Currently, over a dozen companies have demonstrated strong interest in explor­ing advanced R&D and/or pilot-scale facilities, with a view to building future commercial-scale plants. The following are a few examples, showing the range of locations, technologies, and feedstocks:

Abengoa Bioenergy, Inc. (http://www. abengoabioenergy. com) began to build the world’s first commercial lignocellulosic ethanol plant in Babilafuente (Salamanca), Spain in 2005. With $76 million in funding from the DOE, the company is planning to build a lignocellulosic ethanol plant in Kansas by 2011, which will evaluate the use of corn stover, wheat straw, and other agricultural biomass.

BlueFire Ethanol, Inc. (http://www. bluefireethanol. com) recently received DOE funding of $80 million to build a 19 million gallons per year lignocellulosic ethanol plant in California. They plan to use urban trash (post-sorted MSW), rice straw, wood waste, and other agricultural residues as feedstock, combined with a concentrated acid process.

Coskata, Inc. (http://www. coskata. com) is exploring the integration of ther­mochemical and biochemical conversions: syngas is generated by gasification of lignocellulosic biomass and then converted into ethanol from the gas phase by anaer­obic fermentation [61]. The company claims this technology can produce more than 100 gallons of ethanol per dry metric ton of feedstock with production cost of less than $1/gallon. There is no indication of when such numbers will be achieved in a practical large scale operation.

DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC. (http://www. ddce. com) is a joint- venture between DuPont and Genencor (a subsidiary of Danisco). The company is cooperated with University of Tennessee to build a pilot lignocellulosic ethanol facility (PDU, 0.25 MG/y) in Tennessee by 2009. The plan is to combine DuPont’s proprietary mild alkaline pretreatment and fermentation technologies with Genencor’s enzymatic hydrolysis methods to convert corn stover and sugarcane bagasse into ethanol.

Etek Etanolteknik AB (http://www. sekab. com/) is located in Sweden and has set-up a pilot lignocellulosic ethanol plant with a capacity of about 400-500 L of ethanol/day (~2 ton dry substance/day). The plant has been functional since 2004, using the two-step dilute-acid hydrolysis process in combination with enzy­matic hydrolysis. Feedstocks include cereal straws, organic waste, wood clippings, or forestry residues.

Iogen Co. (http://www. iogen. ca/) is located in Canada and has more than a decade of experience in ethanol production from lignocellulosic materials. The com­pany currently runs a demonstration lignocellulosic ethanol plant using a modified steam-explosion pretreatment technology (dilute acid) and enzymatic hydrolysis, with an annual capacity of 1 million gallons of ethanol. Feedstock includes wheat straw, barley straw, corn stover, and waste wood [62].

Mascoma Corporation (http://www. mascoma. com) is located in Massachusetts and was founded around the key technology of genetically-engineered bacteria that are capable of fermenting both hexoses and pentoses into ethanol. The com­pany has recently raised $30 million and is building a 1.5-2.0 million gallon/year demonstration level lignocellulosic ethanol plant.

Poet (http://www. poetenergy. com) is one of the largest corn-based ethanol pro­ducers. With the help of an $80 million DOE grant, the company is expanding one of its plants in Iowa to produce 125 million gallons/year, of which 25 million gallons will be from lignocellulose (corn cobs and/or corn kernel fiber). Poet is currently researching possible methods for the collection and storage of corn cobs and the expanded facilities are expected to be operational by 2011.

Ranger Fuels (http://www. rangefuels. com/home) has began construction of a demonstration 20 million gallons/year lignocellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia (to be commissioned in 2009). The plant will use a thermochemical process (gasification and catalyst transformation) to turn wood, grasses, corn stover, and other available agricultural biomass into fuel ethanol.

Verenium (http://www. verenium. com/) was created by the merger of the former Celunol and Diversa companies. With DOE funding of $40 million, the company is in the process of building a 1.4 million gallon/year demonstration plant at Louisiana. The feedstock will include sugarcane bagasse, hard wood, rice hulls, and other agricultural residues.

ZeaChem, Inc. (http://www. zeachem. com/) has a technology that biologically transforms hemicellulose and cellulose into acetic acid. The acetic acid is then hydrogenated in a thermochemical process using hydrogen produced from gasifi­cation of lignin, to produce ethanol. Since no carbon dioxide is released during the biochemical conversion process, this process has a higher ethanol yield (up to 160 gallons/dry ton biomass) compared to the hydrolytic methods [63]. The plan is to build a 1.5 million gallon per year plant in Oregon with operational start-up in late 2009.