Jeff Broin, CEO of POET, announced that construction will be completed on a $4 million pilot-scale cellulosic ethanol production facility later this year. The announcement was made during a press conference this morning at the ACE Ethanol Conference in Omaha.
The pilot plant will be adjacent to POET's corn ethanol pilot facility and 9 mgy ethanol plant in Scotland, SD. The company says it will allow them to build upon recent technology advances before starting construction on Project LIBERTY, its commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa, later this year.
"In the past few months, our scientists have been able to achieve significant ethanol percentages in fermentation and improve the yield of ethanol from biomass," Broin said. "I am more sure of the future of cellulosic ethanol than ever before."
Broin also noted that POET believes corn ethanol is the best way to reach the reality of cellulosic ethanol, and that corn cobs are a great option because they have little fertilizer value for the corn field and are an agricultural waste product at this point. He says their modeling shows that 5 billion gallons of ethanol per year could be produced using corn cobs.
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