Enzymatically based cellulosic ethanol production 
technology was selected as a key area for biomass 
technology development in the 1980s, and the US 
Department of Energy (DOE) has actively supported 
the scale up of ethanol production since the Office of 
Alcohol Fuels was created in the DOE after the ‘energy 
crisis’ of the 1970s. Although biological conversion 
of cellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals through 
enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose offers the potential for 
higher yields, higher selectivity, lower energy costs and 
milder operating conditions than chemical processes, 
such technology was judged to be too high risk for 
industry to pursue at that time [1]. However, applica-
tion of the emerging field of biotechnology offered the 
promise for significant advances that could dramati-
cally reduce costs and make cellulosic ethanol com-
petitive. Improvements in dilute acid pretreatment
and cellulase produced by Trichoderma reesei discov-
ered during World War II led to most of the historic 
cellulosic ethanol cost reductions in the 1980s [2–4]. 
Well-known T. reesei Rut C30 was derived at Rutgers 
University through classical mutagenesis and strain