Gevo, Inc. secured a conditional commitment for a $1.46 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office for its Net-Zero 1 project. This represents the first-ever large-scale alcohol-to-jet project to receive such a commitment from DOE and aligns with the growing demand for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and the aviation industry’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint. While the conditional commitment is a significant milestone, Gevo must still satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, commercial and financial conditions before DOE can finalize the financing documents and fund the loan guarantee. DOE also approved conditional funding of up to $1.44 billion to Calumet to support the expansion of its Montana facility to utilize vegetable oils, fats and greases to produce biofuels. If finalized, the loan guarantee would fund facility expansion to produce about 315 million gallons per year of biofuels, most of which will be SAF, DOE said. The U.S. government has set a goal to produce three billion gallons of SAF by 2030 and meet 100% of U.S. aviation fuel demand with SAF by 2050.
Get more news and analysis from Pro Farmer - sign up online.
