POET Tightens Water Use

More Ag News

Ag News

POET plans to decrease water use in the production of ethanol by 22 percent over the next five years in the first goal of its sustainability imitative, ingreenuity. It intends to cut the company’s water used per gallon of ethanol from an average of 3 gallons to 2.33, an annual water savings of one billion gallons. In a presentation to employees, POET CEO Jeff Broin said the company is committed to producing ethanol as sustainably as possible and minimizing its impact on natural resources.

The reductions will come primarily through installing a proprietary process developed by POET engineers that recycles cooling water rather than discharging it. The Total Water Recovery process has recently been installed in three POET Biorefining locations – in Bingham Lake, Minnesota, Caro, Michigan and Hudson South Dakota. According to Broin, - those facilities now average 2 to 2.5 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol.

To kick off the initiative, Broin announced the POET Foundation has committed more than 420-thousand dollars to the non-profit Global Health Ministries over the same five-year period as POET’s water reduction goal. A portion of the funds will help repair, construct and maintain 90 wells in Nigeria that that will give more than 300-thousand people access to pure water.