Top Ten Enterprise Customers

8. Chevron

Chances are, consumers won't buy biofuels directly at dedicated alt-fuel stations. Instead, large, established oil companies will buy biofuels, blend them into B85 or E85 and then sell them to you through their branded outlets. Although all of the traditional oil companies argue (somewhat convincingly) that fossil fuels won't go away for a while, Chevron seems to be the most open minded about alternatives and thus could become one of the big sources of funds for alt fuel development and ultimately one of the big purchasers of ethanol and biodiesel. It has development deals with Solazyme for algae fuels, among others. Keep an eye on BP as well. Shell has over 70 alternative fuel efforts, but doesn't seem as aggressive.

Plan B in alternative fuels. Amyris, Zeachem and others say that cellulosic ethanol won't initially get to market through oil companies. Instead, they plan to sell their fuels directly to large customers like Walmart. The infrastructure will be tough to pull off.