The Department of Energy awarded an $80 million grant Thursday to a Georgia facility that turns wood residue into jet fuel as a way to decrease the airline industry’s carbon footprint.
The money was given to AVAPCO, a Thomaston, Georgia-based biofuel, biochemical, and biomaterial company that has been in operation since 2009.
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In 2016, AVAPCO received a $4.7 million grant for a pilot to convert residue from pulp plants, sawmills, and paper into sustainable aviation fuel. After successfully completing phase 1, the DOE awarded AVAPCO $80 million to build a larger plant capable of producing 1.2 million gallons of jet fuel a year, as well as sustainable material to be used by the rubber industry.
The DOE announced Thursday it had awarded a total of $118 million in grants to fund 17 projects around the United States working to advance the production of biofuels, renewable energy made from materials such as animal waste and used cooking oil.
“Biofuels are a versatile tool because they have the immediate potential to power our ships, trains, airlines, and heavy-duty vehicles — a huge contributor to total carbon emissions — with a significantly reduced carbon footprint,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “DOE investments are helping to build out a domestic bioenergy supply chain that increases America’s energy independence, creates jobs, and accelerates the adoption of cleaner fuels for our transportation needs.”
Of the grants awarded, the one in Georgia was the largest.
All of the grants fall into four general categories and include pre-pilot scale-up of integrated biorefineries, pilot scale-up of integrated biorefineries, demonstration scale-up of integrated biorefineries, and Gen-1 corn ethanol emission reduction.
The DOE awarded California-based Algenesis Corporation a $4.9 million grant to develop a circular carbon economy that will replace petroleum-based chemicals in consumer products with algae and biodegradable polymers.
It also gave Illinois-based LanzaTech $1.6 million to “pilot an integrated field-deployable, zero-discharge, biorefinery concept for distributed production of ethanol — as feedstock for larger LanzaJet alcohol-to-jet SAF facilities — and biochar for soil amendment.”
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The grants are part of President Joe Biden’s “Decarbonization and Climate Agenda.”
