Readers continue to communicate that they are not hearing enough substantive information from providers to form a general perception of viabiliity \u2014 so, the average reader was able to give feedback on roughly half of the 27 technologies and rating the others \u201cdon\u2019t know\u201d.\u00a0 But those who are in the know provided an extensive details on their perceptions of viability (now or later), the reasons for confidence or skepticism, and how their perceptions have changed in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n
Some caveats<\/h4>\n
Also note that there are a lot of great technologies focused on first-gen sugars or primarily on other non-cellulosic feedstocks that we didn\u2019t focus on here \u2014 so you won\u2019t see Amyris, Solazyme, LanzaTech or Gevo, to name a few.<\/p>\n
Keep in mind \u2014 this is a measure of perception, not reality. A low rating does NOT indicate a technical weakness. It measures a perception of technical weakness, which if untrue could be overcome. Conversely, a high rating does not indicate technical prowess, it indicates a perception of strength which would be unwound in due diligence.<\/p>\n
The respondents<\/h4>\n
In this question, we asked respondents to define their industry role \u2014 in many cases, it is a dual one (e.g. project developer and technology licensor), so the answers added up to more than 100%. The most popular category was \u201cscientist, engineer, or in R&D\u201d clodking in at 36.3%, with industry consultant, technology developer or project developer not far behind.<\/p>\n
![\"cellulosic-survey-8-role\"](\"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cellulosic-survey-8-role.png\")
<\/p>\n
Overall perception<\/h4>\n
In the first question, we asked respondents to rate technologies by perceptions of general commercial readiness \u2014 it is ready now, ready one day but not now, or will never be commercially viable, with an option to rate a technology \u201cdon\u2019t know enough\u201d or \u201cbest in class\u201d.<\/p>\n
Here are the overall results on perception of viability:<\/strong><\/p>\n Here are the results on perceptions of viability, sorted\u00a0by \u201cdon\u2019t know enough\u201d:<\/strong><\/p>\n After taking the \u201cdon\u2019t knows\u201d out and focusing on those who had formed a perception, we combined the \u201cviable one day, viable now and \u2018best in class\u2019 into one overall rating, here.<\/p>\n At the top, generally companies that have completed construction on a first commercial \u2014 POET-DSM at the top, DuPont (constructing now), Abengoa, Beta Renewables, Granbio, Quad City and Iogen. Top of the heap among those who have not yet completed a first commercial were the afore-mentioned DuPont, Borregaard, Green Biologics, ICM and Inbicon. Overall, strong ratings for class as a whole, with two-thirds checking in at 75% or greater confidence levels.<\/p>\n We also sorted the results to combine perceptions of \u201cviable now\u201d and \u201cbest in class\u201d. In this set, we also saw a focus on those who had completed a first commercial construction, though extended commissioning periods were clearly taking a toll on perceptions of several. POET-DSM, Abengoa and DuPont led the way in positive perception.<\/p>\n To the extent that respondents were skeptical, what\u2019s the beef? The biggest concerns were on viable CAPEX\/OPEX \u2013 just too expensive, or perhaps unable to compete right now where respondents felt that oil prices are likely to remain low for an extended period.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the results sorted for CAPEX\/OPEX.<\/strong><\/p>\n Feedstock costs were a lesser factor, but especially were so\u00a0with aviation fuels players such as Solena and Red Rock, while feedstock availability was of a lower level of concern, and \u201cviable market for the products\u201d was a very low concern. \u201cInsufficient rates. titers or yields\u201d \u2013 closely related to OPEX and CAPEX (though not entirely the same), was a bigger concern, with almost half the technologies checking in at 25% or higher as a reason for skepticism. Here\u2019s that list, sorted.<\/p>\n Something we have not asked respondents before \u2014 how has your perception changed in the past 12 months for a given technology?\u00a0We sorted for \u201cno change in perception\u201d and there we see a high correlation with the respondents who rated the technology \u201cdon\u2019t know enough\u201d in terms of commercial readiness. Here\u2019s that sortation.<\/strong><\/p>\n Also, we deleted the \u201cno change in perception\u201d results from one sortation to take a closer look at technologies shifting towards higher confidence or skepticism. The technology that has earned the most in terms of rising confidence is DuPont\u2019s, which has moved from pre-commercial to construction in this period. And then we see a number of technologies that have completed construction of a first commercial or are moving quickly towards that: POET-DSM, Abengoa, Quad City, Green Biologics and Granbio among others.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the response, sorted for \u201cconfidence\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n At the bottom of the pile we tend to see the projects that have low profiles and high \u201cdon\u2019t knows\u201d \u2013 clearly in the absence of what respondents feel is sufficient information on progress towards commercial scale is tied to rising levels of skepticism. And, we see some cases towards the bottom where there have been substantive delays in expected commercialization timelines or completion of commissioning periods.<\/p>\n Projects that communicated expectations of operating at commercial-scale in 2013 and 2014 are feeling the heat from respondents to come extent in 2015.<\/p>\n Overall, confidence is quite high on the eventual viability of most of the technologies, There are several who simply are not getting enough information out \u2014 hence, the correlations between high \u201cdon\u2019t know\u201d and \u201crising skepticism\u201d in a number of cases.<\/p>\n That hits some smaller companies unfairly that have excellent technologies but find it hard to create levels of confidence among financiers. But we also see some companies in the \u201cskepticism\u201d penalty box generally tying back to elongated commercialization phases or long delays in getting financing together for a first commercial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Readers rate 27 different cellulosic biofuels technologies on perceptions of commercial readiness, v…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[],"supplier":[580,2389,5609,504,337,818,5095,3142,6917,1890,646,2392,4191,7236,12050],"class_list":["post-26284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","supplier-abengoa","supplier-amyris","supplier-beta-renewables","supplier-borregaard","supplier-dupont","supplier-gevo-inc","supplier-granbio","supplier-green-biologics","supplier-icm","supplier-inbicon","supplier-iogen-corporation","supplier-lanzatech","supplier-poet-dsm","supplier-solena-fuels","supplier-terravia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26284"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=26284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"cellulosic-survey-13-overall\"](\"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cellulosic-survey-13-overall-.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"cellulosic-survey-1-dontknoiw\"](\"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cellulosic-survey-1-dontknoiw.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"cellulosic-survey-9-viable](\"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cellulosic-survey-9-viable-now.png\")
<\/p>\nReasons for skepticism<\/h4>\n
![\"cellulosic-survey-11-capex\"](\"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cellulosic-survey-11-capex.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"cellulosic-survey-12-yield\"](\"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cellulosic-survey-12-yield.png\")
<\/p>\nConfidence levels<\/h4>\n
![\"cellulosic-survey-6-no-change\"](\"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cellulosic-survey-6-no-change.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"cellulosic-survey-14-confidence-sorted-rev\"](\"http:\/\/www.biofuelsdigest.com\/bdigest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cellulosic-survey-14-confidence-sorted-rev.png\")
<\/p>\nThe bottom line<\/h4>\n