Renewable Energy CEOs ask Congress to preserve loan guarantees

For a long time, POET has pointed out that a loan guarantee will be required to fund our first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant. Yesterday, POET CEO Jeff Broin was one of 34 CEOs of renewable energy companies who signed a letter to Congressional leadership calling on them to support the U.S. Department of Energy's loan guarantee program. Here's the press release:

CEOs Call on Congress to Fully Fund DOE Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee Program

Elimination of Funding Would Harm US Competitiveness and Energy Security Washington

(March 29, 2011) - In a letter sent today to Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, CEOs of 34 renewable energy companies strongly urged support for the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program in order to preserve billions of dollars of private sector investments that will build the nation’s domestic clean energy infrastructure.

The thirty-four CEOs representing companies from every renewable energy sector – solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and biofuel –have already invested tens of millions of dollars in projects that are being considered by the Department of Energy for loan guarantees. Without the loan guarantee program, the companies will be unable to begin construction of major commercial renewable energy projects. Without loan guarantees, America’s effort to compete with China, Germany and others in the clean technology marketplace will be undermined.

In their letter, the 34 CEOs noted: “The projects for which our companies have applied – all of which are ready to begin construction between now and September 30th of this year –represent more than $13.3 billion of investment in 28 states and will generate 15,600 construction jobs and 10,200 operating jobs as well as thousands of additional jobs for equipment and services provided by suppliers.”

According to the letter, sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), “The loan guarantee program is a win-win-win for taxpayers, American clean technology and the communities and states where these investments are being made. The program’s real costs are paid for by the companies that submit applications, and each federal dollar of loan guarantees leverages $13 in private capital investment.”

The letter with the names of 34 CEOs and their companies is attached as well as a list of companies and location of their projects.

Click here to read the complete letter. For background on the loan guarantee program, see a blog post from Katie Fehrenbacher at Earth2tech.

Tons of Biomass

As we have said in previous posts on this blog, it will take a lot of biomass to feed Project LIBERTY when it's up and running. It will need somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 tons to produce 25 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol each and every year.

This year was the first commercial harvest and it saw 85 farmers provide about 56,000 tons of baled corn cobs and light stover. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and this picture of 24,000 tons of biomass should give you a better iead of the volume we're talking about. That's less than half of the total that was collected.

According to a study from the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy, there is more than one billion tons of biomass available in the U.S. Just imagine what that pile would look like.