MADISON, Wis. -- Madison-based Virent Energy Systems and Shell on Wednesday announced a joint venture to convert plant sugars to gasoline.

Virent officials said the company's bio-forming technology can turn sugars from biomass, like switch grass, wheat straw and sugarcane pulp into gasoline.

Dr. Randy Cortright, chief technical officer at Virent Energy Systems, said emissions would be better and that the company could produce it at the same cost as current gasoline, without fossil fuels entering the equation.

"We can build a plant here in Madison but more importantly we can use biomass around the world, which is another important aspect about working with Shell because they're a global company," Cortright said.

The companies, which spent the last year on research together, are now their accelerating development.

Cortright said it could be four to five years before the product hits the commercial market.