Poet reduces water consumption

Poet has reduced the amount of water used in its ethanol plants by 411 million gallons a year compared to 2009 levels.

The news comes after a widespread installation of the company's Total Water Recovery technology, meaning Poet plants now utilise an average of 2.77 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol.

With startup of systems at Poet plants in Mitchell, South Dakota; Ashton, Iowa; and Portland, Indiana, Poet is nearly halfway to reaching its goal of saving 1 billion gallons of water a year by 2014, which would mean using 2.33 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol produced.

'I'm proud that in each of the 23 years we have been in business, we've been able to improve the environmental performance of ethanol production,' says Jeff Broin, CEO of Poet. 'Water is one of the most important resources on our planet. We will continue to find ways to maximise that resource and other resources in our ongoing work to be as efficient as we can be.'

Currently 12 of the company's 26 plants are running the system at full capacity, while a further six are due to come online later this year. The technology will also be installed at the newly acquired Biorefining – Cloverdale plant.

Back in 2009 Poet's plants used on average 3 million gallons of water per gallon of ethanol, which is an 80% decrease from when it began producing ethanol in 1988. That average includes the alternative sources of water used at a number of Poet plants.