Although Brazil masters the technology of producing cutting edge ethanol, its position is jeopardized by the possibility of the production of cellulosic ethanol in commercial scale competitively. Therefore, the present research is intended for (i) verifying the results of scientific and technological efforts made by countries which develop cellulosic ethanol, (ii) focusing innovation networks, comparing BIOEN and CTBE, the two main Brazilian R&D programs to Biomass Program, to the United States, the reference country. It was listed science and technology indexes on Web of Science and Esp@cenet bases, and out of a total of 95 patent applications and 403 papers published. It is noticed a considerable backwardness in what concerns Brazil, with regional state operations and low involvement by the private sector on the networks studied, that is, two Brazilian companies and 117 American ones, which reduces the chances of Brazil to master this new technology path. As study limitation, it is important to highlight its exploratory characteristic.