The Associated Press has a feature on South Dakota ethanol producer POET this week, focusing on the company’s ethanol research that “should allow it to squeeze 27 percent more fuel from each acre of the crop.”

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who toured the company’s headquarters and research lab last week, said there is only so much ethanol that can be made from corn starch.

“It’s just a way of moving on to have further independence from foreign sources of energy,” he said. “It’s a way of doing more to clean up the environment, and it’s obviously going to put money in farmers’ pockets.”

With the help of a Department of Energy grant, Poet plans to convert its Emmetsburg, Iowa plant into one of the nation’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol plants, using corn stover as well as corn kernels, which would produce more ethanol per acre of corn.