Monroe, it has been a few years since the Izumi, Japan, pilot plant sucrose/ethanol runs, and it seems that no Japanese company has shown much interest in applying the Bluefire process. I don't recall any recent discussion by BLuefire on this either.
For whatever reasons, so far only South Korea and China have shown interest. Korea has one plant running (as I understand, but Bluefire can't talk about it, due to a non-disclosure clause in their agreement), plus other plants presumed to be planned. However, China has the greatest interest, since they also have a trash and air pollution problem, and using certain waste materials for producing ethanol can solve multiple problems for China. For this reason, I am reasonably confident a solution to the financing need for Fulton plant may come by way of the Chinese! We just need to wait until BLuefire announces something.
