POET To Announce Cellulosic Ethanol Pilot Plant Opening

Indications are that POET will officially announce the opening of their cellulosic ethanol pilot plant in the morning. The pilot plant is located in Scotland, South Dakota and is meant to help them fine tune their production process ahead of building a commercial scale plant. The pilot plant is capable of producing 20,000 gallons of ethanol per year from the corn fiber and cobs.

According to a recent article the pilot plant is already up and running.

Standing amid test tubes and fermenting machines in POET's laboratory in Sioux Falls, company research and development chief Mark Stowers gives an upbeat report on the pilot plant.

"We started up on November 18 and already we've been making cellulosic ethanol and we're very, very excited," said Stowers.

Project Liberty is the project name for their plans to convert an existing 50 million gallon per year corn ethanol production plant located in Emmetsburg, Iowa into a 125 million gallon per year plant, producing 100 million gallons of ethanol from corn starch and 25 million gallons from corn fiber and cobs. Construction is expected to begin this year.

Update : POET just made the announcement through a press release.