The Director of Project LIBERTY for POET is Jim Sturdevant. He oversees all the activities across the company that are “pulling together to transform this ethanol plant into one of the nation’s first cellulosic ethanol plants.” The plant he’s referring to is POET’s Emmetsburg facility where they held a field day yesterday. He says they intend to replicate what they’re doing with the local plant at their other facilities. Jim was very happy with the turnout at their field day even though the weather was not very cooperative.
Jim says they’ve been doing research on corn cob harvesting as well as the economic viability of doing it. He says, “We will not move forward unless this is economical.” Their models show that it will be although there is no pricing on the prototype equipment that was on display at the event.
I think it was interesting to hear him talk about the research into how to store the cobs. It looks like all you have to do is pile them up at the edge of the field for POET to pick them up.
You can listen to my interview with Jim here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/poet/poet-liberty-08-sturdevant.mp3]
You can also download the interview with this link (mp3).