Bio Jet Fuel First

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has closed on a loan guarantee to Fulcrum Sierra Biofuels, LLC to build a bio-refinery to produce jet fuel from municipal solid waste.

“This represents a huge step forward in the development of clean, renewable, job-creating American fuels,” Vilsack said during a speech at the National Clean Energy Conference. “The nation is entering a new energy age that will make us more energy independent, cut carbon pollution and strengthen our economy, especially in rural communities where clean fuels will be produced.”

USDA is awarding Fulcrum a $105 million Bio-refinery Assistance Program loan guarantee through Bank of America, N.A. to construct a facility in McCarran, Nev., to convert municipal solid waste to biodiesel jet fuel. USDA Rural Development’s loan guarantee represents less than half of the $266 million project cost. The plant is expected to produce 11 million gallons of fuel annually. This is the first loan guarantee USDA has made for the production of bio jet fuel.

USDA is negotiating three additional loans for bio-refineries in Iowa, North Carolina and Oregon. These loans would provide financing to produce renewable fuels from woody biomass, municipal solid waste and energy grasses such as switch grass, miscanthus and arundo donax. One of these ventures will retrofit an existing corn ethanol facility to produce cellulosic ethanol.