Biden Taps Energy Department to Find Fossil Fuel Alternatives

The Biden administration is marshaling the power of the Energy Department to find low-carbon alternatives to petroleum-based transportation fuels and chemical feedstocks for plastics and other products.

The initiative, slated to be announced on Wednesday by Secretary Jennifer Granholm at the department’s Idaho National Laboratory, seeks to create fuel alternatives for aviation, rail and other hard-to-decarbonize sources. The agency’s goal is to develop fuels with greenhouse gas emissions that are at least 85% lower than fossil-based sources by 2035.

“DOE is invested in decarbonizing the transportation and chemical industries by accelerating technologies necessary to reduce emissions from the manufacturing of ...