In Search of the Perfect Biofuel -- and Financing to Bring It to Market

Reuters
Fri May 22, 2009 1:00pm EDT
By Marc Gunther - Marc Gunther

Funny thing about the biofuels business. Roughly 200 companies are pursuing the perfect biofuel -- as cheap as fossil fuels, adaptable to today’s infrastructure, low-carbon, sustainable and no threat to the food supply or to tropical forests. But even cutting-edge startups that say they have the puzzle just about solved can’t raise the money they need to get into commercial production.

“Everyone wants to be the first to finance the second plant,” says Arnold Klann, the CEO of biofuels firm Blue Fire Ethanol. “No one one wants to be first to finance the first one.”

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