Enzymatically based cellulosic ethanol production
technology was selected as a key area for biomass
technology development in the 1980s, and the US
Department of Energy (DOE) has actively supported
the scale up of ethanol production since the Office of
Alcohol Fuels was created in the DOE after the ‘energy
crisis’ of the 1970s. Although biological conversion
of cellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals through
enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose offers the potential for
higher yields, higher selectivity, lower energy costs and
milder operating conditions than chemical processes,
such technology was judged to be too high risk for
industry to pursue at that time [1]. However, applica-
tion of the emerging field of biotechnology offered the
promise for significant advances that could dramati-
cally reduce costs and make cellulosic ethanol com-
petitive. Improvements in dilute acid pretreatment
and cellulase produced by Trichoderma reesei discov-
ered during World War II led to most of the historic
cellulosic ethanol cost reductions in the 1980s [2–4].
Well-known T. reesei Rut C30 was derived at Rutgers
University through classical mutagenesis and strain