‘Voodoo’ Scientist Dan Kammen Quits As State Department Science Envoy

Dan Kammen, a professor of energy at University of California Berkeley, quit as State Department Science Envoy.

In his letter of resignation, he suggested — via acrostic — that President Donald Trump be impeached.

That is rather bold for an academic whose own body of work impeaches him as a practitioner of “voodoo science.”

Kammen runs the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Lab (RAEL) at UC Berkeley.  He is a close buddy of former Vice President Al Gore, and billionaires Richard Branson, Vinod Khosla, and John Doerr, besides being the guru that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama listened to closely when it came to energy.  Kammen accompanied the California Delegation to the Paris climate talks last year to hold President Obama’s hand when the U.S. agreed to the Paris Climate Accords.

Back in 2006, Kammen, Khosla and Doerr teamed up to try extract more money out of Californians with rheir failed Proposition 87, which would have taxed oil to subsidize cellulosic ethanol.

Kammen and his team at Berkeley wrote numerous peer reviewed papers in prestigious journals that argued that cellulosic ethanol was the savior of the planet. They enticed BP to give UC Berkeley $350 million for research that yielded little in terms of results.

Kammen promised 5.5 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol for the year 2017. Actual production for the entire U.S. for 2017 will be approximately 7 million gallons. Kammen should be asked if 0.12% is a passing grade in his lab at Berkeley.

Khosla, Doerr, and Branson have been involved in voodoo science-based biofuels companies that went public, and then failed.  Kior was the first to go. Amyris and Gevo are teetering on bankruptcy. President Barack Obama and his Department of Energy gave these companies lots of taxpayer money.

Since then, Kammen has been dead silent in responding to scores of emails sent to him about his role in some of the commercial failures that resulted when Branson, Gore, Doerr, and Khosla hyped ompanies that produced no results.

Amyris, for example, promised 200 million gallons a year of diesel made from sugar. It delivered sweet nothing.  But Amyris did deliver a lot of profit for the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and for Prof. Keasling in their IPO. $10,000 invested in Amyris in its initial public offering (IPO) is now worth $100. Amyris is a case of 99% lost by the 99% to the 1%.

The U.S. is fortunate to have Kammen leave the State Department.  His departure may just be the start of Making Science Great in America Again. Next, Doerr and Khosla should quit building the Obama Presidential Library. Yes — these two serial eco-losetrs dined in the White House with President Obama ’til 2 am to plan the future.

What they did not plan was for Trump to win in 2016 and put an end to all their greenwashed lies. Kammen is not green, he is gangrene.  The academic senate, the regents, and the president of UC have been asked to investigate Kammen’s voodoo science research at Berkeley.  His next resignation letter should be addressed to the President of the University of California.