The US Department of Energy (DoE) has selected The Yolo County Central Landfill (YCCL) for an award of $1.5 million to improve the current science and infrastructure to turn waste streams into clean, renewable fuel, reported Davis Enterprise.
The DOE grant to the YCCL — one of only 15 nationwide — focuses explicitly on community-scale resource and energy recovery from organic wastes.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today that the Biden-Harris Administration through the U.S. Department of Agriculture is investing up to $2.8 billion in 70 selected projects under the first pool of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities funding opportunity, with projects from the second funding pool to be announced later this year. Ultimately, USDA’s anticipated investment will triple to more than $3 billion in pilots that will create market opportunities for American commodities produced using climate-smart production practices. These initial projects will expand markets for climate-smart commodities, leverage the greenhouse gas benefits of climate-smart commodity production and provide direct, meaningful benefits to production agriculture, including for small and underserved producers. Applicants submitted more than 450 project proposals in this first funding pool, and the strength of the projects identified led USDA to increase its investment in this opportunity from the initial $1 billion Vilsack announced earlier this year.
Following a historic decline in 2020 amid global transport disruption due to the Covid-19 pandemic, total biofuel demand is on course to surpass 2019 levels in 2021. In our main case, annual global demand for biofuels is set to grow by 28% by 2026, reaching 186 billion litres. The United States leads in volume increases, but much of this growth is a rebound from the drop caused by the pandemic. Asia accounts for almost 30% of new production over the forecast period, overtaking European biofuel production by 2026. This is thanks to strong domestic policies, growing liquid fuel demand and export-driven production. Recent Indian ethanol policies and blending targets for biodiesel in Indonesia and Malaysia are responsible for most of the growth in Asia. India is set to become the third largest market for ethanol demand worldwide by 2026.
The PGA Tour Championship tournament said it swapped diesel with renewable fuels for all onsite generation to power the East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.
Renewable fuels are often produced from a combination of previously used materials, such as combining waste and residues with renewable and vegetable oils.
Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will send an engineered bacteria into space as early as next year as part of ongoing research into solving the problem of plastic waste mitigation on Earth.
Deconstructed plastics, using the NREL oxidation platform, will be flown to the International Space Station (ISS), where astronauts will conduct an experiment involving bacteria engineered to upcycle oxidized plastic. The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) selected the NREL project as part of the ISS National Laboratory Sustainability Challenge: Beyond Plastics. The beauty brand Estée Lauder is providing financial backing for the challenge, with costs going to ISS National Laboratory partner Rhodium Scientific to provide engineering and flight support.
Options for decarbonizing aviation present significant challenges compared with other modes of transport, but achieving carbon-free air travel is critical for reducing the environmental impacts of global transportation. So the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is putting its research weight behind efforts to bring new aviation technologies to market.
A demonstration project in California plans to use concentrated solar power and green hydrogen to produce what its development partners said would be sustainable aviation fuels.
The project will take place at concentrated solar power (CSP) provider Heliogen's demonstration facility in Lancaster in northern Los Angeles County. Heliogen is partnering with sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) firm Dimensional Energy on the project.
The first fully hydrogen-powered passenger train service is now up and running. Coradia iLint trains built by Alstom are running on the line in Lower Saxony, Germany. The only emissions are steam and condensed water, and Alstom notes that the train operates with a low level of noise.
Five of the trains started running this week. Another nine will be added in the coming months to replace 15 diesel trains on the regional route. Alstom says the Coradia iLint has a range of 1,000 kilometers, meaning that it can run all day on the line using a single tank of hydrogen. A hydrogen filling station has been set up on the route between Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervörde and Buxtehude.
In a bid to make people understand just how dire of a problem climate change is, a team of researchers developed an interactive app to showcase expected future conditions in every US city just one generation down the line. The app ties each city with a different location, whose current climate reflects what’s in store for the future.
White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy is stepping down on Sept. 16, the White House announced Friday, weeks after President Joe Biden signed major legislation to combat climate change.
McCarthy will be succeeded by Ali Zaidi, who is currently McCarthy's deputy at the White House. Mr. Biden has also named former White House chief of staff John Podesta to be his senior adviser on clean energy innovation and implementation.
