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The Energy Department today announced two additional projects selected to receive up to $4 million to develop next-generation biofuels that will help reduce the cost of producing gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels from biomass.

The Energy Department today announced up to $10 million in funding to advance the production of advanced biofuels, substitutes for petroleum-based feedstocks and bioproducts made from renewable, non-food-based biomass, such as algae, agricultural residues, and woody biomass. This work supports the Energy Department’s efforts to make drop-in biofuels more accessible and affordable, as well as to meet the cost target equivalent of $3 per gallon of gasoline by 2022.

The Energy Department today announced up to $9 million for the design of sustainable bioenergy systems that maintain or enhance the environmental and socio-economic sustainability of cellulosic bioenergy through the improvement of feedstock production, logistics systems, and technology development.

The R&D 100 Awards, presented annually by R&D Magazine, recognize 100 of the most innovative technologies and services of the year across nine categories and are selected by an independent panel of more than 70 judges. In July, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) cyanobacterial bioethylene project was announced as a finalist in the mechanical devices/materials category for the 2015 awards. This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office.

Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), are studying multifunctional landscapes and how they can benefit farmers, the environment, and the bioenergy industry nationwide. Their study, “Multifunctional landscapes: Site characterization and field-scale design to incorporate biomass production into an agricultural system,” is set to be published in September 2015 in the journal, Biomass and Bioenergy.

Two of the six winners of the 20th Annual Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards—LanzaTech and Algenol—have active projects with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). The awards are sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and the National Academy of Sciences, and recognize outstanding chemical technologies that promote environmental and economic benefits using green chemistry. The 2015 awards ceremony was held on July 13, 2015, and hosted by the National Academy of Sciences. A panel of American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute® experts selected the winners for their incorporation of green chemistry principals into chemical design, manufacturing, and use.

A recently released study from Argonne National Laboratory shows that gasoline and diesel refined from Canadian oil sands have a higher carbon impact than fuels derived from conventional domestic crude sources.

The Energy Department today announced six projects that will receive up to $18 million in funding to reduce the modeled price of algae-based biofuels to less than $5 per gasoline gallon equivalent (gge) by 2019. This funding supports the development of a bioeconomy that can help create green jobs, spur innovation, improve the environment, and achieve national energy security.

Microvi Biotechnologies, a leading innovator of biocatalytic processes, together with the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit (ABPDU) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has demonstrated a major breakthrough to biological ethanol production. 

The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office has released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking stakeholder input on the following topics related to the use of advanced biofuel blends in small engines

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announces its intent to issue, on behalf of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) targeting innovative technologies and solutions to help advance bioenergy development.

Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) Director Jonathan Male announced the winner and finalists of the 2015 BioenergizeME Infographic Challenge Pilot in a special webinar awards ceremony on June 3, 2015.

EERE offers webinars to the public on a range of subjects, from adopting the latest energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, to training for the clean energy workforce.

Battelle—a nonprofit research and development organization that operates many of the national laboratories—reached an Energy Department project milestone to demonstrate at least 1,000 hours of bio-oil hydrotreatment on a single catalyst charge. Typically, it takes many catalysts to convert a bio-oil intermediate into biofuel, making the conversion process expensive. Battelle’s new process substantially reduces the cost and risk of biofuel production and helps make the process more commercially viable.

According to an international report on bioenergy and land use, informed management of bioenergy crops can actually alleviate factors contributing to food insecurity, as well as provide practical avenues to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote sustainable energy production, and preserve biodiversity.

The Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) hosted the 2015 Project Peer Review from March 23–27, 2015 in Alexandria, Virginia. The individual project and plenary presentations from the week are now available online.

Two Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) scientists were part of a team honored at the 249th American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting & Exposition on March 25, 2015. The team, which consisted of John Frye and Alan Zacher of PNNL and Todd Werpy of Archer Daniels Midland Company, received the ACS Award for Affordable Green Chemistry for creating a safe, commercial process for producing propylene glycol from renewable sources.

The Bioenergy Technologies Office is pleased to announce the release of its newly updated Multi-Year Program Plan (MYPP). The MYPP sets forth the goals and structure of the Office. This latest version presents a merged conversion research and development (R&D) section, the renaming of the demonstration and market transformation area, and emerging work in wet waste-to-energy feedstocks.

Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) Deputy Director Dr. Valerie Sarisky-Reed’s commentary, “Algal Progress Report,” was published in the February edition of the bimonthly research journal Industrial Biotechnology. Her commentary details the promise of algae as a renewable energy source and describes how many BETO-funded research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects have resulted in significant technological advances to help overcome challenge of using algae for biofuel production.

Researchers at Lygos, Inc., an industrial biotechnology company, achieved a critical breakthrough in the cleaner production of malonic acid, a valuable chemical used to manufacture many products, including pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, food, and specialty materials. More than a decade ago, a report prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy identified malonic acid as one of the top 30 value-added chemicals to be produced from biomass-derived sugar.

The U.S. Department Agriculture in collaboration with the Energy Department announced that up to $8.7 million in funding will be made available through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI) to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil by supporting the development of bioenergy feedstocks, biofuels, and biobased products.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released a report in January 2015 on the status of the non-starch ethanol and renewable hydrocarbon biofuels industry in the United States. The report, “2013 Survey of Non-Starch Ethanol and Renewable Hydrocarbon Biofuels Producers,” is the first of its kind to provide publically available, open source documentation on the state of the advanced biorefinery landscape.

The Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) recently won a 2015 Excellence in Technology Transfer Award for developing an innovative process that uses heat and pressure to convert

The Energy Department’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announces the selection of seven projects across the country to receive up to $10 million to support innovative technologies and solutions to help advance bioenergy development.

EERE offers webinars to the public on a range of subjects, from adopting the latest energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, to training for the clean energy workforce. Webinars are free; however, advanced registration is typically required. You can also watch archived webinars and browse previously aired videos, slides, and transcripts.