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Photo by Eric Charlton. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

Everyone who follows the biofuel industry knows that the future of ethanol lies in cellulose. While corn is today’s big feedstock, the potential to make ethanol cheaper and with less of an impact on food prices and the environment by using cellulosic materials is calling venture capitalists, the auto industry and many others. In the U.S. today there are more than a dozen companies that have gotten at least a few steps down the path of building cellulosic ethanol plants. There’s a list of each company with an explanation and an interactive map of the plants over at earth2tech.

Companies like Coskata, Mascoma, Range Fuels, Poet and Verenium are familiar names on Auto@CooOne Green, but earth2tech also mentions ZeaChem and Abengoa Bioenergy, among others, which are less frequent visitors. While all of these companies are using their own production methods to turn wood waste or old tires or waste sludge or whatever into ethanol, no one has a lock on the future of cellulosic ethanol. Good.

[Source: earth2tech]

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