November 8, 2006

Investor's Roundup of Leading Cellulosic Ethanol Companies

Here's a website I have just found that joins Konrad Imielinski's GoG2G: Converting Green to Green blog for those interested in investing in Cellulosic Ethanol start-ups.

A company called "Vandershield Research" has titled their website Cellulose Ethanol Headquarters. Its mission: "To promote the environment and investor wealth by promoting cellulosic ethanol."

Making money and saving the environment are not mutually exclusive. The knowledgeable investor can become rich and feel good about it by investing in cellulosic ethanol. The more you know about cellulosic ethanol, the more money you'll make and the better you'll feel about the environment. This site is designed to give investors information to help make wise choices.
-Victor Vandershield


They have saved me the trouble of producing a list of many of the leading cellulosic ethanol companies, along with their stock symbol links for easy investment research:

Abengoa ABGOF Constructing the world's first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in Babilafuente (Salamanca), Spain. Commissioning is expected to start by the end of 2006. In 2006 Q4, a partnership was announced with Dyadic.
Archer Daniels Midland ADM is agressively studying how to produce cellulosic ethanol out of parts of the corn kernal that are traditionally not used for ethanol.
Bioengineering Resources Inc. (BRI) Developed a process that uses gasification, fermentation and distillation to produce ethanol and electricity from a wide array of carbon-based wastes.
BlueFire BFRE Plans to use the Arkenol Technology Process (which has been used in Izumi, Japan since 2002) for creating cellulosic ethanol.
Broin The largest dry mill ethanol producers in the US, The Broin Companies are collaborating with Novozymes in the research and development of cellulosic ethanol technology.
Celunol Purchased a biomass-to-ethanol system from SunOpta which is scheduled to be in production in Jennings, LA by the spring of 2007.
Ceres Privately-held plant biotech company utilizing genomics technologies to develop energy crops, such as switchgrass, for cellulosic ethanol.
Diversa DVS Partnering with Dupont and researching multiple enzyme "cocktails" to break down cellulosic biomass. Also looking for enzymes in the guts of termites in an attempt to capitalize on the insect's ability to convert wood to energy.
DuPont Developing cellulose ethanol technology and planning a demonstration plant.
Dyadic DIL Spent over a decade of R&D in the design and development of enzymes for the increasingly efficient extraction of sugars from biomass. In 2006 Q4, a partnership was announced with Abengoa.
Genahol Has plans to open cellulose ethanol plants in Long Beach, CA, Chandler, AZ, Columbus, OH, and Orville, OH.
Globex GLXI Developing supercritical fluid (SCF) which will be used along with enzymatic hydrolysis for the production of cellulosic ethanol.
Green Star Products Inc. GSPI Developed a waterless continuous flow process reactor system which will be used in upcoming cellulose ethanol plants planned for North Carolina and the Northwest.
Iogen Corp. Operates a demonstration scale facility to convert biomass to cellulose ethanol using enzymatic hydrolysis technology. Full scale commercial facilities are being planned. It is very likely they will annouce plans for an Idaho plant that will make ethanol from wheat straw.
Kergy The Colorado based company, funded by Khosla Ventures, claims it can produce more cellulosic ethanol for a given amount of energy expended than is possible with any other competing process. Just as noteworthy: The design allows them to "bring systems to sources where biomass is most plentiful, instead of having to transport biomass to a central processing site."
Nova Fuels (maker of Novahol) Develops biomass-to-fuel conversion facilities (that use gasification technology) with joint venture partners.
Novozymes NVZMF Developing enzymes that can convert cellulose into simple sugars, for fermentation into fuel ethanol. Has had collaboration/partnerships with Abengoa and Broin.
PureEnergy Developed a two-stage dilute acid hydrolysis technology process which will be used in the forthcoming Green Star Products, Inc projects.
SunOpta STKL Built the first cellulosic ethanol plant 20 years ago, in France. In June 2006, SunOpta said it would build the first cellulosic ethanol plant in China. Recently sold a biomass-to-ethanol system to Celunol in what will likely be the first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in the United States.
Virgin Fuels In September 2006, Sir Richard Branson pledged an estimated $3 billion to fight global warming. A large chunk of that is expected to be invested in cellulosic ethanol research and production.
Xethanol XNL Recently announced aggressive plans for its new BlueRidgeXethanol company to begin producing cellulose ethanol in Spring Hope, NC by Feb. 2007 using acid hydrolysis. Plans to construct a 50 million gallon per year cellulosic ethanol plant in Augusta, GA which would begin producing ethanol by mid-2007.


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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the title of the book you're promoting on the side.
"An Inconvenient Truth"

That seems to be the fundamental of becoming more environmentally conscious.

When we bought into the idea that convenience was good, way back, we had no idea how difficult it would be to give up some of our conveniences.

I took my bike to work for a few months in the summer. That was the eye opener.

C. Scott Miller said...

Modern conveniences have made us soft but they have also enabled us to produce more for less labor.

"An Inconvenient Truth" is Al Gore's treatise on global warming. He traces it to multiple sources - basically the industrialization of the world without accountability.

As you suggest, we need to integrate better behavior in our daily lives - like commuting via bikes when and wherever possible - and rethink how we consume materials. Meanwhile, creating decentralized sustainable energy and waste systems is a challenge that must be met - especially in urban areas.

Thanks for writing.

Anonymous said...

Great web, but probably not too much informed in my opinion.
Two examples:
- Celunol has his own technology. And it uses sunoptas technology as well.
- There are very small companies with no intellectual property and there are no mention about ColusaBiomass.

C. Scott Miller said...

This "roundup" is like the NFL draft - your scouts may not have identified everybody who is available or has talent but at least you have a few recruits to investigate. I try to put links where people can find them, then they dig for as much info as they want.

I greatly value the "walk-ons" because we are in dire need of fresh approaches and energy. I don't know how Colusa Biomass (http://www.colusabiomass.com/index.htm) missed Vandershield's list but they have a well designed website for those who want to know more.

Anonymous said...

Have you heard anything on Alternative Energy Sources (AENS)? Just curious?

C. Scott Miller said...

No, but there are many players, large and small, in the corn ethanol business. My focus is more on companies pursuing cellulosic ethanol technologies, subset waste as feedstock, subset syngas fermentation. My read on AENS is that they are Midwestern corn ethanol producer. They may move into cellulosic production some day but it doesn't appear to be anytime soon. Let me know if they do and what feedstock they would migrate to - I'd be interested.

Anonymous said...

Alternative Energy Sources (AENS) is an amazing ethanol start-up. What makes them unique is the founders are from ADM. I am biased because many of them are my former co-workers when I worked for ADM. I can personally testify that the AENS board/founders are some of the smartest and hardworking people I have ever met. I would buy as much stock as possible if it is below $2. Over $2, it is still a good buy. When it hits $5, I would be a little more cautious if oil is less than $55/barrel.

They had an initial plan to move into Cellulosic Ethanol but eventually abandoned that idea. I suspect they might get into cellulosic once the technology stabilizes a bit.

By the way...I love the www.InvestInCellulosicEthanol.com site that someone posted in this blog.

-Mark Albertson

C. Scott Miller said...

Mark -

I do not make any recommendations on the purchase of stock. The opinions of commenters to this site are strictly their own and readers are urged to make their own analysis before making stock purchases.

Alex said...

great info !

www.green-alternative.info