The Grand Opening will feature plant tours, a formal ceremony, a flyover by the ethanol-powered Vanguard Squadron, booths, music and more. The public is invited to attend, and lunch will be provided. Project Liberty will process 770 tons of corn cobs, leaves, husk and some stalk daily to produce 20 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year, later ramping up to 25 million gallons per year. Plant personnel are currently running biomass through the pretreatment process and preparing for the first gallons of ethanol.
Project Liberty will be the flagship plant in Poet-Dsm Advanced Biofuels’ plan to license this technology to companies across the U.S. and around the world.Poet-Dsm Advanced Biofuels is a 50/50 joint venture between Royal Dsm and Poet. Based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the company is a cooperative effort that provides a key to unlocking the opportunity of converting corn crop residue into cellulosic bio-ethanol. Built on the strengths of both companies, the joint venture has a critical mission: to make cellulosic bio-ethanol competitive with corn bio-ethanol, the most competitive renewable liquid transportation fuel on the US market today.
Drawing on the deep expertise and experience of Poet and Dsm in different areas of converting cellulosic biomass into bio-ethanol, Poet-Dsm Advanced Biofuels will have its first commercial-scale plant co-located with Poet Biorefining in Emmetsburg, Iowa. Based on this plant, the JV plans to globally license an integrated technology package for the conversion of corn crop residue to cellulosic bio-ethanol.
The Court of His Majesty Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, has announced that the King will attend the Grand Opening.
Since 2008, Poet-Dsm has commissioned soil research from Iowa State University BioSystems and Agricultural Engineering Department to determine changes in soil quality under different biomass harvest scenarios. That data has been aggregated with 500+ years of additional soil data from four separate sites.
“We’ve been working with farmers for almost eight years now to ensure that biomass harvesting is done right,” Poet Biomass Director Adam Wirt said. “We’ve developed an EZ Bale harvest system that maximizes our cob content and minimizes stalk removal. It’s a quick, clean and effective method for farmers to get more revenue from their fields while managing what is often excess crop residue.”
IL BIOECONOMISTA 