World's largest ethanol maker enters biomass business

Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Poet announced today a new initiative to improve the supply chain for next-generation energy feedstocks.

The world’s largest ethanol maker has created a division to focus exclusively on biomass such as corn cobs and waste wood that can be used to make cellulosic ethanol and power anaerobic digesters.

Poet Biomass, headed by Vice President of Commercial Development Scott Weishaar, is expected to work to improve the logistics around harvesting and transporting the feedstock, as well as finding new feedstocks for ethanol and energy production.

In an announcement today, Poet called those logistics “among the chief challenges to commercializing the production of biofuels from new feedstocks.”

"POET’s cellulosic ethanol goals depend on a steady supply of a reliable feedstock: corn cobs," Weishaar said. "POET Biomass is here to make sure farmers have everything they need in order to play their important role in fueling our nation with both grain-based and cellulosic ethanol."

Poet currently uses corn cobs to produce cellulosic ethanol at an $8 million pilot-scale plant in Scotland, S.D., at a rate of about 20,000 gallons per year. The plant was commissioned in the fourth quarter of 2008 (see Poet to produce cellulosic ethanol this year).

See the pilot facility here »

Also today, Poet said it started sourcing power from the liquid waste produced when converting corn corbs to ethanol. Poet is feeding the liquid waste into a research-stage anaerobic digester to power the pilot plant, as well as offset some of the natural gas used to power the company’s neighboring grain ethanol plant.

The digester, designed and built by Biothane, began producing power May 20 by turning the liquid waste into methane gas, which is flared in place of natural gas. Poet says it's the first time the liquid waste from the corn-cob process has been used in a digester.

Poet expects to incorporate the process once it's refined into a $200 million commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in the research and development phase. That plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa, is expected to have the capacity to produce 25 million gallons per year starting in 2011.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency predicts that by 2022 the country will produce 7.8 billion gallons of cellulosic biofuel from about 82 million tons of corn waste, including corn cobs.

Poet produces more than 1.54 billion gallons of ethanol annually from 26 production facilities in the U.S.