synfuels industry turned to its old friends on Capitol Hill. In a rare public display of congressional meddling in a tax investigation, industry supporters persuaded a House Appropriations subcommittee to introduce a bill to call off the industrywide audit. It failed to pass in an 8-to-8 vote. Since then, the campaign...