Weekly Energy Roundup
On March 23, 2009, Martin LaMonica of CNET wrote:
Seeking to boost the U.S. clean-energy industry, President Obama on Monday announced $1.2 billion for science research at national labs and a proposal to extend a business tax credit for investments in research and development.
At an event at the White House, Obama told researchers and green-technology business people that their work was vital to revitalizing the U.S. economy and cutting the country’s dependence on foreign oil. About 120 researchers, lab directors, and CEOs from energy technology companies attended the event.
President Barack Obama at the White House speaking to researchers and clean-technology company CEOs.
“We need some inventiveness. Your country needs you to mount a historical effort to end, once and for all, our dependence on foreign oil,” Obama said. “Your country will support you, and your president will support you.”
Obama said that his administration’s budget proposes a 10-year extension to a tax credit for businesses that make investments in research and development. This tax credit has been in place in the past, but lacked a long-term commitment from the federal government, he said.
For every dollar that the government spends on this tax credit, it delivers two dollars to the economy, Obama said.
Obama also announced the availability of $1.2 billion in basic research at the Department of Energy’s national laboratories. In addition to money to upgrade facilities at national labs, grants are available for research in renewable energy, such as solar power and biofuels, as well as in nuclear energy, underground storage of carbon dioxide, and hydrogen.
It is in the same week that we have learned that a startup called Virent Energy is seeking round C venture capital funding for a plant in Wisconsin, which will be capable of of producing petroleum from sugar at a much more powerful 102 octane, diesel, and jet fuels. The solution for Virent is said to be joint partnerships due to the high cost of creating a 100-million-gallon-per-year plant: US$200 million. Critically, the company is not producing Ethanol, rather they are producing hydrocarbons.
In motor sports news, the Green Earth Technologies company is said to be producing a synthetic, and “green” motor oil for cars. Specifically, they are pushing the product on the International Motor Sports Association by making it the official motor oil. IMSA has pushed recently to be the “green racing series” with requirements that all cars run on one of four fuel systems: cellulosic E85, E10, clean sulfur-free diesel, or gas-electric hybrid. Will Porsche sever its relationship with MobileOne? Probably not, the announcement certainly stands to benefit the otherwise unknown Green Earth Technologies. Candace Lombardi of CNET blog network fills in the details.