30 Hot Cellulosic Technologies, 30 Quick Takes

Last week, DowDuPont said it was exiting the cellulosic biofuels business and you’d think that the company just burned down the warehouse with the original text of the Renewable Fuels Standard — the coverage of the announce in few cases focused on the changes in DowDuPont’s strategy in its drive to — immediately — create a speciality products company. Instead, coverage focused on the ‘bad news for biofuels’ angle.

There remain more than 30 technologies and companies in the chase. Some, companies no one has heard of, or technologies that are a long-shot to reach scale. Some are still at pre-pilot stages. But many of these are deploying or about to deploy at commercial-scale, or are bolting on or re-vamping commercial-scale facilities. Some are onto announcing their second — or later — commercial project.

Cellulosic remain vibrant — in part because the resilience or additive carbon incentive provided by the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard that the US Renewable Fuel Standard or Europe’s Renewable Energy Directive never have had.

They’re late, some times small, but always fascinating and increasingly an everyday commercial reality. Here are 30 of the hottest cellulosic technologies — the ones we see that have a special mojo to them in the marketplace right now.