POET ranked #4 of “50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy”

Biofuels Digest today released its latest “50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy” list, and POET came out ranked #4.

It’s a ranking determined by voters with experience in bioenergy and subscribers to the publication, so it’s a special honor to be recognized by peers as a “hot” company. POET was unique in its inclusion as the top large-scale ethanol producer working with grain and cellulose.

POET reached some notable milestones over the past year in the areas of cellulosic ethanol, new products and green technology.

1. Cellulosic ethanol advancement (Project LIBERTY):

- Approved for a $105 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy for Project LIBERTY construction

- Completed the first commercial-scale biomass harvest of 56,000 tons for cellulosic ethanol in Emmetsburg, Iowa and commenced the second harvest

- Built a 22-acre biomass stack yard at the Project LIBERTY site with work continuing this fall

2. Developed new products:

- Branded zein product “Inviz™,” which can be used as a gum base or in films, packaging, adhesives, coatings, glazes and more

- Branded corn oil “Voilà!™,” which is being sold to biodiesel producers. Plan to install technology to more POET plants, with a potential of enough corn oil to supply feedstock for 50 million gallons of biodiesel per year.

3. Green technology:

- Installed POET’s Total Water Recovery system to more POET plants, for a total of 18 plants today. The system has reduced overall water use by more than 650 million gallons of water per year over 2009 baseline. The company-wide average water use per gallon of ethanol is now at 2.6

- Installed a waste heat recovery system that saves energy in POET Biorefining – Caro (Mich.).

 

Technorati Tags: POET,ethanol,cellulosic,green,zein,corn oil

USDA report shows that DDGS are more nutritious pound-for-pound

POET produces 10 billion pounds of animal feed per year through dried distillers’ grains with solubles (DDGS), but a new USDA study shows that DDGS replace a much larger proportion of corn and soybean meal in feed markets.

It’s an often-overlooked fact that ethanol production uses only the starch portion of the corn kernel, leaving the protein-rich portion for animal feed through DDGS.

A USDA study released this month titled “Estimating the Substitution of Distillers’ Grains for Corn and Soybean Meal in the U.S. Feed Complex,” found that pound for pound, DDGS are more nutritious than corn

“Findings demonstrate that, in aggregate (including major types of livestock/poultry), a metric ton of DDGS can replace, on average, 1.22 metric tons of feed consisting of corn and soybean meal in the United States.”

When you hear that “ethanol uses 40% of the corn crop,” it’s not accounting for that return of animal feed. About 40% of that corn used for ethanol goes right to livestock.

Another interesting point is that more DDGS are being used to replace soybean meal. Whereas the corn used for ethanol is not edible for humans, soybeans are. In a sense, DDGS are replacing edible food with inedible (to humans) feed. That actually frees up soybeans for human consumption.

Technorati Tags: DDGS,livestock,feed,ethanol,USDA

Low Carbon Fuel Standard workgroup sorting through data for a true accounting of fuels

In California, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard expert workgroup has been meeting since February, examining the data and assumptions behind the state law regulating carbon intensity of different fuels. This group will make recommendations to the state Air Resources Board by the end of the year.

Dr. Mark Stowers, POET Senior Vice President of Science and Technology, is the lone ethanol representative on the group of scientists and academics, and he took a few minutes this week to provide an update to what the group has been dealing with lately.

POET VP: new data “well received” by Low Carbon Fuel Standard workgroup

New data regarding ethanol’s alleged impact on the environment was “very well received” by members of the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) expert workgroup today, POET Senior Vice President of Science and Technology Mark Stowers said.

Stowers (pictured here) represents the ethanol industry on the group, which is meeting now in Sacramento, Calif.

Earlier today, they heard from Purdue economist Wally Tyner. He updated a model used to estimate Indirect Land Use Change (the much debated theory -- summarized here -- that when corn in the U.S. is used for ethanol, it sets of a chain reaction that, eventually, leads to deforestation in places like the the Amazon).

The updated research adds a few new wrinkles to the model. Rather than ethanol being worse than gasoline, the new data shows that ethanol reduces carbon emissions by at least 10 percent. Reasons for that include:

- It recognizes that a significant amount of the corn is returned to the livestock industry through Dried Distillers’ Grains (DDGS). In other words, one bushel of corn used for ethanol is not one bushel of animal feed lost.

- New cropland is not necessarily poor cropland. Previous estimates assumed new land would be far less productive.

I caught Stowers by phone during a break this afternoon. He said this new data was very important to the debate.

“It starts to show that with more careful scrutiny and as researchers become more familiar with the ethanol industry and agriculture, the numbers are getting more realistic,” he said.

Nonetheless, Stowers said, the model is still not appropriate for use in policy.

“This model is giving us a better indication of what’s going on, but it’s still not complete,” he said. “It’s progress, but it’s not the end.”

Stowers said CARB mentioned the new data in a communication today to the workgroup.

“They made a statement to carefully consider Tyner’s work and make certain we have a recommendation on what to do or how to use the data,” he said.

Biofuels Journal Workshop at POET this week

POET will be a busy place this week.

At our corporate headquarters in Sioux Falls, we’ll host a great lineup of ethanol researchers, experts and industry leaders for Day One of the BIOFUELS JOURNAL 2nd Annual Commercial Ethanol Technology and Research Workshop Wednesday and Thursday.

The focus of the workshop is to outline ways to make ethanol production more efficient and profitable. Technology such as displacing natural gas for energy savings, fractionation, and adding new co-products will all be covered. Industry progress in commercializing cellulosic ethanol will also be highlighted.

Wednesday's session will take place at POET. The Thursday session will be at the Best Western Ramkota Hotel and Conference Center in Sioux Falls.

Keynote speakers for the event are Jeff Broin, CEO of POET, and Brian Jennings, executive vice president of the American Coalition for Ethanol. For a full list of speakers and topics, see the agenda.

Blog Action Day: Making biobased alternatives to petroleum products

If we want to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, the world is going to have to find ways to make renewable alternatives to things that are currently made from fossil fuels. As our largest example, POET annually produces 1.5 billion gallons of ethanol that displaces gasoline from petroleum.

However, fuels are far from the only things in this country that come from petroleum. There is a long list of products that are made from oil. One of the primary areas of research and development from POET is finding renewable ingredients that can replace those that come from oil.

So on Blog Action Day, POET announces a new co-product, Inviz, a protein with little nutritional value that can replace the synthetic petroleum-based ingredients in films, packaging, adhesives, coatings and glazes, as you can read in the release.

Among the first to notice were bloggers Doris de Guzman at Green Chemicals and Cindy Zimmerman at Domestic Fuel. You can listen to interview with POET VP of Commercial Development Scott Weishaar here.

As I said in this morning's post about the scientist behind Inviz, we have many people at POET looking at many products beyond ethanol that can replace those made from fossil fuels. We're working on the biorefinery of the future (see image below). I thought that would be something worth talking about this Blog Action Day.

The scientist behind Inviz

Today, POET announced a new co-product from the ethanol production process: Inviz. Inviz is a protein called zein, that is extracted from Dakota Gold HP at POET's ethanol production facility in Scotland, S.D. The protein is a renewable ingredient that can be used instead of petroleum-based ingredients in films, packaging, adhesives, coatings and glazes, as you can read in the release.

The announcement is another step from ethanol production facility to full biorefinery. But how did POET arrive at this place? The answer is largely found in the career path of POET Senior Scientist John Lawton.

Lawton has spent his career working on zein, much of it at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research at USDA ARS in Peoria, Ill. That extensive research has made him one of the world's foremost experts on zein. In fact, the Wikipedia entry for zein lists three papers authored or co-authored by Lawton. Those are just a few of the 32 peer-reviewed journal publications and five book chapters that Lawton has authored on zein and related topics and he is also responsible for four patents.

Recognizing that expertise, POET hired Lawton almost three years ago so that he could lead the company's efforts to develop commercial production of zein. The two had collaborated on zein research a few years prior to Lawton's arrival at POET.

For his part, Lawton wanted to come to POET because he recognized that the way POET produced ethanol resulted in a co-product that was a better starting point for zein. The Dakota Gold HP distillers grains produced with POET's proprietary fractionation and "no-cook" technologies of BFRAC and BPX, contains a protein that hasn't been damaged by heat. As noted in the release, Lawton is excited to see the commercialization of his life's work in the lab.

Take a look at this video from POET TV of Lawton explaining zein and the advantages of Inviz:

This is one of the many people at POET working on many renewable products that can displace those made from fossil fuels. To keep up with our progress, keep visiting this blog and follow us on Twitter.