POET No. 2 in Biofuels Digest rankings

POET today was ranked second among more than 1,000 eligible companies in the Biofuels Digest “50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy.”

Top ranking went to Solazyme (congrats!). Amyris Biotechnologies, BP Biofuels and Sapphire Energy rounded out the top five.

Thanks to Biofuels Digest and those who selected POET for this honor.

Looking back, we have had a lot of activity since last year’s rankings (we were No. 4 in ‘08-‘09).

Notable milestones for POET over that time include:

- Operating the first full year of our pilot cellulosic ethanol plant in Scotland, S.D. and using that data to drop the overall cost to produce cellulosic ethanol from $4.13 to $2.35.

- Completing a project with the city of Sioux Falls, S.D. to use landfill gas,along with a wood waste-fuel boiler, to help power POET Biorefining – Chancellor (S.D.).

- Eliminating wastewater discharge at POET Biorefining – Bingham Lake (Minn.).

- Energy Star recognition for the Combined Heat and Power system at POET Biorefining – Laddonia (Mo).

- Developing the production process for Inviz, POET’s brand of zein. This is a new co-product in ethanol production that is used for films and coatings, among other things.

Expect the next year to be just as exciting for POET. We’ve already announced some upcoming events, such as start of construction on Project LIBERTY, our first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant. There are many more developments that we’ll be able to announce to the public soon.

Technorati Tags: POET,Biofuels Digest,cellulosic ethanol,Energy Star,CHP,cob collection,landfill gas,zein,Inviz

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.

New Biofuels Digest columnist praises POET management principles

Biofuels Digest launched a new column today from Dr. Rosalie Lober, MBA, author of Run Your Business Like a Fortune 100: 7 Principles for Boosting PROFITS. In the words of Biofuels Digest:

Today’s first column focuses on POET, which has in 2008-09 managed the remarkable feat of becoming one of the two largest ethanol producers in the country while landing in the top 10 of the Hottest 50 Companies in Bioenergy.

Read the full column here.

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.

Q&A with POET CEO Jeff Broin

Jeff Broin, CEO of POET answered some questions on earth2tech. In case you're not a regular reader, I thought I'd post a link. The answers generated a little buzz here and here. One person commented on the earth2tech post that the answers were right on the mark. What do you think?

Lots of new web stuff

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the new look for this blog and the new news aggregator on our web site. Well, we launched some more new stuff this week.

First, please note that our web site has a new url: www.poet.com. When we first launched the site about a year and a half ago, it was www.poetenergy.com. Everyone here was eagerly anticipating the change, because despite the fact that our name is one word: POET, people have wanted to call us POET Energy (or POET Biorefining, or other variations). We're holding our breath that this will help clear up some of that confusion. If you are kind enough to link to our site, be sure to update your url.

Also, while we were at it, we thought it would be a good time to give the site a new look. It was nothing too radical, but the background image is new and the content changed a little. We've added new sections like the one on sustainability and updated others like this one explaining our corporate structure. Take a look and let us know what you think.

Finally, the second issue of our corporate magazine, Vital, came out today. We appreciate all of the feedback we got on the first issue and hope you enjoy this one just as much. If you do, feel free to subscribe and tell your friends.

New look for Rhapsody in Green

In celebration of our one-year anniversary (a few weeks late), we decided to unveil a new look for this blog. Let us know what you think. We hope you like it.

Not that we didn't like the previous design which you all came to know and love. We just thought that a one-year old was ready for a fresh coat of paint.

In the spirit of change, we also wanted a place where we could capture all of the stuff we do here: videos, pictures, releases, news coverage, etc. So, over at the POET web site, we launched a news page that aggregates all of that stuff into one place.

It should be handy for those of you who want to keep up to speed on everything we do but don't have time to surf around to a few different sites. For those with even less time, there are RSS feeds for everything. If you want them by email, click here for instructions. Although, if you don't visit the blog, you will miss out on our nice new design!

National Ethanol Conference

Several from POET are in Orlando for the 13th annual National Ethanol Conference. Jeff Lautt, Executive Vice President of Corporate Operations for POET, will be on a panel discussion. Details on his presentation can be found in a release on our web site.

If you're stuck in snowy South Dakota (like me), Chuck Zimmerman of Zimmcomm is at the conference and will be posting regular updates on the conference blog, including interviews and photos. I'll be following along.

Biofuels & Climate Change

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.

GM's Bob Lutz on ethanol

On the GM Fastlane Blog, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz posted the transcript of a speech he delivered at the 2008 North American International Auto Show. One of the five topics covered in the speech titled Five Things I think I think was ethanol. Here's the relevant text:

“The best route to a significant near-term reduction in petroleum usage is E85.”

It’s just common sense! As I said, you don’t roll over the whole fleet at once. It takes decades… and the bigger the price disparity between the old ones and the new ones, the longer it takes.

I kept getting the question at the show…if GM is so gung ho on electrified vehicles and hybrids and fuel cells, then why this emphasis on E85? Why the deal with Coskata? They’d ask, “Which of these technologies are you really for?” And I’d say, “Yes!”

As Rick Wagoner said at the show, several times, the answer is we are for all of the above, but ethanol and biofuels are the best near-term solution. Yes, we continue to work on electrically driven vehicles, as fast as we can, but realistically, they are going to take many years to be on the road in volumes that make much of a dent in petroleum usage.

We need to make more of an impact on petroleum usage, more quickly than that. We already have millions of flex-fuel vehicles on the road right now…more than 6 million in the U.S. alone…vehicles that could be running on ethanol, if it were more readily available.

In fact, as Rick said, if all the flex-fuel vehicles that GM, Ford, and Chrysler have committed to have on the road by 2020…were to run on ethanol, we could displace 29 billion gallons of gasoline annually…or 18 percent of the projected petroleum usage at that time.

And if all manufacturers in the U.S. made that same commitment, we could save 53 billion gallons of gasoline annually…or 32 percent of our petroleum usage. Nothing else we can do…gets even close to that kind of impact, that soon. What’s more, ethanol offers a cleaner alternative to petroleum…it’s adaptable to our refueling infrastructure…it doesn’t have to be imported…and it requires little change in that pesky subject I mentioned earlier: consumer behavior. (Emphasis in original).

This is very similar to what our CEO, Jeff Broin, frequently says about ethanol being the only near-term solution to two of the biggest challenges facing our country: dependence on foreign oil and global climate change.

Today, the vast majority of ethanol is E10, or a blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline. E85 a very small percentage of the overall ethanol mix. While other mid-level blends have shown promise and are gaining momentum, all blends of ethanol can help us get to our goal of reducing our nation's dependence on foreign oil. On that, it would seem that POET and GM agree.