The second largest corn ethanol producer in the U.S. today announced it has succeeded in making cellulosic ethanol from corn cobs.

But don't expect fuel in large quantities anytime soon.

Poet (formerly known as Broin Companies) president and CEO Jeff Broin and Mark Stowers, VP of research and development, held a press conference today at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop in St. Louis, MO to announce the company had succeeded in producing small quantities of cellulosic fuel from corn stover at its "Project Liberty" prototype plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa.

"I don't think there's anyone else in the industry that's been looking at the same feedstock we are," said Stowers.

The company is specifically planning to produce cellulosic ethanol from 40 percent corn fiber (the hull of the corn kernel) and 60 percent corn cobs. The material would be ground and processed using a fractionation technique.

The feedstock is then to be subjected to an enzymatic process, but the details of it are still being locked down.

"We're looking at different pretreatments and different microorganisms than other folks. We're researching all of our options and looking at many different ways of handling this process," said Stowers.

Poet has partnered with Novozymes for enzymatic processes and DuPont on other technologies.

Because the fuel is to be made from the byproduct of corn used otherwise for Poet's grain ethanol operations, at the same places, no additional planting, harvest, storage or transportation will be required, the executives claimed. They also cited other savings in combining cellulosic ethanol facilities with conventional ethanol ones, such as reducing fossil fuels required in a combined facility by 83% and water use by 20%.

It's not going to happen soon, however. The company estimates construction of its first production volume facility will take 2.5 years from the end of negotiation of terms and conditions with the Department of Energy, which is providing the company with a grant of up to $80 million (see Cleantech.com's U.S. government granting $385M to six cellulosic ethanol plants.)

And even then, only 25 percent of its first facility's nameplate 125 million gallon-per-year capacity would be expected to be cellulosic-based, the two acknowledged.

Poet also acknowledged its process as it stands to date could not quite be considered financially feasible.

"Certainly, today it's probably a stretch for it to be profitable, however we're confident in our partnerships and our track record at being able to lower the costs of production such that this will be a profitable process by the time it's operational," said Poet CEO Jeff Broin.

Broin said he would be willing to make his technology available to the industry.