BlueFire Ethanol, one of the competitors not chosen this year to receive U.S. Dept. of Energy loan guarantees to build an advanced biofuels plant, is taking its cause abroad. Last month, the cellulosic ethanol producer attracted China's largest electrical utility, China Huadian Engineering Co. Ltd., which has 75,000 megawatts of generation capacity and $51 billion in assets.
This past September, alternative-energy companies were waiting to hear who would win the loan guarantees. When two of his competitors—Abengoa Bioenergy Kansas and Poet Biorefining— each received more than $100 million and his firm received nothing, BlueFire CEO Arnold Klann had "nothing nice to say" about the application experience.