Rhapsody in Green

POET provides expert testimony on cellulosic ethanol

Dr. Mark Stowers, Vice President of Research & Development for POET, was on Capitol Hill earlier this week to provide expert testimony to the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. Dr. Stowers briefed the committee on our cellulosic plans at a hearing titled The Renewable Fuels Standard: Issues, Implementation, and Opportunities.

Posted here is Dr. Stowers' testimony from POET TV. You can also watch the entire committee hearing or download the written version of Dr. Stowers' testimony. For more information on our cellulosic ethanol project, visit projectliberty.com.

Photos from BIO

As I mentioned in the previous post, POET is in Chicago for the 2008 World Conference on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing. Yesterday, POET CEO Jeff Broin spoke to a gathering of the Governor's Ethanol Coalition and the plenary lunch session of the conference (pictured here).

More pictures from the conference are available on our Flickr page. Today, Mark Stowers, VP of R&D for POET, is speaking on a panel about our cellulosic ethanol project.

Flag flown over US Capitol in recognition of POET ethanol plant

U.S. Senator Richard Lugar was unable to attend the grand opening of POET Biorefining - Alexandria last week, but he sent his well-wishes with his executive director Gail Lowry. He also sent something else: a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol  Building in recognition of the new ethanol plant. Here's a picture of Gail just before she handed the flag to POET CEO Jeff Broin:

Gail also read a letter from Senator Lugar talking about the economic and national security benefits of ethanol in general and this plant in particular. You can read the entire letter by clicking here (pdf).

POET Biorefining - Alexandria grand opening on POET TV

As promised in the last post, the speeches from the grand opening ceremony of POET Biorefining - Alexandria have been posted to POET TV. You can also watch them here:

In addition, Jeff Swiatek of the Indianapolis Star wrote a story about our company and the opening of the plant. It's worth the read.

Landfill gas press conference on POET TV

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.

POET CEO keynotes Brussels Biofuels Conference

POET CEO Jeff Broin is pictured here presenting a keynote address this morning at the World Biofuels Markets Conference in Brussels, Belgium. The conference was  attended by approximately 1,100 people from over 60 countries. Mr. Broin's speech titled "The Renewable Revolution" defended the current grain-based ethanol industry against other fossil fuel alternatives and predicted that the future economy would depend on renewable sources for biochemicals and biopolymers in addition to energy. Click here (PDF) to view a transcript of Mr. Broin's speech.

Leipsic grand opening speeches

Recently, we celebrated the grand opening of POET Biorefining - Leipsic, a 60 million gallon ethanol production facility in Northwest Ohio. A crowd of over 3,000 people attended the event and the line for tours of the plant stretched outside the door of the grains building. The crowd heard some excellent speeches from that you can see on POET TV. We've also posted them here:

Four local TV stations have posted their coverage of the event online: WTOL Toledo, the Ohio News Network, WNWO Toledo and Fox News Toledo. The print news coverage is linked to from our web site and more photos have been posted to Flickr.

Happy Birthday to us!

Last week we celebrated the 20th anniversary of POET with a Friday afternoon event at our corporate headquarters. We had hundreds of people - team members, investors, elected officials and their representatives - packed into our new Technology Center for a short program. More details about the event and the occasion can be found on the news release that was issued that day.

Speakers at the event included South Dakota State Representative Jim Putnam, who has been representing the district that includes our Scotland plant since POET CEO Jeff Broin first came to South Dakota 20 years ago. Also present were U.S. Senator John Thune and South Dakota Lieutenant Governor Dennis Daugaard. All of the speeches have been posted to POET TV and are included here:

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader was in the audience and printed a story.

Talking about the solid waste fuel boiler

We brought the video camera to Chancellor for the announcement of the solid waste fuel boiler last week and just got around to posting the speeches. The videos of four speakers can be found here. Representing the corporate office of POET is James Moe, COO of POET Design & Construction and POET Plant Management:

There was also an interesting blog post on the announcement from After Gutenberg. The post focuses on the improvement to the Chancellor plant's EROEI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) and the kudos from a prominent blogger are appreciated. The installation of a solid waste fuel boiler would certainly improve the EROEI, but it also reveals the flaw in using that measure to judge energy production. While many critics of ethanol are basing their calculations on a snapshot, and often that snapshot was taken years ago, the production of ethanol from corn is relentlessly improving its efficiency. Critics often fail to factor in the incremental increases in efficiency or the big increases like a solid waste fuel boiler.

But the flaws with EROEI are even deeper than calculation errors. It is essentially another form of the net energy balance equation that David Pimentel invented for critiquing ethanol. For an explanation of why that is a flawed argument, see Dr. Bruce Dale's paper Thinking clearly about biofuels: ending the irrelevant 'net energy' debate and developing better performance metrics for alternative fuels that ran in the September, 2007 issue of Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining. As Dale explains, the primary problem with the argument is that it treats all energy sources the same when that is not the case:

If all megajoules (MJ) were equal, then energy markets would reflect that fact. But the energy markets do no such thing. At current prices, an MJ (or Btu) of natural gas is worth about 3.5 times an MJ of coal, and an MJ of petroleum is worth more than five times an MJ of coal. An MJ of electricity is worth about 12 times an MJ of the coal raw material from which electricity is frequently generated. Clearly, all MJ are not created equal.

The other curious part of this debate is that opponents of ethanol never talk about the net energy balance of other liquid transportation fuels, like gasoline. Again according to Dale, gasoline is a net energy loss of 18 percent and ethanol is a gain of 27 percent. Who has the net energy problem?

Cob Harvest Media Day A/V

As promised in the previous post, we've got some pictures and video from Cob Harvest Media Day. First of all, the speeches are posted on POET TV. Here's POET CEO Jeff Broin kicking off the event:

As you can hear from the video, it was a typical South Dakota windy day. Also, pictures from the event can be found on flickr and Grainnet.

Honoring an Indy Driver in Portland

Dr. Tonya Bergeson-Dana, wife of the late Paul Dana, and their 9-month old son, Paul Conor (pictured here), were in attendance for the grand opening of POET Biorefining - Portland. Jeff Broin, CEO of POET, acknowledged her and her late husband in his speech:

For the last few years, I’ve been traveling to Indiana each May to attend this little racing event you have down the road called the Indianapolis 500. 

We’ve been attending the race thanks to a visionary Indy driver who was genuinely concerned about our nation’s addiction to foreign energy. This man desperately wanted to do something about it so he boldly proposed that the Indy Car series step up to the plate and set an example for the rest of the country by completely eliminating its need for foreign oil. 

He knew that ethanol was a high performance fuel, environmentally friendly, and was produced right here in America’s heartland. He then, almost single-handedly, convinced the Indy Car Series and the ethanol industry to partner. Now today, the Indy Car Series is setting an example for the rest of the country by running on 100% ethanol. 

Sadly, the visionary who initiated this didn’t get to see for himself what he worked so hard to accomplish; as his life was tragically cut short while racing last year. His name was Paul Dana. 

I am so thankful for what Paul did. He was a great driver, a great ambassador for ethanol, but most importantly a wonderful human being. Today, we are honored that Paul’s wife, Dr. Tonya Bergeson-Dana and their 9-month old son, Paul Conor would be with us to help us celebrate this event. Tonya, would you please stand? (Applause). 

Tonya, thank you and your late husband for all you have done and thank you for being here today. Paul was someone who truly had that power to inspire.

POET is one of the primary sponsors of the #17 Ethanol Indy Car now driven by Ryan Hunter-Reay. It was an honor to have Tonya in the crowd today.