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.
During Trade Talk at the annual convention of the National Association of Farm Broadcasters (NAFB), POET Founder & CEO Jeff Broin talked with several farm broadcasters. He's pictured here in one of those many interviews.
One of those interviews was with Jody Heemstra of KWAT Radio in Watertown, S.D. Domestic Fuel got a copy of the seven minute interview and posted it on their blog.
Broin talked about the recently completed corn corn crop residue harvest said that POET has made "tremendous strides" developing commercial cellulosic ethanol. He also talked about how POET will integrate cellulosic ethanol production with its existing corn ethanol plants and the benefits that will bring to both processes.
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.
Emmetsburg, Iowa and farmers in the surrounding area got the nod from Biofuels Digest for “Community of the Year” in the magazine’s annual awards.
According to the publication, the town received the honor “for the transformation of the small local community’s economy through corn and cellulosic ethanol.”
In response to this award, Emmetsburg City Administrator John Bird said the town was very excited for the distinction and that they value their relationship with POET and Project LIBERTY.
I know everyone at POET echoes that opinion.
There’s exciting work going on around Project LIBERTY, and it’s rewarding to be doing that work in a community that shares that excitement. As Project LIBERTY Director Jim Sturdevant said: “The entire community has embraced its role as a leader in the nation’s clean energy future.”
Starting a market for biomass is one of the most challenging aspects of Project LIBERTY, and the farmers and community members have remained engaged, patient and steadfast.
As POET moves forward to commercial cellulosic ethanol production, it’s comforting to know we’re going step-by-step with real partners.
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?
It is hard to find to corn field still standing in the Emmetsburg area. The harvest is almost complete with just a handful of acres remaining. Bales and bale stacks can be seen all over the country side. Baling is not far behind that of harvest and should be wrapping up next week.
Just as one research project finishes, another starts. We completed our third year of agronomic study with ISU and Stuart Birrell at our Emmetsburg loaction. Just as it finished, we began setting up the site we will be use to look at the impact bale stacks (like above) have on production ground. This work will also be done with ISU and professors Mahdi Al-Kaisi and Roger Elmore. We will be storing numberous bale stacks and working with various treatments to see how each effects the corn crop next year.
Idaho National Labratory is finishing up the set up of their research stacks for this year. This is a continuation of their work with us last year and is now including both round and square bales, as well as First and Second Pass Bales.
The recent rains have provided a nice break for everyone. Don't get me wrong. We enjoyed the nice weather, but working long hours for such a long period took its toll on everyone. We look forward to the finalization of BCAP and the ability to start taking biomass in the stackyard. But that's a topic for another post.
