And I say the following as an engineer and having studied gasification somewhat and having reviewed as much of their public materials as I could find.
It's an odd world.
I think in many ways the founder/designer/engineer, Jim Mason, has some keen insights, and maybe even some innovations, yet even he admits that his best product is currently a "Rube Goldberg" contraption.
But he's on the right track, right? ...he's well funded, and regardless of whether or not his products succeed in the market, eventually through the process of trial-and-error and the evolution resulting from iterative refinement he'll produce some useful and viable technology, right? Well, maybe. Hopefully you recognize the cliché of this value proposition, especially for hardware startups.
So yeah, one can hope. But worst-case, playing devil's advocate here, maybe he'll only produce a sophisticated, computer automated cube, with onlookers in awe, coveting this great obelisk of shiny metal, but perhaps in the end it is just a $30,000 Rube Goldberg machine that nobody, and certainly no farmer can really afford, with no real breakthrough in core technology. But who knows? It's hard to say. I can throw some more clichés at you: The proof is in the pudding, and only time will tell.
It's more than a little worrisome and disconcerting that they're filing patents on proprietary technology while apparently lauding it as "Open Source" innovation. Was that a strategy or happenstance? Are they just being savvy, and ambitious in a highly competitive economy, or are they defrauding the public and astroturfing? Judge for yourself. Caveat emptor (seize the market).
The whole patent system is evidently a quagmire. It's supposedly the single most complex area of law. Patents seem to be both strong and weak, depending on the circumstances. Huge sums of money change hands. Oh yeah, and like any good story there are "trolls". Yeah APL has a solid patent on their product, for using heat-exchangers in a gasifier, so they're protected right? The USPTO approved it, so I'm sure they're good-to-go? But wait, General Electric has an even more over-arching patent for using heat-exchangers in a gasifier. Yeah so who the heck knows at this point.
Any truly big idea will just be gobbled up by larger fish, right?
I really do wish Jim and his company well though. They all appear to be personable, charismatic, knowledgeable, driven, passionate, committed, hard working, team oriented, with vibes of a great culture, and generally just a great group of folks. And of course the quality of these ingredients are as much the key to success as anything.
So until I've personally built something better, I certainly can't fault them from the comfort of my armchair. I admit I'm inspired by them. I wish them well. I'm cautiously optimistic, tempered with all the cynicism borne by history and experience.