Submitted by EnergyTechStocks.com

It is only the end of the first year of what promises to be a decade-long revolution in how energy is produced and consumed and investors’ radar screens are already brightly lit with dozens, if not hundreds, of companies that appear to have a chance to hit it big. Which are the contenders, not merely the pretenders? Introducing five firms that look like they are poised to hit it big.

Contender #4 – Virent Energy Systems, a Wisconsin-based company whose technology promises to produce what might be called bio-petroleum, which should enjoy a huge advantage over current ethanol manufacturing processes.

Indeed, if successful Virent and a couple of similar technology firms just might destroy today’s ethanol production industry. How? By enabling the oil industry to produce its own biofuel at the refinery and transport it to market mixed with regular gasoline and flowing through Big Oil’s own network of pipes and trucks. (Ethanol must be made and transported separately from gasoline.)

It is no accident that Shell has entered into a five-year partnership with Virent, whose process also has the advantage of working with cellulosic feedstocks that are expected to take the place of corn within a few years. (Converting some of today’s corn-based ethanol production facilities to handle cellulose could be prohibitively expensive.) By enabling Big Oil to fend off one challenger to its marketing supremacy (ethanol firms) as it faces off against its other challenger (electric utilities) gives Virent strategic importance that should put the company’s technology in tremendous demand. With crude supplies now stretched to the limit, bio-based petroleum’s time must come – and soon.

In addition to Shell, Virent enjoys the multi-million-dollar backing of agribusiness Cargill, plus venture capitalists Stark Investments and Venture Investors.