The mature corn-to-ethanol industry has many similarities to the emerging lignocelluloseto-ethanol industry. It is certainly possible that some of the early practitioners of this new
technology will be the current corn ethanol producers. In order to begin to explore synergies between the two industries, a joint project between two agencies responsible for aiding these technologies in the Federal government was established. This joint project of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDAARS)and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) looked at the two processes on a similar process design and engineering basis, and will eventually explore ways to combine them. This report describes the comparison of the processes, each producing 25 million annual gallons of fuel ethanol. This paper attempts to compare the two processes as mature technologies, which requires assuming that the technology improvements needed to make the lignocellulosic process commercializable are achieved, and enough plants have been built to make the design well-understood.
