At the 21st Annual Ethanol Conference & Trade Show from ACE, POET provided the industry with an update on its drive to commercialize the production of cellulosic ethanol. The announcement was even discussed in ACE's new blog.
The announcement was that our pilot cellulosic ethanol production facility will be operational in the fourth quarter of this year. It will be located in Scotland, S.D. where it will be integrated with an existing corn ethanol plant.
Biofuels Journal interviewed POET CEO Jeff Broin after the announcement:
There was extensive media coverage, which you can follow on the POET news page, and a lot of chatter in the blogosphere. Cindy Zimmerman of Domestic Fuel was at the news conference and posted audio of an interview with Jeff Broin.
There was also a post from Earth2Tech, saying that our announcement will likely make the numerous startups working on cellulosic ethanol a bit nervous. With a renewable fuel standard that includes 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol, there is room for everyone.
I also enjoyed a comment to a post at CNET asking This is cool, how big is the commercial scale plant? The commercial scale plant, which you can follow the progress of at projectliberty.com, will produce 125 million gallons per year, of which 25 million will be cellulosic.
As for Jeff Broin's remarks at the news conference, you can download a printed version (pdf) or listen to the audio below:
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