The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s $59 million investment announced earlier this week to accelerate biofuels and bioproducts production is key to President Joe Biden's administration's clean energy goals, said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a news release.
DOE's support for accelerate biofuels and bioproducts production is aimed at reducing emissions "in hard-to-decarbonize sectors," in addition to creating good-paying jobs in rural America, the department said in its June 1 news release.
"Energy harnessed from plants and waste presents a huge opportunity to reduce emissions from hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as aviation, rail, and shipping, while supporting high-quality jobs across rural America," Granholm said in a release. "DOE's investment in biofuels is a key component of the Biden administration’s effort to support clean energy technologies that increase our energy independence and move us closer to a net-zero carbon economy."
The DOE also promoted its biofuels and bioproducts production goals in a separate Twitter post.
"Turning plants and waste into energy has the power to help communities and businesses reduce emissions," the Twitter post said. "We're investing $59 million for biofuel production to help decarbonize industries, like aviation and marine, and generate more jobs for American workers."
The nation's marine and aviation sectors historically have required "higher energy densities" to avoid frequent refueling stops during for long flights, along international shipping routes and cross-country rail routes, DOE's news release said. Those higher energy densities make marine and aviation sectors difficult to decarbonize.
Although electrification can't meet energy requirements, in those sectors, energy-dense, sustainable liquid biofuels "are becoming a strong alternative to address these needs," the news release said.
As part of its investment, the department is focusing on applied research, development and deployment with a goal of improving performance and reducing biofuel production technologies costs and scale-up production systems, all in partnership with the nation's industry.
"By reducing costs and technical risks, these efforts can help pave the way for the biofuels industry to deploy commercial-scale integrated biorefineries," the news release said. "The breakthroughs from this funding will support President Biden's and DOE's goals of advancing the use of bioenergy, achieving cost-competitive biofuels, and reaching a net-zero carbon economy by 2050."
