Government Backs $1 Billion Plan to Make Gasoline from Wood

The New York Times
February 3, 2011, 6:18 pm By MATTHEW L. WALD

The Energy Department has offered a Texas company a loan guarantee for a $1 billion project to build four small factories that would turn wood chips into an oil substitute.

The loan guarantee, if finalized, would be about four times larger than any previous guarantee for biofuels. Its aim is to spur industrial-scale production of substitutes for gasoline and diesel from renewable sources beyond food crops like corn and sugar, a goal that many companies are chasing but none has yet achieved.

Read more