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Jim Sturdevant has joined POET as its new director in POET’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to build a commercial cellulosic ethanol production facility.

According to this POET press release, Sturdevant joins POET’s Project LIBERTY after 28 years at EROS in Sioux Falls, the last 22 of which were spent with the U.S. Geological Survey:

As director of Project LIBERTY, Sturdevant will coordinate all efforts within POET to commercialize cellulosic ethanol. Jeff Broin, CEO of POET, said, “Due to the importance of this project to the future of POET, it is vital to have someone with Jim’s leadership abilities to facilitate collaboration and communication across the organization. There’s hardly a person at POET that isn’t involved in this project and Jim will make sure they’re all reading from the same book.”

The POET cellulosic project gets joint funding from the Department of Energy to convert an existing corn ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa into a commercial cellulosic biorefinery. The plant will be able to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol a year from corn and 25 million from corn fiber and corn cobs. This will boost a bushel of corn’s ethanol potential by 11 percent, get 27 percent more ethanol from an acre of corn, while decreasing the amount of water used in ethanol refining by 24 percent.

The Energy Bill has cleared the U.S. Senate, and the ethanol industry looks like it will benefit the most from the package.

This story was posted on CNNMoney.com:

If any industry clearly comes out ahead, it’s the ethanol business, analysts say. The Senate bill massively boosts the mandate for ethanol use from 7.5 billion gallons in 2012 to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

The ethanol mandate is “the part of the bill that has the broadest consensus to it. It’s a good initiative for the ethanol industry. It’s a nice growth driver … and I think one way or the other the Congress will help facilitate the growth of that industry before the next election,” said Mark McMinimy, an agribusiness analyst at Stanford Group Co.

However, an amendment designed to shell out more than $32 billion in tax incentives on the next decade to alternative energy producers was stopped, at least for now, when Republicans blocked a procedural vote to limit debate. They charge the incentives paid for by rescinding tax breaks and boosting other revenues collected from big oil and gas firms would have just been passed along to consumers. Democrats pointed to record oil industry profits as proof the oil companies didn’t need the taxpayer-funded subsidies.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have heard more testimony in favor of a bill that would help educate the ethanol workforce. National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) First Vice President Ron Litterer told a House Small Business Committee that the ethanol industry requires a continued commitment in providing a well trained workforce.

A news release posted on the NCGA web site says a proposal currently before Congress would do just that:

Litterer said the proposed National Endowment for Workforce Education in Renewables and Agriculture (NEW ERA) Act of 2007would help expand the nation’s capacity to identify and track the new jobs and skills associated with the renewable energy sector. Introduced by Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), the legislation would also help address skill shortages that are already beginning to affect the expansion of renewable energy facilities through the development and support of national and state skill training programs.

“Ethanol and other bioenergy technologies will continue to play a significant role in reducing our dependence on foreign oil, building up hundreds of rural economies, and creating thousands of new job opportunities across this country,” he said. “In my home state of Iowa there are 28 ethanol plants with more than 1.7 billion gallons of annual capacity; these plants have created more than 27,200 jobs across Iowa, stimulating the local economies and invigorating rural development across the state.“

The bill would give competitive grants, authorized by the Secretary of Agriculture, to community colleges for classes and training for technicians in the bioenergy fields as well as other ag-based, renewable energy sources such as cellulosic.

You can hear an NCGA story with Litterer by clicking here.

You can read Litterer’s testimony to Congress by clicking here.