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President Barack Obama spoke today at POET Biorefining - Maco
n, an ethanol plant in located in Macon, Mo. The president got a tour of the plant from plant general manager Steve Burnett, Board President John Eggleston and POET CEO Jeff Broin. Following the tour, the President said that the success story of POET proves that the American Dream can still be achieved in rural America.
You can listen to the speech courtesy of audio recorded by ZimmComm. It's a little different from the prepared remarks, which you can read here:
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for that warm welcome. It is good to be in Missouri, and it’s great to be with all of you at POET. Steve Burnett just gave Secretary Vilsack and me a tour of this fine facility, and I know Steve is very proud of an anniversary that’s coming up.
Ten years ago next month, this plant produced its first gallon of ethanol. Today, 45 employees produce 46 million gallons a year. So one of you is overachieving. Congratulations to all of you. I’ve come here today, and I visited Iowa yesterday, because there’s a lot that towns in Middle America can share with the rest of America. There’s certainly a lot you can share with Washington. Common sense, for one. So I just wanted to talk with folks like you about what your communities are experiencing – the economic pain, but also the economic possibilities. Lately, we’ve seen some welcome news after a hard two years. Our economy is growing, our markets are climbing, and our businesses are beginning to create jobs again. But when you get out to this neck of the woods and others like it, you see that the recovery hasn’t reached everyone just yet. Times are tough out here. In some places, they have been for a long time. In the two years I spent running for President and visiting towns like these, a lot of folks talked about how the American Dream was getting harder and harder to reach. Families were having a tough time getting ahead. Farmers were having a tough time getting by. And worse, many of our young people grew convinced that their only chance to find opportunity was to seek it someplace else. But success stories like POET prove that doesn’t have to be the case. And I believe we can help companies like yours replicate them across the country. Since I took office, we had to take a series of steps to rescue our economy and recover from this crisis. But we’ve also taken steps to rebuild our economy on a new foundation for long-term growth and prosperity – to create conditions so that folks who work hard can finally get ahead. That means making our schools more competitive and college more affordable. That means health insurance reform that gives families and businesses more choice, more competition, and better protection from the worst abuses of the insurance industry. That means commonsense reforms that prevent the irresponsibility of a few on Wall Street from threatening the dreams of millions on Main Street. And that means igniting a new, clean energy economy that generates good jobs right here in America. For decades, we talked about doing this. For decades, we talked about how our dependence on oil threatened our economy; but our will to act rose and fell with the price at the pump. We talked about how it threatened future generations; even as we witnessed growing evidence of climate change. We talked about how it threatened our security; even as we grew more dependent every year. As we talked, other nations acted; recognizing that the country that leads the clean energy economy will be the country that leads the 21st century global economy. And they made serious investments to win that race and the jobs that come with it. Well, as I’ve said before, I don’t accept second place for the United States of America. That’s why our energy security has been a top priority for my administration since the day I took office. We began early last year by making the largest investment in clean energy in our nation’s history. It’s an investment expected to create or save more than 700,000 jobs across America by the end of 2012 – jobs manufacturing next-generation batteries for next-generation vehicles; jobs upgrading to a smarter, stronger power grid; jobs doubling our capacity to generate renewable electricity from sources like the sun and the wind and biofuels, just like you do here. That investment was part of the Recovery Act. And it included $800 million in funding for ethanol fueling infrastructure, biorefinery construction, and advanced biofuels research to help us reach a goal I’ve set: to more than triple America’s biofuels production in the next twelve years. I’ve also created a biofuels working group led by Secretary Vilsack, our Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and our EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson. And they’re working to promote this generation of biofuels and help you deliver the next. After all, I may be President these days, but I used to be a Senator from Illinois. I didn’t just discover the merits of biofuels like ethanol when I first hopped on the campaign bus. I believe in their potential to contribute to our rural economies and our clean energy economy. So does our military, by the way. Just last week, the Navy tested a fighter jet – appropriately named the Green Hornet – that is now the first plane ever to fly faster than the speed of sound while running on a mix of half biofuel. I actually saw that plane for myself last week. It was pretty cool. So there shouldn’t be any doubt that renewable, homegrown fuels are a key part of our strategy for a clean energy future – a future of new industries, new jobs in towns like Macon, and new independence. Here at POET, you do more than just help stake America’s claim on that future. You stake Macon’s claim on America’s future. And I’m committed to making sure that communities like this one have a bright future of opportunity to look forward to. Thank you, everybody.The Financial Times devoted yesterday's In depth report to ethanol. It included a couple of articles on the tough times the industry is facing (like it's the only one) and the political support for the ethanol industry. But it also includes a slide show pictorial on POET Biorefining - Laddonia, an ethanol production facility near Laddonia, Mo. (Although I'm not sure why it's titled "Ethanol Fever." If anyone has a theory, please let me know).
Anyway, the slide show is worth watching and shows how important these plants are to the communities where they are located.
On balance, it was pretty accurate and very well done. But there were a few issues that need to be clarified. First of all, it's not accurate to say that ethanol has "cost taxpayers billions." Take last year. The tax credit for ethanol blenders cost the federal treasury $3.3 billion dollars. That same year, ethanol led to $4.6 billion in federal taxes and saved the government $8 billion in farm bill subsidies because of higher commodity prices. For the math challenged, that's a net gain of $9.3 billion. And that doesn't count the billions of dollars ethanol has saved consumers at the pump and the thousands of jobs the industry has created.
The FT reporter also does something that more and more reporters are doing these days: mentioning the high price of corn and its supposed impact on food prices without giving recent context. Here's the context: corn is now trading at $3.85 per bushel on the CBOT. That's less than half of it's high of about three months ago. That collapse in corn prices came as ethanol production capacity increased. And at the same time, food prices continue to increase. To recap: ethanol volume up, corn price down, food price up.
One thing the report gets spot on: the ethanol industry has brought significant economic development to rural communities across the Midwest. In the case of Laddonia, the ethanol production facility was the largest investment in the community in a century. If that's a fever, I don't wanna be cured.
Peter Shinn of the Brownfield Network interviewed Dr. Mark Stowers, Vice President of Research & Development for POET (pictured here), on Project Liberty. You can read Poet making cellulosic ethanol happen quickly or listen to the audio here:
While you're at it, be sure to check out the Brownfield Blog.
In one week, POET Biorefining - Portland will hold a grand opening ceremony to celebrate the beginning of operations at their facility. When added to existing ethanol production capacity, Portland will put POET at more than 1.1 billion gallons annually. For a photo, click here.
With a new facility comes a new general manager to the POET family. This post contains an interview with Greg Noble, the general manager of POET Biorefining - Portland.
In the interview, Greg talks about one of the unique features of the facility, which is located next to a quarry. Up until now, that quarry pumped out water in order to continue its excavation activities and discharged it into a local stream. Now, that water will be diverted to POET and fulfill 100 percent of the production facility's water needs. In order to accommodate the quarry water, POET constructed a 10 million gallon retention pond (pictured here in the foreground) that stores the water so the sediment can settle out before it is utilized in the plant. By using water that was previously discharge, POET Biorefining - Portland leaves more water for other commercial and residential uses in the community.
Here's the interview with Greg Noble:
Every day, there's lots of activity at POET around our project to construct a commercial cellulosic ethanol production facility. That work is taking place in little pockets all across the company. On a monthly basis we get everyone together for a company-wide progress update.
After this month's update, I sat down with the director of Project LIBERTY, Jim Sturdevant (pictured here), to talk about the progress and get some of his thoughts and perspectives on his first three months at POET. We decided to make it our first audio post on Rhapsody in Green.
Jeff Broin, the CEO of POET, was interviewed by Stephen Lacey for Inside Renewable Energy, a weekly podcast on renewable energy from RenewableEnergyAccess.com. In the interview, Jeff dispelled some of the myths of ethanol and talked about our cellulosic project.
If you aren't already subscribed to the show's RSS feed, go here to listen to the issue that includes Jeff Broin. Once you've listened, I'm sure you'll want to subscribe. I know I listen every week.
