In the future, ethanol derived from cellulosic feedstocks (using biomass to provide the process energy) will do much better, reaching a 70-90% gain.
Mascoma will use both grass and wood as feedstocks.
Making ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks is harder still, however, since it involves breaking down the tough, winding chains of cellulose and hemicellulose from the walls of plant cells to liberate the sugars.
Livestock farmers are substituting cheaper feedstocks for wheat.
Even so, someone offering advice to today's promising graduates might invoke a different, uglier word: chemurgy.This term, coined in the 1930s, refers to a branch of applied chemistry that turns agricultural feedstocks into industrial and consumer products.
Industrial biotech uses agricultural feedstocks, rather than petroleum-based ones, to produce chemicals, plastics and fuels.
But it is made a little simpler by the fact that purchasing falls into two rough-and-ready categories: direct materials that go into end-products (such as parts or chemical feedstocks), and indirect materials, which may be anything from carpets to lubricants to hotel accommodation for travelling staff.
And the Gulf producers enjoy feedstocks of oil and especially gas at far below the market price.RIL may have to compete with rival bidders.
All Beta's plants can already make biofuels at a profit, albeit only in areas with very cheap feedstocks, says the firm's boss, Guido Ghisolfi.Just as this cellulosic ethanol comes on to the market, however, demand for fuel is waning in many developed countries due to improvements in fuel efficiency and lingering economic weakness.
Grass, trees and other biomass feedstocks consist of a mixture of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, a tough material that helps plants keep their shape.
They hoped to avoid the "food versus fuel" debate by making fuel from biomass feedstocks with no nutritional value, such as agricultural waste or fast-growing trees and grasses grown on otherwise unproductive land.
