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A deep-pocketed US government program designed to finance futuristic energy businesses is issuing a conditional $9.2 billion loan to Ford Motor Co. for the construction of three battery factories. The enormous loan — by far the biggest government backing for a US automaker since the bailouts in the 2009 financial crisis — marks a watershed moment for President Joe Biden’s aggressive industrial policy meant to help American manufacturers catch up to China in green technologies.

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Earth's tilt has changed by 31.5 inches (80 centimeters) between 1993 and 2010 because of the amount of groundwater humans have pumped from the planet's interior.

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL’s) Sustainable Transportation Program is accelerating the pace of research and development (R&D) for efficient, safe, secure, and environmentally friendly transportation. The program delivers scientific discoveries and technical breakthroughs that accelerate the development and deployment of transportation technologies and create economic opportunity for the nation. By leveraging the National Transportation Research Center (NTRC)—the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) only dedicated user facility focused on transportation—researchers identify capabilities for next-generation systems in electrification, engines and emissions controls; develop new materials for future systems and data science and automated vehicle technologies; provide decision-making tools and intelligent technologies for secure, efficient movement of passengers and freight; and create economic opportunity by improving the energy efficiency of light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles. The program aligns with the goals of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office to provide low cost, secure, and clean energy technologies to move people and goods across America.

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imate science is not a new field. By the time of the American Civil War, it was well-known that a handful of gases that make up less than 1% of the air absorb radiation from the sun and the earth, and emit some of it back to Earth. We now know that without those gases, the average surface temperature of the planet would be well below freezing, and human life would not exist. How did these early scientists study this? What else affects our Earth’s climate, and what does it have to do with recent warming?

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The UC Davis College of Biological Sciences has started a new project that studies the function of the genes that regulate growth and wood formation in poplar trees. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is funding the $2.5 million, three-year-long project that is to be led by Nitzan Shabek, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Biology, along with Andrew Groover of the USDA Pacific Southwest Research Station and Justin Walley of Iowa State University. The project is one of 37 being funded by the DOE in an effort to forward bioenergy technology.

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Robin Buell, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Chair in Crop Genomics in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, spoke with Bioenergy Insights about a recent grant to investigate poplar trees as a potential fuel source.

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America’s grand challenge to develop sustainable, plant-based jet fuel offers a model for young scientists showing the value of collaboration across disciplines and institutions, a leading biofuels scientist said at the recent UC Davis Plant Sciences Symposium.

Plant geneticist Gerald A. Tuskan, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, outlined the dramatic advances made in studying poplar trees as a source for plant-based energy, and the challenges ahead for transforming them into 35 billion gallons of jet fuel each year by 2050. This challenge has been set by the Biden Administration to reduce the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels, grow a reliable supply of sustainable fuel demanded by the aviation industry, slash carbon emissions that are causing global warming, and create thousands of new jobs.

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Biofuels and biofuel crops have long been in use as a substitute for fossil fuels. Biofuel is a low-carbon fuel that is produced from biomass, rather than by the very slow geological processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels. The demand for biofuels is expected to double in the next few years, and could potentially allow us to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels.

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To be clear, global industries were not designed to be low carbon; the road to decarbonization and net zero will necessitate more action than just eliminating plastics and encouraging recycling. The climate crisis requires mass collaboration and a radical rethink on how governments, NGOs, societies and global businesses operate.

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Biomaterials have long been a part of our daily lives, from wooden houses to woolen clothes. More recently, biotech advances have brought us sugar-derived first-generation biofuels and high-performance enzymes to power our laundry detergents. Now, we see the emergence of nylon made using genetically engineered microbes instead of petrochemicals, alternative leather from mushroom roots, and cement from bacteria.

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