A major cellulosic ethanol project set to come online next year will further demonstrate the failure of federal mandates on the renewable fuel, agricultural economist Tom Elam says. Elam, making a presentation on behalf of livestock and poultry groups, says the federal cellulosic mandate has "utterly and totally failed," and that POET LLC's Project Liberty, which will make ethanol from corn cobs, won't succeed, either. At a cost of $250M to build the plant and an expected output of 25M gallons per year, "there's no way that plant is ever going to pay for itself," he says. POET is among the world's largest conventional ethanol producers. (ian.berry@dowjones.com)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 19, 2012 12:21 ET (16:21 GMT)