The party’s over, for now, when it comes to raising private capital for carbon-reducing technologies with a long onramp to profitability — and it shows in the array of regional finalists announced this morning for the Clean Tech Open, a business plan competition that has helped Aurora Biofuels, Lucid Design Group Systems and more than a hundred other startups raise nearly $125 million over the last three years (today’s six finalists are in the running for the national awards next month). Entrepreneurs at today’s event emphasized cost-cutting technologies and low capital needs for their next phase. Here are the six finalists and what their founders let slip about their strategy, cost-cutting efforts and technologies:

Category: Air, Water & Waste Finalist: Micromidas Founded by a group of chemical engineers (and a microbiologist) from the University of California at Davis, Micromidas is developing a biodegradable plastic made from the carbon in wastewater. “We’ll easily come in at a price parity with petroleum plastics right off the bat,” CEO John Bissell said today. The company says it needs $1 million for a pilot plant, and has already raised a third to one half of that. The major breakthrough? Applying chemical engineering principles and believing in the “ability to industrialize the process,” said Bissell.

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