Something stinks at Imperium Renewables, and it's not the Southeast Asian palm oil. In the last few weeks the company has shed its CEO, pulled back from a much anticipated initial public offering, and (this week) announced cuts to its corporate work force. Sam from HR and Diane from marketing are packing their cubicles, leaving the engineers to run the shop. Cutting back at corporate is like a late '90s internet company selling the Ferrari and the ping pong table - bouncing the unnecessary costs to keep the ship afloat. For a company once regarded as the boy genius of biofuel it is clear now Imperium is muddling its way through what can charitably be called Act II of Titus Andronicus. So the question remains, are things at Imperium as bad as they seem, or is another example of the growing pains many analysts expect green tech companies will experience as the market matures? For the answer, I offer a short trip down memory lane. In August 2007 Imperium opened its 100 million gallon capacity, $78 million biodiesel plant in Grays Harbor near Seattle. Operating at full production, Imperium anticipated controlling 40 percent of the U.S. biodiesel market by 2009. Current domestic production was pegged at 75 million gallons, with projections of 1 billion by the end of 2009. Imperium's initial calculation was based both on full production at Grays Harbor and an expected 300 million gallon capacity expansion at proposed plants in Hawaii, Pennsylvania, and Argentina that were expected to be completed by the end of 2008. To finance the expansion, Imperium filed an S-1 with the SEC in May 2007 announcing its intention to raise a $345 million IPO. $220 million would go to the new plants. The IPO, in addition to its previous $214 million in equity and debt financing, would have left the company enough capital to build the plants and maintain a steady flow of palm oil feedstock from Southeast Asia. Whoa! $100 oil! I bet Martin Tobias, Imperium's imperius ex-CEO, never saw