EXACTLY!
"Exactly" to "[no] commercial scales. They're tests." or to "not exactly Star Trek technology?"

I believe in counting chickens when they are hatched.  In this case, I think a commercial plant, esp. with open books, would be "hatched."

"Food to Fuels"

You can guarantee that some variation of this will become known as the new, worse version of Monsanto's "Frankenfoods" or "terminator seeds."

Just as the petrochemical driven Green Revolution morphed into the reviled slogans above, so too with FTF (food to fuels). Right now biofuels are the darling of the sustainable development crowd, but that will change in short order when masses of economically marginal "consumers" begin to starve and die.

As you point out, "Trajectory" is what counts. And the Trajectory is to gradually convert food staples and cropland to motor fuels.

Imagine the bumpersticker

".....turns OUR food into gas...."

The first part might contain the name of a company, country, or even individual (if they become too closely identified with FTF). The last part might contain a motive or result, "so SUVs can drive, while people starve." etc.

If you dive into this, you and your companies will risk becoming the new Monsantos.