2011 Harvest in the Books

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.

Cellulosic ethanol report reinforces the value of research, partnerships in commercialization

Yesterday’s report from the National Research Council on cellulosic ethanol production devotes about 100 pages to the environmental effects of cellulosic ethanol.

To sum up the findings: There are right and wrong ways to produce cellulosic ethanol, and the environmental benefits depend on which path you choose.

This is not a revelation. POET has always endorsed a cautious approach to commercialization. It’s amusing that we get questions one day asking “Are you moving too quickly to understand the environmental effects?” and the next “Why is cellulosic ethanol taking so long to commercialize?”

POET’s Project LIBERTY will use corn cobs, leaves, husk, and stalk to produce cellulosic ethanol, so I paid more attention to those sections dealing with POET’s process. One such section asserts:

“Corn stover, cereal straw, and other crop residues draw on existing crops so that their use as a bioenergy feedstock under best management practices might not contribute much additional GHG emissions. However, overharvesting of crop residues could result in additional need for agrichemical inputs and the loss of soil organic matter, which is critical for maintaining soil structure and water retention capacity and for improving nutrient cycling and other soil processes.”

POET agrees completely. This material is not “crop waste,” as some would assert. Stover plays a valuable role in soil health, and that’s something that POET is carefully monitoring through work with USDA-ARS and Iowa State University. This fall marks the fourth year of an ongoing study into effects of stover harvesting on soil in the Emmetsburg, Iowa area. This is information we share with the public. Download the latest results here.

POET contracts with farmers for no more than 20-25 percent of the above-ground biomass, which is on the low end of what that data shows is available for use. There are a few ways to ensure this limit is followed:

- Farmers want to protect their livelihood, the grain harvest, so they don’t want to take too much.

- POET representatives visit the fields of participating farmers during the harvest to make sure things are going as planned.

- To take more biomass, the harvest equipment is set lower to the ground, picking up extra dirt, rocks, and other debris. This additional material would cause the biomass to be outside of POET’s quality standards.

The pace moving from lab scale to pilot scale to commercial construction has been steady, with many checkpoints along the way. No one’s rushing into this without assessing the impacts.

A couple other points I want to address from the study:

1. Economics: There’s been a big to-do about the study’s conclusion that there’s a significant “price gap” between what companies will pay for biomass and what farmers will accept in order to harvest it.

We don’t go into specifics on our arrangements with farmers, because the biomass market is still developing. I will say this: Their assumptions are not consistent with the actual first-hand experience of POET signing contracts and working with farmers.

2. The report asserts that corn stover will be an early feedstock and that if done properly, it is positive for the environment. It then notes that the entire 16 billion gallons in the Renewable Fuel Standard can’t be met with stover alone.

Maybe I missed it, but it seems to me that the report doesn’t make clear just how much of that 16 billion gallons could come from crop residue. I think that’s an important point to note.

POET’s model has a cellulosic ethanol plant sited next to a grain-based ethanol plant. The cellulosic ethanol plant is half the size of the adjacent facility.

That means POET’s model, if applied across the industry could do roughly 6 or 7 billion gallons of the 16 billion gallons. That’s pretty significant, and from some of the reports I’ve seen, that number is on the low end of the potential.

Biofuels and Prairie Grass

Last week, I attended a public tour of the EcoSun Prairie Farm near Colman, S.D. The farm was established in 2008 to demonstrate the potential economic and ecological benefits of establishing grass-based farms in the former tall grass prairie region of central North America.

During the public tour, which was shortened by rain earlier in the day and the heat that followed, we heard from several members of the EcoSun Board who talked about the revenue streams they've established from grass-finished beef and prairie grass seed. They also talked about potential future revenue sources for the working grass farm, like carbon credits and selling biomass for cellulosic ethanol.

It's this potential to use native prairie grasses for biofuels production that has drawn POET's interest. As was mentioned in today's front page story in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, we've talked to EcoSun about the potential for a partnership.

For the most part, our research lab is through the early phase of research and developing corn crop residues for cellulosic ethanol (although the research will never really end) and is now beginning to look at what the next sources of biomass will be for cellulosic ethanol. We see a lot of promise and potential in the native prairie grasses like they grow at the EcoSun Farm. Pictured here is a stand of Sunburst Switchgrass. To see more photos, visit our Flickr page.

We'll have more to say about this at the upcoming America's Grasslands Conference that is being held in Sioux Falls, S.D. in August. You can learn more about the EcoSun Prairie Farm (and support their work) by watching Grass Roots: The Prairie Farm Story.

BCAP's Unspoken Benefits

With the future of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) up in the air due to federal budget discussions, I thought I'd point out the benefits we've seen thus far in our work on Project LIBERTY.

1) Producer Participation/Assistance/Incentive - The biggest impact that BCAP has provided is for producer incentive and assistance with getting started. The early adopters that we are working with have made a bold step in choosing to collect biomass. With no other commercial facility in the country to point to where biomass is being delivered, many farmers ask why they should do this and what their incentive is to do so. BCAP has offered financial backing to help assist producers in investing in new equipment and creating an incentive to be part of the next scope change to modern farming.

2) Rural Economic Boost - As producers have invested in new equipment and looked for additional help, the money they spend is going directly to rural communities. In Emmetsburg, people are starting up new businesses to serve the farmers in their new endeavor. In the tough economic conditions our country faces, this can make a big impact.

3) Project Growth/Stability - BCAP provides a project like ours the ability to role out a biomass collection program with more financial stability. The support funding helps limit a project's financial exposure and/or allows for project growth/expansion in the early years. In the case of LIBERTY, we have been able to spread to more farmers and actively work with them to show them how biomass collection will benefit them.

4) Environmental Re-focus - Part of the BCAP program is performing a Conservation Plan. Many of the items included in this plan are already being done by farmers today. This has provided an opportunity for the producers to re-look at how they manage their land and make sure they are performing the best practices to help them be both productive and sustainable.

5) Farm Operation Expansion/Diversity - By participating in biomass collection and BCAP, producers are expanding their operations and creating more diversity. In some instances, this has opened the door to allow another person into the operation that may not have had the opportunity or space to support them without such a program. Programs like this offer the chance for more of our farm youth to come back to the farm.

As one can see by the list above, BCAP is having many positive impacts to the producers enrolled in BCAP, the Biomass Conversion Facility supporting BCAP, and the community in which the project is being established. Further support of BCAP should continue as it will create a pathway to help establish Second-Generation Biofuels and Re-powering.

Corn Residue Removal

In response to a study from University of Illinois fertility specialist Fabian Fernandez called "Removing Crop Residues Removes Nutrients from the Field," I want to say 'I like your math'.

Fernandez's study sets the number of bales (like those pictured here) that can be sustainably removed from a field of corn based on planting rotation, tillage technique and the corn yield in a given year. He lays out the data in such a way that it is very easy to read and understand.

The only beef I have with the data is it is not complete. The data for the extreme examples of moldboard plow and conservation tillage look good, but the farmers in North West Iowa will have to be versed in linear interpolation to understand where their fields lie within the data.

Three points of clarification on the average NW Iowa corn farmer:

1. they typically follow a corn-on-corn rotation for a number of years before switching to another crop for a year or so prior to planting corn again
2. they will not moldboard plow or use a very minimal conservation till. We have see the vast majority of farmers use something more aggressive than no-till but much more gentle than the moldboard plow. A V-rip is standard for fall tillage.
3. the average corn yield (when considering all his corn acres) is 180 to 185 bushels per acre

When considering these facts, the data table in Fernandez's study appears to be right on target. For farmers in NW Iowa with continuous corn, using v-rip tillage and yielding 185 bu/acre, upon interpolation of the given figures, the math shows that one can sustainably remove 1.63 bales per acre, or 25% of the above ground residue which is what we have been recommending.

It's encouraging to see multiple universities, companies and government agencies studying the impact of residue removal on soil quality. It's especially encouraging that most of the studies confirm that some amount of corn crop residue can be removed from healthy soil without negatively impacting soil quality. This is an issue that we're committed to continuing studying and working with the others who are as well.

In short, it appears we agree with Fernandez's study. But in this case the sound bite doesn't quite capture it all; one needs to look at the entire message.

Maintaining soil quality while removing corn residue

When we first started looking at producing cellulosic ethanol from corn residue (cobs, leaves, husks and some of the stalk), one of the primary concerns we heard was about the impact removal of that material would have on soil quality. The farmers we talk to did not want to harm their soil, upon which their livelihood depends.

So POET embarked on a multi-year study with Iowa State University (ISU) and the USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) on the impact that stover removal has on soil in the Emmetsburg area. We previously discussed study results and will release the finalized study. So far, the research has determined that taking less than 25 percent of the crop residue from a field is consistent with good farm management.

There was an average of 4.26 tons of crop residue per acre, and removal of about 1 ton per acre “will not require any drastic changes in fertilizer management for producers choosing to participate in the program,” according to lead researchers were Stuart Birrell with ISU’s Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering and Douglas Karlen with USDA-ARS.

Information was based on the Emmetsburg study as well as 10 site-years of additional data.

Soil nutrient levels naturally vary within a field. The study showed that these variations are greater than levels of nutrients lost from the cob removal methods tested. They also stressed farmers need to understand their land and should not remove more stover than their fields can handle.

The research collaboration will continue next year as POET seeks more information about soil quality, cobs and stover.

At the Biomass kickoff in Emmetsburg Tuesday, Professor Birrell was on hand to discuss data from year two of the study with the farmers who have contracted with POET to deliver biomass. Here's the video from POET TV:

Piles and piles of bales

POET’s Project LIBERTY needs 770 bone dry tons of biomass (corn cobs, some leaves and husks) for every day of operation. So how do you store that much material?

Researchers with Idaho National Laboratory, working with POET, are looking at factors such as heat and moisture within a biomass bale to determine how different types of piles and configurations affect the quality of the bale. This research is happening at sites in Emmetsburg, Iowa and Hurley, S.D., and it is aimed at letting farmers know the best ways to store material in the fields.

I recently visited the South Dakota site, where INL has about 800 bales in different configurations. Heat sensors provide temperature readings, and the researchers take core samples every couple months to analyze the composition of the bales and how much the material is degrading.

INL Research Engineer Kevin Kenney said they are looking at two areas in their research: 1. the risk of biomass storage to farmers and 2. how the biomass degrades over time.

Kenney said they haven’t seen any threat of fire due to storing biomass. In fact, heat is beneficial to the process.

“Heat isn’t bad,” he said. “Heat is one of the components that we think we need to promote; heat and moisture, the combination of which can actually preserve those bales.”

Different storage configurations affect how much of that heat is lost throughout the year. It also affects how moisture moves within

the stacks of bales.

INL’s work to find the best balance between heat and moisture is delicate, Kenney said.

“One of the things we’ve got to be concerned about as well is that we don’t promote some biological activity, some chemical activity that becomes an inhibitor to the conversion process,” he said.

In 2011, the group will discard some storage methods that didn’t work and focus efforts on some of the more promising storage configurations.

If you’d like to see more details from my interview with Kevin Kenney as well as some footage from the test site, check out the video at the top of this post and POET’s Flickr page.

CEO Jeff Broin tells AgriTalk about the emission reductions of Project LIBERTY

Earlier this week at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo, POET CEO Jeff Broin announced that POET’s Project LIBERTY will reduce emissions by 111% compared to gasoline, according to a third-party lifecycle analysis. That means POET’s cellulosic ethanol will have negative emissions.

Shortly after the announcement, Broin spoke with AgriTalk about the news.

In this clip, they discuss the “synergy” between the grain-based ethanol plant and the cellulosic ethanol plant. A big part of the emissions reduction from our cellulosic ethanol plant is due to the fact that we will take the waste stream from the cellulosic ethanol process and run it through two anaerobic digesters to produce biogas. That gas will produce enough energy to eliminate the need for natural gas (a fossil fuel) at both the cellulosic and grain-based ethanol plants.

Other synergistic relationships exist as well. For instance, we are going to the same farmers who currently sell us corn to secure a steady supply of feedstock (corn cobs and other agriculture residue) for Project LIBERTY. Many of those relationships are already in place. The two plants will also share roads and other types of infrastructure.

Project LIBERTY: A Big Green Leap Forward

Since Project LIBERTY began, POET's commerical-scale cellulosic ethanol production process, I have been saying that it will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.  I now have objective data that Project LIBERTY will do just that.

POET recently commissioned an independent Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) for our current design of Project LIBERTY.  This LCA (see image here) tracks the greenhouse gas emissions from each LIBERTY step, from the feedstock harvest to the ethanol in fuel tanks of drivers across America.  It also accounts for emissions from land use change and agricultural practices provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

With all these inputs considered, the analysis shows that POET's Project LIBERTY will provide a 111% emissions reduction compared to emissions of gasoline production.  That means that our process of producing 25 million gallons of clean transportation fuel annually for our nation's vehicles will be greenhouse gas NEGATIVE. 

This impressive reduction is possible for many reasons, but here are three:

1. The LIBERTY feedstock (corn cobs, leaves, husks) is already grown each year, whether we use it for ethanol or not.
2. EPA noted that there is no land use cost, either at home or abroad, associated with using this feedstock to make ethanol.
3. The waste stream from the LIBERTY process will be used to make enough power to operate not only the LIBERTY plant, but also to completely replace natural gas at the adjacent grain-based ethanol plant with some power left over.

This third point is very exciting.  POET cellulosic ethanol replaces gasoline.  A waste from the POET cellulosic ethanol process replaces natural gas.  POET: reducing the need for fossil energy sources; reducing greenhouse gases that cause global warming; reducing America's dependence on foreign oil.

LCA Announcement today at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop

We are in St. Louis, Mo. today for the 2010 Fuel Ethanol Workshop (FEW). At 1:00 p.m. central time, POET will hold a press conference in the FEW media room to announce the completion of a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of our cellulosic ethanol production process. For more information, check out our web site.