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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

U.S. Department of Agriculture Awards Grants To Fund Biomass & Biofuel Production

Last week the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, announced that 160 wood pellet producers in 41 states would start receiving grant money to produce biomass and biofuel components.  According to Secretary Vilsack this measure will create tens of thousands of new American jobs and provide fresh sources of clean energy to millions of Americans.

The funding will be awarded by the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels, a program dedicated to promoting manufacturers of biofuels from non-corn derived sources. For the full story please see http://bioenergy.checkbiotech.org/news/usda_awards_grants_biomass_and_biofuel_production

It will be interesting to see whether this news indicates the start of a new trend for different government agencies taking more proactive positions towards enhancing and subsidizing cleaner alternative energy in the USA -- a country that by most accounts trails global peers significantly in this regard.  With the current high unemployment levels in America currently, coupled with the country's high reliance on outdated fossil fuel energy production methods, linking the renewable energy sector to new jobs as a joint initiative makes a lot of sense.  Of course it will take a lot more than some USDA grant money to accomplish anything significant.  But the recent news from Secretary Vilsack represents a step in the right direction and hopefully signifies a growing new trend within both USDA and its sister agencies in Washington.

Kind regards from Kiev,
Jon