Jeff Broin, CEO of the largest US ethanol producer, Poet, said the company expects to contribute to the production of 3.5 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year by 2022.
Speaking to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. today, he said Poet has made enough progress on technology and feedstock development to break ground on its first plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa later this year.
According to Poet’s plans, the 3.5 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol will come from three primary sources:
- One billion gallons of production capacity will come from adding the technology to Poet’s existing network of 26 corn-based ethanol plants.
- Licensing that technology to other corn-based ethanol producers will lead to another 1.4 billion gallons of production capacity.
- Another 1.1 billion gallons of production capacity will come from a wide variety of other feedstocks from across the U.S. These gallons will be produced by Poet or through joint ventures and opportunities where Poet Biomass provides logistics support to other producers.
3.5 billion gallons would represent more than 20% of the 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol
mandated in the Renewable Fuel Standard for the year 2022.
Broin said there is a role for policy-makers to play in overcoming the remaining hurdles to commercializing the cellulosic ethanol production process. "In order for this vision to become a reality, policy makers must provide access to the market and the stability needed to attract the large amount of capital that will be required to finance its construction," Broin said.
Brown said Poet submitted an application to the Department of Energy today for a loan guarantee for its Project Liberty facility in Iowa.
"We filed an application with the DOE this morning and need to have a favorable ruling from them this calendar year," Broin said. "If we get that favorable ruling, we told the DOE that we will start construction by the end of this year, which puts us on track to start up the facility in early 2012."
Project Liberty is a 25 million gallon-per-year cellulosic ethanol plant that will use corn cobs as feedstock. It will be co-located with Poet’s current corn-ethanol plant at the site.
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