BlueFire Ethanol seeks funding for biorefinery

BlueFire Ethanol Fuels, Inc. has submitted an application for a $250 million dollar loan guarantee for the company’s planned cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in Fulton, Mississippi. The application, filed under the Department of Energy (DOE) Program DE-FOA-0000140, which provides federal loan guarantees for projects that employ innovative energy efficiency, renewable energy, and advanced transmission and distribution technologies, was submitted in February and serves as a phase one application in a two phase approval process.

The Fulton plant is already a recipient of an award of up to $88 million from the U.S. Department of Energy under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. If approved, the loan guarantee will secure the financing for the remainder of the costs to construct the facility, which will produce 19 million gallons of ethanol per year from woody biomass, mill residue, and other cellulosic waste.

Currently, BlueFire Ethanol is focused on the development of two cellulosic ethanol facilities in Lancaster, California and Fulton, Mississippi.

The fully-permitted and shovel-ready Lancaster, California facility, BlueFire’s first United States commercial plant, will use post-sorted cellulosic wastes diverted from Southern California’s landfills to produce approximately 3.9 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol per year.

BlueFire is in the detailed engineering phase and expects to have all necessary permits for its second commercial plant in Fulton, Mississippi by this summer, putting the company on a path to commence construction by the end of 2010. These two planned facilities will create more than 1,000 construction jobs and, once in operation, more than 100 new operations and maintenance jobs.