Expanded POET Biorefining - Chancellor begins production
$100 million project doubled the plant's capacity to 100 MGPY
Press Release from
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (March 24, 2008)
POET Biorefining - Chancellor started producing ethanol last week at its expanded capacity of 100 million gallons per year (MGPY). It took the plant fewer than 24 hours to achieve its new nameplate capacity. The $100 million construction project started 12 months ago and doubled the plant's production capacity. With the expansion completed, the annual production capacity of POET's 22 ethanol plants is 1.25 billion gallons per year.
Construction continues at the plant on a solid waste fuel boiler, which will burn waste wood to produce more than half of the expanded plant's power needs Waste wood from pallets, construction sites and area landfills will be the primary fuel source for the solid waste fuel boiler.
POET Biorefining - Chancellor started operations in March 2003. Last year, the facility produced 51 million gallons of ethanol and 160,000 tons of Dakota Gold Enhanced Distillers Nutrition products. Construction on the solid waste fuel boiler is expected to be complete in Q3 2008. The expansion and the addition of the solid waste fuel boiler will necessitate the hiring of approximately 20 new employees for the facility, which is already the largest employer in Chancellor.
Project LIBERTY
"Our goal is to bring cellulosic ethanol to commercial viability in order to reduce global warming, revitalize the rural economy and lessen our country's dependency on foreign oil."
Project Liberty will convert an existing 50 million gallon per year (mgpy) dry-mill ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa into an integrated corn-to-ethanol and cellulose-to-ethanol biorefinery.
Once complete, the facility will produce 125 mgpy, 25 percent of which will be from corn fiber and corn cobs. By adding cellulosic production to an existing grain ethanol plant, POET will be able to produce 11 percent more ethanol from a bushel of corn, 27 percent more from an acre of corn, while significantly reducing fossil fuel consumption. The facility will also produce 80,000 tons of Dakota Gold Corn Germ Dehydrated™ and 100,000 tons of Dakota Gold HP™ annually as animal feed co-products.
DOE Agreement
POET has signed phase I of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a grant that will fund a portion of Project LIBERTY (up to $80 million).
http://www.poetenergy.com/learn/projectliberty.asp