Heaping Benefits

A pile of cash gets shoveled towards American-made fertilizer

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) just closed a loan to support "independent, American-made, and coal-powered fertilizer production," per an October 30 news release from the federal branch.

The $1.5 billion loan to Wabash Valley Resources, LLC, will help finance a coal and ammonia fertilizer facility in West Terre Haute, Indiana. The project is designed to "restart and repurpose a coal gasification plant idled since 2016 to produce 500,000 metric tons of anhydrous ammonia per year by using coal from a nearby Southern Indiana mine and petroleum coke as feedstock," the DOE says. Wright made sure to drill home the connection between coal and agriculture:

“For too long, America has been dependent on foreign sources of fertilizer,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “We are changing that by putting America first, relying on American coal, American workers, and American innovation to power our farms and feed our families."

The logic of coal gasification is debatable. One stance argues that the process is an outright health risk, unproven and environmentally unstable. But supporters say it's a way to optimize the transition out of dying coal facilities by laying the groundwork for an economic replacement.

By investing in a coal community, the Wabash project aims to bring the gasification plant back online to produce ammonia fertilizer – considered by the DOE to be a vital resource for farmers across the Corn Belt, which currently relies on imports from Canada, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Russia. If you're losing track of American "belts", we hear you--but think Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas, for starters when referring to the Corn version.

The project could "strengthen domestic supply chains, lower costs for farmers and consumers, and strengthen national food security by producing cost-competitive ammonia for the Eastern Corn Belt while creating hundreds of American jobs," according to the Energy Department.