As mentioned in the previous post, we announced a partnership with the City of Sioux Falls Regional Landfill yesterday that we would be using their landfill gas to power our ethanol plant. The speeches from that press conference are now on POET TV and can also be viewed here:
If you'd like the text version of Jeff Lautt's speech, you can find it here. Photos from the event will soon be available on our flickr page.
An ethanol plant completely powered by waste? It's possible that POET Biorefining - Chancellor could displace 100 percent of its natural gas usage with renewable energy.
Late last year we announced the construction of a solid waste fuel boiler that will burn wood waste that would otherwise have been destined for local landfills. The energy from the boiler will displace up to 60 percent of the plant's natural gas usage.
Yesterday, we announced a partnership with the Sioux Falls Area Regional Landfill that will see that same facility near Chancellor use methane from the landfill to displace even more natural gas. The combination of the two alternative energy technologies will displace at least 90 percent of the plant's natural gas usage and potentially all of it.
Here's a schematic of the facility that explains the process:
As Jeff Lautt, EVP of Corporate Operations for POET, said in his speech:
As renewable energy has increased in America, defenders of the status quo have become fond of pointing out that the production of renewable energy requires fossil fuels. But, should the lack of renewable energy be a reason to not produce renewable energy? Today, most ethanol production facilities are dependent on fossil fuels, just like our country. But as the renewable economy grows, these same facilities will be able to draw their power from renewable sources, like we’re doing in Chancellor.
In response to the reports in Science Magazine saying that biofuels are worse for the environment than petroleum, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) has started a new blog, Advanced Biofuels & Climate Change Information Center.
After the Science Magazine articles were published, many who were already critics of biofuels took the opportunity for a fresh round of biofuel-bashing. Many clearly did not read the studies because they sought to dismiss biofuels altogether, which is something the studies (as negative as they are) clearly do not support. This new blog is an attempt to have a more serious discussion around biofuels and climate change while pointing out the technological progress in the ethanol industry.
I've added a permanent link to our blog roll in the right-hand column. Since POET is a member of BIO, I will be occasionally posting to the blog and contributed my first post this morning: No land cleared for biofuels.
Last November, POET announced that an expansion of our Chancellor, S.D. ethanol production facility would include a solid waste fuel boiler. The biomass boiler will replace more than half of the expanded plant's natural gas usage. Last night, a local TV station covered the announcement in more depth. A transcript is available on their web site, but I've posted the piece here:
Environmental Defense produced a video last year called Cap. Trade. Grow. The video advocates a cap and trade system for carbon emissions in the United States. It goes into detail about the downside to America's addiction to oil and features some companies that are part of the solution. POET CEO Jeff Broin is interviewed regarding our cellulosic ethanol project. The 10-minute video has been posted to our favorites section on POET TV and can be watched here:
Treehugger, the top environmental blog and a top-20 blog overall, gave some coverage to POET last week in a post about cellulosic ethanol. The blog included POET in an interesting discussion about schedule for the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol, which they give the acronym Ceetoh. Their best guess is no sooner than 2020 for broad commercialization of cellulosic ethanol in North America.
I noticed that a couple of the other cellulosic companies had Treehugger posts at some point in the past. Maybe ours is coming soon?
Tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. Central
Time, POET will be featured on the Weather Channel’s special series, Forecast
Earth. The program will focus on the economic impact that the POET ethanol production facility near Coon Rapids, Iowa has had on the rural town. As a preview, they've posted a video of Martha Stout, Lab Manager at the facility, explaining how ethanol is made.
Larry Ward, VP of Project Development for POET, was interviewed for the Forecast Earth special in the administration building of the Coon Rapids plant.
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:
POET Biorefining - Big Stone recently completed an expansion that took the facility from an annual nameplate construction capacity of 40 million to 75 million gallons of ethanol per year. The facility had been producing nearly 50 million gallons per year, or almost 20 percent above its nameplate capacity.
The expansion of Big Stone puts the total annual production capacity of the 20 POET Biorefining plants at 1.045 billion gallons of ethanol per year. The six plants in South Dakota produce just over 310 million gallons per year.
What makes POET Biorefining - Big Stone particularly interesting is the subject of an article in the July issue of Ethanol Producer Magazine. The POET facility is located a half mile from the Big Stone Power Plant (pictured here) and uses steam from that plant to operate its evaporators and distillers. That leads to a 50 percent decrease in natural gas usage in comparison to similar ethanol plants. POET Biorefining - Big Stone also gets 85 percent of its water from the power plant's retention ponds.
With natural gas usage 50 percent below the norm and only 15 percent of its water coming from an area township, what you have is a big facility with a small environmental footprint.
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