The 2011 harvest has been completed and saw farrmers around Emmetsburg, Iowa collect 61,000 bone-dry tons of corn cobs and high cut material. POET Regional Biomass Coordinator Adam Wirt was in Fort Dodge, Iowa yesterday for the Farm News Ag Show to update local farmers on our progress.
As you can see from this harvest photo taken near Emmetsburg, there is still plenty of cover on the field after the crop residue is baled. The amount of stover in those fields ensures that the harvest of crop residue can be sustainable.
Once BCAP is straightened out, these bales will be delivered to the stack yard in Emmetsburg and many will end up in South Dakota where they will be converted to cellulosic ethanol in our pilot plant or power for POET Biorefining - Chancellor. Another harvest brings us that much closer to our goal of producing cellulosic ethanol at the commercial scale.
When it comes to biofuels, there are three things in which I believe: First, biomass for biofuels has enormous potential as a primary piece of our nation’s energy program. Second, corn crop residue is one of the best types of biomass for biofuel production—it’s available in large quantities. And thirdly, corn crop residue can be—and must be—harvested in environmentally sustainable ways.
The report, which details voluntary guidelines for sustainable biomass planting and harvesting, states that corn stover makes up more than half of all crop residues in the US and is considered the most available for bioenergy purposes.
Based on current scientific knowledge vetted through scientific review and public comments, the report says, “without specific field-based assessment (e.g. a conservation plan), remove only 25% of stover to maintain soil organic carbon levels and structural stability.” Depending on soil type, even more corn crop reside can be removed while maintaining good soil conditions.
This is great news! Farmers participating in POET Project LIBERTY are right in step, harvesting about 1 bone dry ton of corn crop residue per acre, which is about 25% of the available stover per acre in the Emmetsburg, Iowa area.
POET encourages participating farmers to practice good conservation planning and follow the guidelines of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Again, Wisconsin is in alignment. Its report says that site-specific stubble height, residual cover and stover removal rates should be determined using soil conservation planning tools available from the USDA NRCS.
POET’s biomass harvest guidelines have been supported by multiple years of research conducted by Iowa State University. We now welcome Wisconsin’s support! My beliefs are solid.
If you've been reading this blog, you know that we've collected a lot corn crop residue around Emmetsburg, Iowa over the past couple of years. Some of it has been going to our pilot plant in Scotland, S.D.
However, the pilot plant has a capacity to process one ton per day and last fall we collected 56,000 tons. Do the math and you'll discover that it would take more than 150 years for the pilot plant to process all of that corn crop residue.
That's why much of the residue has been making it's way to our waste-powered ethanol plant in Chancellor, S.D. At POET Biorefining - Chancellor, we have a solid fuel boiler that produces steam for the plant by burning biomass in a 22' x 16' x 65' combustion chamber.
But before it comes to Chancellor, the bales have to be ground up and that's where a new partnership with the Sioux Falls landfill comes into play. It was in the long-term plans for the landfill to purchase a grinder and the revenue from grinding our corn crop residue bales allowed them to speed up the purchase. It was the subject of a story by KELO-TV, the local CBS affiliate:
You can see pictures of the grinder on our Flickr Page or watch video of it in action on POET TV.
Scott Weishaar, VP of Commercial Development for POET, was at BBI International’s International Biomass Conference & Expo to talk on the panel: Beyond the Kernel: Stover Strategies for Biofuel Production. Weishaar gave an update on what POET Biomass has learned about the logistics of harvesting, transporting and storing corn cobs, leaves and husks for cellulosic ethanol production.
As we have said in previous posts on this blog, it will take a lot of biomass to feed Project LIBERTY when it's up and running. It will need somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 tons to produce 25 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol each and every year.
This year was the first commercial harvest and it saw 85 farmers provide about 56,000 tons of baled corn cobs and light stover. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and this picture of 24,000 tons of biomass should give you a better iead of the volume we're talking about. That's less than half of the total that was collected.
According to a study from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy, there is more than one billion tons of biomass available in the U.S. Just imagine what that pile would look like.
I was in DC yesterday at the Washington Auto Show. Enzyme developer Novozymes displayed a flex fuel vehicle that was fueled by cellulosic ethanol that POET produced in South Dakota. We also displayed a biomass bale that is the feedstock for our cellulosic ethanol production.
It was a great opportunity to talk to a lot of people about the status and the potential of cellulosic ethanol. Here's a picture of me hanging out at the booth:
If you want to see photos of the bales stored at the site of our planned commercial plant, just visit our Flickr site.
With delays due to weather and BCAP, POET Biomass is still waiting for full fledged delivery of biomass to begin in Emmetsburg. But we're not just sitting around. We purchased a few loads of biomass so the team can work on a few projects that I will cover below.
The first loads of round bales were used to try out the newly designed bale grab build for an excavator. The idea to look at alternative bale handling mechanisms came as we looked at the inefficiency of wheel loaders. Your typical loader spends half of its time going backwards. When we looked at ways to overcome the loss, we thought about the excavator. With its ability to stay in one spot and both access the truck and the bale stack, it was believed that more bales could be moved in the same time with this type of unit versus a traditional loader. Thus far, the unit is working well and the operators are getting used to the controls and stacking patterns.
Second, bales were used to test stacking methods. Due to the limited amount of material we have handled in the past, we wanted to ensure that stacking would not harm the integrity of the bales. This also allowed us to see what the limitations of the equipment building the stacks would be. As we try to set bales 5-high in a pyramid, reach has become a concern.
Third, we wanted to test the scale process. We were very anxious to try our newly developed moisture probe which has proven to be quite accurate thus far. This also gave us an opportunity to test the computer software that tracks loads and ties them into the accounting system for payment. This has all been of value as it has allowed us to workout any bugs that we have encountered.
Finally, we have started our storage research on-site. In addition to Idaho National Labs storage studies, POET Biomass is conducting some additional research. We are trying to identify the differences in dry matter loss across different surfaces and in different stack configurations. This work will provide valuable information to both POET for future stackyard operation and to the producer for the best practices for storing bales at their location.
Here's to a fun and safe holiday season along with a timely roll out of the BCAP applications.
As stories in DTN and the High Plains Journal noted today, the science is only half of the challenge of cellulosic ethanol production. The other (equally challenging) half, is planting, harvesting, transporting, storing and preparing all that cellulose for ethanol production.
A few years ago, I attended a panel on cellulosic ethanol at an industry conference where one developer was asked how he was going to secure all of the biomass needed to produce the gallons his company predicted. He responded that they would simply pay farmers enough and the farmers would deliver.
The industry has come a long way since then. Regular readers of this blog should be aware that POET has been spending a lot of time on this half of the cellulosic ethanol equation. If you're new to the blog, just check out all of the posts on harvesting.
As an example of some of the ongoing work, take a look a this short video I shot at the POET Research Center last week. In the video, process development engineer Steve Bly is using an all terrain forklift to put a biomass bale into a shredder that will prepare it for the ethanol production process:
To produce cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale, this would only have to happen about 1,000 times per day. Obviously, you won't be lifting them in one at a time, but how's that for a challenge?
Another week in the books and we can see the end of harvest nearing. The continued good weather and dry corn have been pushing the harvest pace. I spent the past week in Emmetsburg grabbing additional biomass samples. Much of my time as spent on collecting data from the One-Pass Baling units (see below). These combines have a large square baler attached to them and feed the material directly from the combine to the baler. This material never touches the ground and produces a bale mostly free of dirt and other debris. We gathered info on collection tons, amount of material removed, and the bale make-up.
The week's work also included harvesting the Iowa State University test plot and looking at the agronomic impacts associated with removing varying levels of biomass. The study looks at the effect of removing no stover to all of the stover, and virtually every point in between. This marks the third year of this work and will continue to build upon the data we have gained from the past years.
The bales at the Project LIBERTY Stackyard are part of the Storage Study work being done by Idaho National Laboratory. They are embarking on year two of their studies on biomass storage and the stacks (see below) at the plant site are part of their work that will cover the next 11 months. Through these results, we will be able to provide the best storage configurations that will offer the lowest dry matter losses and least effect to the ethanol process. For more on our collaboration with INL, click here.
I will be spending some more time in Emmetsburg this week grabbing data points and witnessing the biomass baling. I expect that much of the harvest will be wrapping up by the end of this week. Boy has this harvest season flown by.
I meant to sit down and write this last week, but with the beautiful weather other tasks crowded it out of my to-do list. We were able to return last week and finish the baling portion of our harvest trials in IA. This took place after receiving 5 inches of rain on top of the windrows of cob and husk, but as I said last time, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
For months, producers have been asking what happens if the windrow was rained on. Until this point, we did not have a reference point to work from. After allowing the windrows to dry out in the sun and wind for a few days, they dried out completely and were in almost perfect conditions for baling (pictured above). From our perspective, we would recommend that the entire windrow be dry to the touch and would focus on the bottom as it will be the last to dry. The most apparent negative to the rain event was the added dirt that had attached itself to the bottom layer of leaves. The moist dirt simply ad-hired to the leaves and husk, but was still at a very minimal level. In the end, as long you allow the windrows to dry out thoroughly there should not be an issue baling material that has been rained on. Problems could arise only if wet material is baled, since biological activity in the bales could result in dry matter losses.
I was once again in Emmetsburg this week. Almost all of the beans have been harvested and many farmers have started on corn. It was exciting driving into the area and seeing bales in the fields. The weather has been fantastic for harvest thus far and we hope for continued cooperation from the weather.
On Thursday, I traveled with Mike Roth to Stuart, Iowa. The Adair County Corn and Soybean Association put on a Biomass Harvest Field Day to talk to area producers about technologies available for collecting biomass, yield results on corn and soybean plots and the agronomic impacts of biomass removal.
The day also included equipment demo of biomass collection equipment. The first equipment we viewed in the field was First-Pass Collection equipment. John Deere ran their STS Cob Attachment and cart, Tuthill ran the Bale-Direct System, and Vermeer ran the CCX770 Cob Cart. In the afternoon, we watched Second-Pass Collection in the form of round baling by John Deere with their 568 baler and Vermeer with their 605 Corn Stalk Special baler. I enjoyed being able to view this equipment in operation and see the continued work that is being done to develop and advance biomass collection equipment.
It was an excellent event that introduced the area farmers to the potential that biomass has and the revenue stream waiting to be created. It was exciting to see a local group take the initiative to put together an event that discussed such topics.
I will be back in Emmetsburg again next week to collect bale samples for analysis this winter (pictured above). If the weather holds, much of the corn harvest will be finished within the next few weeks. It is amazing how much difference there is from last year to this year. As always, I will be wishing continued luck and safety to our participating producers.
