A new decade, a new year, a new issue of Vital. The winter 2010 issue of Vital has made it's appearance in mailboxes across the country. With stories featuring the future of ethanol it's sure to be a great read to start out 2010!
Highlights for this issue include a new engine technology that will optimize the use of ethanol and the history of the POET Biorefinery that will become one of the first in the world to produce cellulosic ethanol at a commercial scale.
This issue also rounds out a three-part series on the potential of corn. A Barrel of Corn describes several uses of how corn will go even further to displace the use of foreign oil.
Check out the stories online on the Vital website where you can also subscribe to receive the printed version quarterly.
On Tuesday, in Emmetsburg, Iowa, at the future site of our first commercial cellulosic ethanol production facility, we will host more than a dozen agricultural equipment manufacturers and hundreds of farmers from the area at LIBERTY Field Day. If you haven't yet received an invitation, you can find the details at www.projectliberty.com.
At this event, farmers and the public will get a first glimpse at the biomass harvesting equipment that will help secure feedstock for an emerging cellulosic ethanol industry, like the AGCO bailer pictured below. They will also get a chance to hear from POET CEO Jeff Broin, General Wesley Clark and Iowa Lt. Governor Patty Judge.
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.
The Fiesta Movement visited POET Biorefining - Hudson. See the video from Fiesta Agent 42 (Hugh Weber), with his explanation of how ethanol is made here:
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.
Recently, the Associated Press correctly reported that POET's dedicated ethanol pipeline project with Magellan Midstream Partners had decided to expand the proposed pipeline to include South Dakota. It was our belief from the beginning that expanding the pipeline into South Dakota would be a good idea considering that it is the fifth largest ethanol producing state at almost one billion gallons of capacity.
The proposed ethanol pipeline is now 1,800 miles long and will directly connect to 30 Midwestern ethanol production facilities. As you can see from the attached map, the proposed route would start in South Dakota and travel through the ethanol producing states of Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio before heading to the east coast.
The pipeline would significantly discount the cost of transporting ethanol to the east coast and decrease the carbon footprint of the fuel because it eliminates the use of fossil powered trucks and trains to transport the product to market.
Photographer Greg Latza shot a photo of POET Biorefining - Chancellor for the cover of the Progressive Farmer and posted it on his blog. However, he did get our company name wrong, calling us Poet Energy rather than POET.
With this facility recently adding alternative energy technologies that will displace most, if not all, of its natural gas usage, it's fitting that it would be on the cover of a magazine looking at the Next Steps for Ethanol.
If you want to see other (much less professional) photos of this facility, be sure to check out our Flickr page.
Yesterday POET announced the start of cellulosic ethanol production at POET Research Center in Scotland, S.D. (pictured here under construction). Late last year, we finished construction of an $8 million pilot facility that is now producing cellulosic ethanol from corn cobs.
After 30 days and 1,000 gallons of production, we've been able to replicate all of our lab results and are now moving on to improve the overall process, in preparation for commercial production.
News coverage was plentiful and can be found over on our web site. If you'd like to listen to the entire 40 minute news conference with POET CEO Jeff Broin, Brownfield was kind enough to post it here. We've also posted a transcript of Jeff Broin's opening statement.
POET produced a documentary about the pilot facility in Scotland, S.D. A preview as posted to POET TV because YouTube wouldn't let us put up the full documentary. Here's the preview:
As the largest producer of ethanol in the world, POET gets a lot of inquiries about what we expect from an Obama administration. Rather than venture our own guess, we'd like to let the words of his campaign speak for itself.
On October 27, just a few days before the election, Heather Zichal, the Obama National Campaign Policy Director for Energy, Environment and Agriculture, spoke at the grand opening ceremony of POET Biorefining - Marion, our newest of 26 ethanol production facilities. you can watch her speech here in its entirety:
In her speech, she reads a statement from then candidate Obama regarding the opening of the plant in Marion, Ohio and his position on ethanol. The statement reads:
I'm proud to support biofuels, which can reduce our dependence on foreign oil, lower the price of gasoline, and help grow our economy. This plant is both an investment in the Marion Community and a timely reminder of the incredible economic potential of alternative fuels.
If you're upset that you missed the grand opening of POET Biorefining - Marion, it's not too late to catch all of the speeches. They've been uploaded to POET TV and posted here:
In her speech, Heather Zichal from the Obama campaign mentioned this statement (pdf) from Senator Obama. For further reading, there was an excellent write-up on the event from the Marion Star.
