Title
Chief Administrative Office recommending the Board adopt and authorize the Chair to sign Resolution 020-2024 authorizing the submittal of an application for the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Business Development Grant not to exceed $100,000 for Bioeconomy Development Opportunity Zone Rating to attract future bio-based businesses in the County.
FUNDING: N/A
Body
DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
The clean energy market encompasses a range of renewable and sustainable energy sources aimed at reducing the environmental impact and dependence on non-renewable resources. Biomass is a renewable energy derived from organic materials such as plants, wood, agricultural residue, and other biological sources. El Dorado County has a surplus of feedstock in the form of woody biomass in our forests that could be leveraged to attract ground/aviation biofuel and renewable biobased economic development projects.
To attract these projects to the County, the feedstock needs to be quantified by initiating a technical risk assessment to show feasibility of development to potential new biobased economic stakeholders. A Bioeconomic Development Opportunity (BDO) Zone rating is a standard-based assessment of our county’s manufacturing readiness with respect to development potential of biofuels, renewable chemicals, biogas or bioproducts projects.
BDO Zone ratings scale ranges from the strongest indication “AAA” indicating a very strong capacity of supply chain infrastructure to support biobased development; to the weakest indication “CC” indicating a very strong likelihood of biomass feedstock supply chain or infrastructure failure. BDO Zone ratings of “AAA”, “AA” and "A" identify optimal zones for new biobased development and are used to connect regions with biobased business investors and developers. To date, BDO Zones have been linked with $1B of private capital for biobased economic development projects.
In December 2023, the USDA RBDG has released a Notice of Fund...
Click here for full text