Companies in the business of using biomass sugars for fermentation can rely on a sustainable source of low — cost material. This alternative source of sugars can be exploited to fill the growing demand for transportation biofuels to supplement the need for crude oil and secure a domestic (and international) supply of liquid transportation fuel. The cellulosic microorgan­isms can provide a platform in which to make other beneficial proteins and products for the developing cellulosic ethanol industry. Existing corn starch in ethanol facilities provide loca­tions into which pilot lignocellulosic biorefineries can be bolted. This alternative biomass feedstock is expected to provide a great resource for cellulosic fermentation to ethanol.

Ethanol produced from cellulosic biomass has the potential as a large-scale transportation fuel. Desirable features include ethanol’s fuel properties as well as benefits with respect to air quality, global climate change, balance of trade, and energy security. Energy balance, feedstock supply, and environmental impact considerations are not seen as significant obsta­cles to the widespread use of fuel ethanol derived from cellulosic biomass. Profitability of the conversion is the major challenge, however.

Biomass is the only known, large — scale, renewable resource that can be converted into liquid fuels for transportation. Cellulosic ethanol is particularly promising because it can capitalize on microbial engineering and the power of biotechnology to reduce costs, is derived from low-cost and plentiful feedstocks, can achieve high yields, has high octane and other desirable fuel properties, and is environmentally friendly. Lignocellulosic feedstocks, such as switchgrass, woody plants, mixtures of prairie grasses, agricultural residues, and municipal waste, have been proposed to offer environmental and economic advantages over current biofuel sources, because these biomass feedstocks require fewer agricultural inputs than annual crops and can be grown on agriculturally marginal lands.

As a result of the above-mentioned advantages and developments made with respect to the production of liquid biofuels from cellulosic biomass, numerous companies have initi­ated programs to use this substrate and commercialize ethanol or butanol production. The companies that have initiated programs on production of biofuels from biomass in the United States include Coskata (Warrenvile, IL), Poet Inc. (Soiux City, SD), RangeFuels (Broomfield, CO), Amyris (Emeryville, CA), Mascoma (New Hampshire), the DuPont Danisco BP venture (Wilmington, DE), BlueFire Ethanol (Irvine, CA), Qteros (Marlborough, MA), Verenium (Cambridge, MA), Valero (Sioux Falls, SD), ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics, Inc. (LaJolla, CA), KL Energy (Rapid City, SD), INEOS (Fayetteville, AR), Osage Bioenergy, Inc. (Hopewell, VA), Cobalt Biofuels (Mountain View, CA), Tetravitae Biosciences (Chicago, IL), and Gevo (Colorado). There are numerous other international companies that have started working on the production of biofuels from biomass, including Petrobras (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Iogen (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), SEKAB & Taurus Energy (Ornskoldsvik, Sweden), Abengoa Bioenergy (Salamanca, Spain), and Praj Industries (Pune, India).