The U.S. Energy Department said Thursday it would back a Nebraska project to convert natural gas into hydrogen, marking the first conditional loan guarantee of its kind under President Joe Biden.
With an up to $1.04 billion loan that would be guaranteed by the Energy Department, the commercial-scale venture by Monolith Nebraska LLC aims to supply hydrogen to the agriculture sector. Carbon black also produced at the site would be put to use in tires, plastic production and other materials.
The move represents a revival of the Energy Department’s loan programs office, which aims to use more than $40 billion in loan authority to accelerate the development and deployment of clean-energy technologies. The conditional loan guarantee is the first of its kind offered under the Biden administration and the first to go to a non-nuclear project since 2016.
Although the office was mostly dormant under former President Donald Trump, it previously provided a $465 million loan to Tesla Inc., helped finance the country’s early large-scale solar photovoltaic projects and provided a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra LLC, a California company that flopped in 2011.
The program also provided critical support to Southern Co.’s Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia.
Loan Programs Office Director Jigar Shah, a clean-tech pioneer who helped usher solar power to the mainstream, has stressed the importance of providing a bridge for the rapid deployment of clean-energy technologies.
“They really see this program as, ‘Can we use this to launch platform technologies, not just individual projects?’” said Rob Hanson, Monolith’s co-founder and chief executive officer.Read More…
Source : bloombergquint
