Terry/Trapper,
As a Chemical Engineer from the petrochemical industry, I can add that sugar(sucrose, actually, as in, "Sucresource", BFRE's subsidiary) is simply another hydrocarbon chemical that can be extracted/reacted from a large number of organic sources,including sugarcane and sugarbeets, and that it can either be refined into sugar as we know it( which is not very valuable), or can be further processed and turned into a number of other, more valuable chemicals, such as ethanol, butanol, etc.
Its extraction from sugarcane, corn, and sugarbeets is fairly easy, making it profitable to produce low-priced table sugar from these raw materials. Most other organic raw materials require a more involved preparation and process to extract the sugar. These sources, which include plant life such as wood in this case, are composed of organic plant cells, from which the term, "cellulosic" is used to generalize the more difficult process needed to extract the sucrose cells from the total plant's organic structure.
Different methods are used for this "cellulosic" process, including strong enzymes, weak acids, and in the case of Bluefire, strong acid which extracts the sucrose from the organic raw material(wood in the case of the Fulton plant).
Does this help? By the way, Bluefire's process has been proven at a Japanese pilotplant, and verified by an independent company, so I have no doubts about their process being successful technically and economically! [:^)
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