The Department of Energy has finally offered a renewable-energy company one of its long awaited loan guarantees. On Friday, the DOE offered Solyndra, a company that makes cylindrical solar cells for commercial rooftops, a loan guarantee of $535 million, designed to allow the company to raise money to build a factory.

Congress approved loan guarantees for energy companies in 2005 and the DOE is only now getting around to offering them. The guarantee for Solyndra is supported by this year's stimulus bill, and is part of the new Energy Secretary Steven Chu's effort to speed things up.

Many experts consider loan guarantees important for getting new technologies from the prototype and pilot stage into mass production. Especially for energy companies, which require large amounts of capital, getting the first commercial-scale production facility built can be a challenge. Few financiers are willing to hand out large amounts of money for an unproven technology, and the loan guarantees can take away that risk.

Others are concerned that the loan guarantees involve relying on the government to pick winning technologies. The government has often chosen poorly, perhaps most famously with a scheme to produce synthetic fuel after oil crises in the 1970s.

What do you think? Are the DOE loan guarantees a good move?

The Obama administration may be drawing up plans to store nuclear waste at multiple sites around the country, instead of in a central depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

As I noted last week, Obama's budget cuts money to the controversial Yucca Mountain site. Earlier this week, in a U.S. Senate hearing, energy secretary Steven Chu confirmed that the administration no longer considers the site an option. Concerns have been raised about the safety of the site, which apparently was chosen without much careful study. However, the government has an obligation to do something with the waste. The government has collected tens of billions of dollars to create a permanent facility to store waste, one that by law was supposed to be ready by 1998. Instead, utilities have had to pay to store the waste themselves.

Now more details are coming out about what the Obama administration plans to do.

From Energy Washington Week (subscription required):

The Obama administration is crafting an alternative nuclear waste storage program that relies on a mixture of interim and multiple longer-term storage facilities, but no "permanent" waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, according to DOE Secretary Steven Chu. The prospects of such a plan--to be developed within a year--raises a host of concerns that states and others are voicing over the legality of such a move and what it means for the multibillion-dollar nuclear-waste fund, say stakeholders . . .

Details of the administration's plan are still forthcoming, but Chu said it would make use of available and new interim storage sites and a process of solidifying waste that he says NRC approves as safe. DOE may pair the interim facilities, which would be scattered throughout states and regions, with multiple longer-term facilities.

According to the Washington Post, "About $7.7 billion has been sunk into the project since its inception."

Steven Chu, president-elect Obama's pick for secretary of energy, emphasized the need to address climate change and decrease reliance on foreign oil during his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, January 13, and he backed off of some of his earlier rhetoric against coal (which he'd previously called his "worst nightmare"). Here's a sampling of his take on key issues.

Oil and gas, and efficiency:
He tiptoed around the issue of increasing oil and gas production on the outer continental shelf and elsewhere, saying that he supported it, but immediately qualifying his statement. He said that only 5 percent of the world production of oil comes from the United States, implying that increased production won't make much difference. Then he said, "The more efficient use of energy in the United States is the one big factor that can help us reduce our dependency on foreign oil."

Nuclear:
It has to be part of the energy mix, so we need to figure out how to dispose of it. That means, in part, some more research on recycling waste.

Electric grid:
A "very crucial" part of the development of natural resources. Steady winds and clear skies for solar power are often far from big cities where power is needed, so we'll need better electrical transmission. Challenges: cost, state boundary issues, siting the power lines.

Renewable energy:
"Renewable energy is something we really have to work on as quickly as possible . . . It will be my primary goal as secretary to make the Department of Energy a leader in these critical efforts." (Quote from CQ Politics.) Chu's work as the director of the Lawrence Berkeley Lab focused on advanced biofuels, artificial photosynthesis, and solar technologies.

Hybrids, electric vehicles:
"These first electric hybrid cars don't have the energy capacity and the battery lifetime we need," he said today. "Let's push hard towards more fuel-efficient personal vehicles." (Quote from Earth2Tech.)

Coal, carbon sequestration:
Coal is the most abundant fuel source in the U.S., and the dirtiest. But capturing the carbon dioxide that it produces and burying it could make it cleaner. Chu supports developing technology to do this.

"If the world continues to use coal the way it is now, that is a pretty bad dream," he said at the hearing, pointing out that carbon dioxide isn't the only problem. In many places, pollutants like sulfur dioxide and mercury aren't captured, he said. "It is imperative that we figure out a way to use coal as cleanly as possible. My optimism as a scientist is that we will develop those technologies to capture a large fraction of the carbon dioxide that is emitted from power plants and to safely sequester it."