Latest News

Production and use of biofuels is considered by the U.S. government to have fewer or lower negative effects on the environment compared to fossil-fuel derived fuels. There are also potential national economic and security benefits when biofuel use reduces the need to import petroleum fuels. Government programs that promote and/or require biofuels use, such as the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), define the types of biofuels and processes or low-carbon pathways by which biofuels can be produced in order for them to qualify for use under the programs. While biofuels have environmental benefits, their production and use do have effects on the environment.

Click here to learn more

Fuel ethanol data
Year Million gallons Thousand barrels Thousand barrels per day
U.S. production 2021 15,015 357,502 979
U.S. imports 2021 61 1,447 4
U.S. exports 2021 1,252 29,803 82
U.S. consumption 2021 13,937 331,823 909
World production 2019 28.91 688.39 1.89
World consumption 2019 28.61 681.09 1.87

Click here to learn more

"Science" was a class you probably took in school, but the subject matter you studied was not the only thing you learned. Your science classes helped you develop a mindset, a way of problem-solving, that you can still tap into today in any line of work.

People with various academic and experiential backgrounds collaborate with the researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). They have opportunities to work with people like Nalinrat Guba, whose scientist mindset is complemented by those of an artist, athlete, and caretaker. These perspectives make her a versatile and impactful member of NREL's Computational Science Center, where clients come to achieve their goals leveraging computational science, high-performance computing, applied mathematics, and advanced computer science, visualization, and data.

Click here to learn more

An underutilized natural resource could be just what the airline industry needs to curb carbon emissions.

Researchers at three institutions—the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Washington State University—report success in using lignin as a path toward a drop-in 100% sustainable aviation fuel. Lignin makes up the rigid parts of the cell walls of plants. Other parts of plants are used for biofuels, but lignin has been largely overlooked because of the difficulties in breaking it down chemically and converting it into useful products.

Click here to learn more

The Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge is the result of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and other federal government agencies working together to develop a comprehensive strategy for scaling up new technologies to produce SAF on a commercial scale.

Click here to learn more

Three new reports from the United Nations paint a grim picture of what’s to come in the near future as the world falls short in mobilizing against climate change. According to the reports, nations are failing to create and act on sufficient plans to reduce warming as global greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise — a combination that is putting the planet on track to hit nearly 3 degrees Celsius of warming within less than 80 years.

Click here to learn more

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm today announced the release of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge Roadmap, a comprehensive plan that outlines a government-wide strategy for scaling up new technologies to produce sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) across the U.S. airline industry. A collaboration between the U.S. Departments of Energy, Agriculture, Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Federal Aviation Administration, the roadmap will spur technological innovation to produce SAF, position the country as a global leader in the emerging SAF market, and enable America to meet President Biden’s clean energy goal of a net-zero carbon economy by 2050.

Click here to learn more

Lithium is the lightest metal on Earth, and it’s a key ingredient of the batteries that will power future cars and the grid.

Tennessee will soon have the largest lithium processing plant in the nation. North Carolina-based Piedmont Lithium is constructing a new facility in Etowah, near Chattanooga, to produce the component of electric vehicle batteries.

Click here to learn more

THE NIZARI GARRISON at Gird Castle resisted the Mongol horde of Hulagu Khan for 17 years before surrendering in December 1270. The fortress rose 300 meters above the surrounding plains of present-day eastern Iran, with three rings of fortifications enclosing its base. But dwindling supplies and an outbreak of cholera forced the defenders to abandon their posts after one of the longest sieges in medieval history.

Click here to learn more

Washington — Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as “fiction.”

Titled “Circular Claims Fall Flat Again,” the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by U.S. households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent. After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West’s plastic waste in 2018.

Click here to learn more