State of art ethanol facility shows advancing efficiency

Posted by Tim

January 17, 2008

On Jan. 10 in Leipsic, Ohio, POET hosted a grand opening ceremony for their 22nd ethanol production facility and the first in the state of Ohio.

POET is a private company that is a leading ethanol producer. The link above discusses their latest plant. I noted some of the facts and figures that points out how the ethanol production industry is still increasing efficiencies. Here are some of the figures I note:

I calculated the production efficiency at 2.95 gallons of ethanol per bushel of corn. A nice improvement from the current accepted standard of 2.8 gallons per bushel.
New low heat process uses 10% less energy to produce the ethanol.
The plant will be outfitted with a regenerative thermal oxidizer that eliminates up to 99.9 percent of air emissions.
The facility will have 45 employees with a $2 million annual payroll.

As I have recently written, I think the naysayers have written of corn ethanol production too soon. The need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil plus the ingenuity of U.S. companies to improve their process bode well for the future of this business in the U.S.

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