Feed co-product in ethanol production often overlooked

A couple of events recently have helped me to realize that distillers grains (DDGS) - an important co-product of ethanol production - are often overlooked. 

First, I frequently accompany guests of POET on tours of our ethanol production facilities. Often, the tourists discover for the first time that ethanol production does not consume the entire corn kernel. Ethanol is produced from the starch while the protein from the kernel becomes distillers grains and is sold to the feed market. Our company sells eight billion pound of it a year under the brand name Dakota Gold. Industry-wide, it will displace the need for more than one billion bushels of corn in the animal feed market this year.

Second, even though you can't eat the corn we process into ethanol, researchers are constantly working on new ways to use the product, including feeding it to humans. There was a story in our local newspaper today on that very topic. A group of researchers from SDSU want to develop DDGS that will feed the world.

Even though they are often overlooked, DDGS are a big part of the reason why the world doesn't have to chose between food and fuel. It can do both. With the same kernel.

Moving a mountain of woodchips

After months of construction, the delivery system for POET Biorefining – Chancellor’s solid waste fuel boiler is up and running.

I had the chance to check it out this week during a visit, and it’s impressive.

A large building stores a mountain of wood chips. Each day 150-300 tons of biomass are sent up a conveyor to feed the five-story tall boiler. Although the building is large, it only holds enough biomass for three days of operation.

When you combine the biomass power with methane piped in from the Sioux Falls Regional Sanitary Landfill, enough energy is produced to handle all the plant’s energy needs for steam generation. It offsets 65 percent of the total natural gas use, including that for drying the DDGS. That number will increase as more gas is generated at the landfill.

A peek inside the boiler showed some ferocious flames; my photo doesn’t do it justice. Check out a series of pictures at POET’s Flickr page.