Blogging about cellulosic ethanol

It's been up and running for about six months now, but we haven't said much about the Project LIBERTY Blog, a (relatively) new blog completely devoted to POET's efforts to commercialize cellulosic ethanol. If you're a regular reader of this blog and you want more information about what we're doing in cellulosic ethanol, you'll want to add the Project LIBERTY Blog to your regular reading list.

Recent posts include a Q&A session with a group of farmers interested in cob collection and Project LIBERTY Director Jim Sturdevant, an overall update on our progress toward commercialization of cellulosic ethanol from VP of R&D Dr. Mark Stowers and a documentary of our pilot plant project.

At the Project LIBERTY Blog, you'll be hearing directly from the people who are working on the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol. Be sure to bookmark it or visit through the permanent link on this blog.

POETs re-elected to American Coalition for Ethanol Board

The American Coalition for Ethanol held elections for their board of directors at their meeting yesterday and the new board includes four from POET. Bob Scott of POET Ethanol Products continues as President, while POET CEO Jeff Broin is treasurer. Howard Roe of POET Biorefining - Coon Rapids and Lars Herseth from POET Biorefining - Big Stone also made the list.

Mr. Ethanol in Forbes

A few weeks ago, Forbes.com listed POET as one of eight promising alternative energy companies. This week, the magazine had a profile of POET CEO Jeff Broin in their issue on Energy & Genius. The title of the article is Mr. Ethanol Fights Back. Here's an excerpt:

Poet has a huge advantage over all the venture-capital-backed startups tweaking biological innovations to be among the first to sell cellulosic ethanol or some form of biomass-derived gasoline or diesel fuel. In 21 years of producing ethanol, Poet has continually improved its process; today Broin says that over that time his company has reduced by half the amount of energy needed to produce a gallon of ethanol, from 60,000 Btu of natural gas to 30,000 Btu.

Broin will also speak at the Forbes Energy Conference in New York next week. More details are in a release on our web site.

Help wanted: Blogger

Since you're viewing this post, I'm going to make the assumption that you enjoy reading this blog. But what about contributing? Do you think you have what it takes to write for Rhapsody in Green?

Well, we're looking for someone to join our communications team as a media relations specialist. Yes, you have to do other stuff in addition to helping with the blog, but this will be part of the fun you get while working at POET.

If you're interested in joining the largest producer of ethanol in the world, head on over to our web site and apply. Just think...you could be a contributor to this blog rather than just a reader!

Speaking at FEW

Two POET VPs presented at panel discussions during the final day of the 2008 International Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Nashville, Tenn. Jeff Lautt, Executive VP of Corporate Operations spoke about driving down production costs on the New Technologies panel.

Lautt is pictured here at the far right answering a question during the Q&A portion of the panel discussion. For more pictures from the conference, check out our Flickr page.

Also, Dr. Mark Stowers, VP of R&D, gave a presentation at the Cellulose Biorefining panel. Stowers talked about how the corn ethanol plant of today is the foundation for the biorefinery of the future. His presentation, which was reported on in Ethanol Producer Magazine, is copied below.

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In addition, an interview with POET CEO Jeff Broin on ethanol plant efficiencies was posted on Domestic Fuel.

Alexandria Grand Opening Next Week

Next week, POET will open its 23rd ethanol production facility in Alexandria, Ind. The facility will be the second plant opened in the state of Indiana where one more is under construction. The grand opening is scheduled for April 17 and complete details can be found in a release on our web site.

Hoosier Ag Today interviewed Dave Hudak, the general manager of the facility, and posted it on their web site. You can also listen to the interview here:

POET Glenville in the news

MinnPost.com was at POET Biorefining - Glenville East late last year to film some video of plant employees for a series this week on ethanol. The first story, which includes a nice side-bar piece on the origins of POET, can be found here. With their permission, we posted the video to POET TV and here:

The video features plant general manager Rick Mummert and Quality Manager Josh Karaus talking about the plant and how they make ethanol. POET Biorefining - Glenville East produces 42 million gallons of ethanol per year from 16 million bushels of corn. Construction will start soon on POET Biorefining - Glenville West, a 60 million gallon ethanol production facility that will be located just across the street from the existing facility.

For those unfamiliar with MinnPost.com, they are an online, non-profit news source that launched in November. PRWeek has the details.

Vote for the Biofuels Personality of the Year

We're coming to the end of the year and what does that mean? Lists! And how do we get lists? Vote! POET was included on the AP ballot a few weeks ago and now we have a place on the Biofuels Digest blog poll for Biofuels Personality of 2007.

POET Founder & CEO Jeff Broin is listed as one of the 23 finalists for the award (no word on how they came up with the list, but they have posted some profiles). As of this post they had 34 votes and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla was leading the way with five. RFA CEO Bob Dineen and President George W. Bush each had four. Voting started on December 20 and runs through the 31st.

Mike Rounds' Chief of Staff Joins POET

Rob Skjonsberg, the Chief of Staff for South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds since 2003, announced that he will be joining POET in November as Vice President of Government Affairs. For more information on Rob, take a look at his bio on the Governor's web site. The Sioux Falls Argus Leader posted the announcement here.

Jeff Broin, CEO of POET said: “We are very excited that Rob has decided to join the POET team. With his record in public service and South Dakota roots he will be a valuable asset to POET as we continue to expand on our leadership position in the ethanol industry.”

Chatting with the Portland GM

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: