Beard leads world's biggest energy lender to accelerate U.S. power, grid resilience
Gregory Beard has taken over the DOE's Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF), the world's largest energy lender with about $289 billion in loan authority, and is steering a rapid, results-focused expansion after a Biden-era turnaround that canceled or restructured roughly $83.6 billion in loans to prioritize affordability and reliability. The EDF will focus on six areas—nuclear; coal, oil, gas and hydrocarbons; critical minerals; geothermal; grid and transmission; manufacturing and transport—and aims to deploy a wave of loans (including potentially the largest ever), with EDF able to fund up to 80% of project costs for nuclear. The goal is to boost domestic generation, shore up the grid, and reduce China’s dominance over critical minerals while refinancing or building new capacity to lower power costs.