Story ID: 
Biden Administration Swings Big on SAF
By: Curt Epstein
Caption: Loan packages fund producers in Montana and South Dakota
Word Count: 270
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) made a nearly $3 billion investment in the future of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) this week with guaranteed loans to two major producers.
As part of the Biden Administration’s Investing in America agenda, the DOE’s loan program office issued a commitment for a finance package worth more than $1.4 billion to Calumet subsidiary Montana Renewables, which in the span of less than two years has become one of the largest SAF producers in the U.S. The loan would support the expansion of the company’s Great Falls, Montana facility from an output of 140 million gallons per year of biofuels (mainly renewable diesel) to 315 million gallons a year of mostly SAF.
That increased output alone would equal 10% of the SAF Grand Challenge 2030 goal of 3 billion gallons of SAF production annually.
The second announced loan from the DOE is to Gevo Net-Zero-1 to finance the first commercial-scale corn starch-to-jet fuel plant, to be located in Lake Preston, South Dakota. The $1.46 billion loan guarantee will enable the construction of the facility, which will use locally grown, low-cost, low-carbon field corn as a feedstock.
It will also use carbon capture and sequestration as well as renewable power to lower emissions. The plant is anticipated to create 60 million gallons of SAF a year, and as a byproduct, it would generate 1.3 billion pounds of high-protein animal feed and 30 million pounds of corn oil.
Both projects are expected to create jobs in their local areas and contribute to the economic growth of their states and surrounding areas.