LIBERTY Q's and A's at the Alternative Energy Seminar

I spoke about POET Project LIBERTY at the Alternative Energy Seminar, a one-day meeting in Sheldon, Iowa sponsored by Northwestern Iowa Community College and Northwestern Iowa Development on Feb. 16. Over 130 people attended, many of which were farmers from the area. Some had attended Project LIBERTY Field Day in Emmetsburg in November. I showed the Project LIBERTY video and gave a status of the project, including a recap of the 2008 cob harvest and plans for the 2009 cob harvest. While still at the podium, I fielded several questions from the attendees. Here they are along with my answers:

Q. Will farmers need to add nutrients and fertilizers to the soil to compensate for cob removal?

A. POET is collaborating with Iowa State University on a robust agronomics study that addresses this head on. However, previous studies have shown that the cob contains only2 to 6 percent of the nutrients in the corn stover. Other studies indicated that decomposition of cobs left on the field removes nitrogen from the soil, and this may actually inhibit plant growth.

Q. What will be the price of the new equipment for cob harvesting?

A. Equipment companies have not yet set prices. The technology is evolving rapidly and most of the equipment used in 2008 was prototypes. The equipment that will be used for the 2009 harvest will be leased.

Q. How many pounds of cobs can be expected from a bushel of corn

A. Average cob yields have been 0.6 to 0.7 bone dry tons per acre. At 0.6 tons per acre (1200 pounds) in 180 bushel corn, you will get 6.66 pounds of cobs per bushel of corn.

Q. What does it cost POET to make a gallon of cellulosic ethanol in the pilot plant?

A. Currently, costs are about $1 gallon more than the cost of producing a gallon of grain-based ethanol and the costs are coming down. We are in the early stages of development, we are learning more every day, and the process we developed at the lab scale works at the pilot scale. We are encouraged by the progress. For more on the pilot plant, see Dr. Mark Stowers' recent update.

We'll be speaking about Project LIBERTY at several more events in Northwest Iowa over the next few weeks, so if you have questions that weren't answered here, be sure to show up. Or, you could always ask them in the comment section.

Comments

[Kim]

That is a great article. Thank you for sharing.

[Kevin]

I've was at this seminar and the information provided was very useful for my project thanks allot