The Department of Energy budget finances the country’s network 17 national research laboratories and helps companies to develop and commercialize new technologies. Your loan program currently has $ 40 billion on unspent funds the agency can use to boost its clean energy agenda, and launched a new Office of Energy Jobs to coordinate government efforts to help workers in the fossil fuel industry who lost their jobs find new jobs in the industry of green energy.
Granholm said the loans, which under former President Barack Obama were to finance clean energy start-ups, would now focus on accelerating the deployment of clean energy sources to meet Biden’s goal of eliminating carbon emissions from the electricity sector by 2035.
“We know that the loan program office was criticized because it was difficult to access, especially for smaller companies, and by definition it is more restricted than it would be useful if you really wanted to focus on deployment. And it is expensive for people who sign up, “she said. “These kinds of things must be addressed to make it really effective.”
This effort will be led by clean energy entrepreneur Jigar Shah, who Granholm announced on Wednesday that he would serve as director of the department’s Loan Programs Office.
Although largely overlooked during the Trump administration, the loan program was a central part of the Obama administration’s stimulus effort in 2009, but it became a political target after solar technology company Solyndra collapsed and failed to pay more than US $ 500 million in federal loans.
The GOP spent more than a decade targeting the program, and Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), The top Republican on the energy committee, referred to Solyndra at the Granholm conference vote last week – despite the lending program’s success in generating net income for the federal treasury.
Granholm said the federal government generated net revenues of $ 500 million from the program, but acknowledged that it could be more effective. When you invest in start-up technology, there are likely to be “some winners, some losers”, she said, but hopefully “you will have more to bring money back to the government”.
She also cited the role that essential minerals will play in securing a domestic supply chain for the clean energy sector – a message the government hopes will resonate with Republicans who have called for support for the mining industry.
“To places like Wyoming, where underneath them [there are] some very critical minerals for the production of batteries, for electric vehicles, for example, we must mine responsibly and create our own supply, instead of depending on our economic adversaries who have an economic interest in preventing other countries from having access to accumulate the supply ”Said Granholm. “It is another type of clean energy vector that we can help support and I hope we are helping to support it.”