US Department of Agriculture backs advanced biofuels with $405 million

US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week announced $405 million in loan guarantees for three advanced biofuel projects and backing for a raft of smaller-scale efforts.

Under the Biorefinery Assistance Programme, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is backing efforts to produce ethanol from biomass waste material.

Coskata will get a $250 million loan guarantee to support the construction and operation of its 55-million-gallon-a-year cellulosic ethanol biorefinery facility in western Alabama, which will use woody biomass.

Meanwhile, Enerkem plans to use municipal solid waste to produce some 10 million gallons a year of cellulosic ethanol based on a thermo-chemical cellulosic process.

The USDA is granting the company an $80 million loan guarantee to build and operate the facility in Pontotoc, Mississippi.

The final project, INEOS New Planet BioEnergy’s 8-million-gallon-a-year biorefinery in Vero Beach, Florida, will receive a $75 million loan guarantee. The facility will use citrus and agricultural waste, as well as garden, wood and municipal solid waste to produce cellulosic ethanol and electricity up to 6 MW.

Vilsack also announced awards to producers under the Advanced Biofuels Payment Programme and support of $1.6 million for 68 feasibility studies under the Rural Energy for America Programme.

Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Steven Chu has approved a $241 million loan guarantee to a first-of-its-kind project in the US to use waste animal fat, cooking oil and other waste grease to produce renewable diesel.

Diamond Green Diesel, a joint venture between Valero Energy Corporation and Darling International, will use to the loan guarantee to back the construction of the 137-million-gallon-per-year renewable diesel facility in Norco, Louisiana.

For further information:
www.usda.gov/
www.energy.gov
www.coskata.com/
www.enerkem.com/
www.ineos.com/

24 January 2011

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