Gevo surges to near tie for #1 as voters flock to Hot 50 polls

Solazyme, Gevo, Amyris, DDCE, Codexis, Novozymes, POET, LS9, Sapphire Energy,  and Genencor formed the top 10 after the eighth day of subscriber balloting for the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy. Voters have submitted more than 32,000 total votes to date in the polling.

Abengoa Bioenergy, which made the top 10 on Monday, dropped to #12; Cargill, along with BP Biofuels, Chevron, Cobalt Technologies, OriginOil, Coskata, Algenol, Mascoma and PetroAlgae formed the second 10.

Among those just outside the top 20 included Joule Unlimited, Ceres, Qteros, Bluefiore Renewables and Terrabon.

Balloting will be open to the registered subscribers of the Biofuels Digest, Geothermal Digest and Renewable Chemicals Digest e-newsletters, through Monday November 30th at 5pm EST, as well as a panel of invited international selectors.

“Just 1% of votes separate Gevo from Solazyme at the top of the poll, and it was a good day fro Denmark with Dupont Danisco back in the top four, and Genencor rejoining the top 10, along with Novozymes” said Biofuels Digest editor and publisher Jim Lane. “Microbial fermentation technologies are dominating the voting this year. With these kinds of votes for public companies like Codexis and Amyris and the votes for IPO-bound Gevo, we can only wonder what the votes would have been like for Solazyme with a broader investor base.”

Results published today include only ballots submitted by Digest subscribers. Ballots from the invited international selectors, which make up half of the overall scoring, are now being received and will also finalize on November 30th. The invited selectors ballots generally feature a broader range of companies in terms of geographies and processing technologies.

All selectors are able to take advantage of what has been described as the “most comprehensive, free data resource in bioenergy,” the 380-page “Selectors Data Book” which includes company profiles, surveys and industry data. This is the third year that the Digest has published its annual 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy rankings.