Ceres: 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile

Ceres
Based in: California
2008-09 ranking: #31

Business: “eres develops and markets dedicated energy crops for advanced biofuels and biopower.” Gene Marker-Assisted plant breeding, biotechnology and other genomics. Biomass is the common denominator to advanced biofuels, biopower and bioproducts and is independent of the end-fuel molecule.

Model: Seed sales and trait licenses

Past milestones:
Launched commercial seed brand Blade Energy Crops, announced partnerships with leading biofuel and biopower companies.  Established world’s largest energy crop trialing network.

Future milestones:
Ongoing commercial sales and scale-up in pace with industry.

Metrics: Yields per acre are one of the single largest levers against feedstock costs, which typically represents 50% of the cost of the finished product.  Ceres expects to harvest 10 tons of switchgrass seed per acre, according to a Greentech report.

Ceres quotable quotes:

“Product manager Walter Nelson also highlighted advances at Ceres in the development of switchgrass, sorghum, sweet sorghum, miscanthus and energy cane. He noted that advantages for sweet soghum include low water usage; the high yields and easy scale up with switchgrass; the cold, wet climate tolerance of miscanthus and the wide adaptation and low water use of sweet sorghum. Nelson said that the “perfect energy crop” would have: High biomass yields, disease and pest resistance, was a perennial/multi year crop, had deep roots and drought tolerance, and could tolerate cold, as well as higher salt and aluminum concentrations.”

The Hot 50 for 2009-10 will be released Tuesday, 12/1. Between now and then, you’ll see profiles of potential candidates in the Digest, and you’ll have a chance to vote for your favorites. Reader response will count for 50 percent of a company’s overall score in the preparation of the rankings. The remaining 50 percent is voted by a panel of experts.

Information on registering your company for the “50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy” rankings is here. While registration is not required, completing the candidate profile allows companies to augment information provided to the panel of selectors – registration form materials are also used to create candidate profiles that are published daily in Biofuels Digest.

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