Energy Department to open clean energy loan guarantee office

Energy Department to open clean energy loan guarantee office

Washington (Platts)--22Mar2006

The Energy Department is in the process of creating an office that will
dole out loan guarantees to help move an array of clean energy technologies to
market, Secretary Samuel Bodman Wednesday.

In an address to the National Coal Council, his top set of private coal
advisers, Bodman said the loan guarantees would help development of
coal-to-liquids, carbon capture and storage, pollution controls and other
clean energy technologies.

Pushed by the Senate, Congress in the 2005 Energy Policy Act decided to
provide loan guarantees to cover 80% of the cost of projects on "innovative
technologies" including advanced coal and nuclear plants; hydrogen fuel cells;
fuel-efficient vehicles; renewable energy facilities; and at oil refineries.

"There are quite a few promising energy technologies that work well on
paper, but need help moving out of the laboratory and into practical
production," Bodman said in explaining why Congress created the program.

He added: "Properly done, these loan guarantees could have enormous
consequences for accelerating commercial use of promising clean energy
technologies."

Bodman said DOE may begin taking applications for loan guarantees later
in 2006.

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