New Consortium Advances Technologies That Use Renewable Electricity to Turn Carbon Dioxide into Fuel

A new consortium of five U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories is developing an integrated portfolio of technologies that use renewable electricity to upgrade carbon dioxide (CO₂) into fuels and chemicals.

The CO₂ Reduction and Upgrading for E-Fuels Consortium (CO₂RUe) is funded by DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and supports their goal of producing 35 billion gallons of cost-competitive sustainable aviation fuel by 2050 while lowering greenhouse gas emissions by at least 70%.

Millions of tons of CO₂ are emitted annually from biorefineries and industrial sites across the United States. CO₂RUe is working toward using renewable electricity to convert waste CO₂ into climate-friendly "e-fuels"—a shorthand for electrofuels, which have dramatically lower land, water, and greenhouse gas footprints compared to fossil fuels. In this way, the consortium advances solutions for decarbonizing key economic sectors, such as aviation, marine, chemical manufacturing, and heavy industry.

The goal of the consortium—which includes researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory—is to enable ethanol plants to reduce emissions and produce millions of more gallons of fuel every year.

Learn how CO₂RUe research and development lowers technical and economic barriers to commercial-scale CO₂ reduction and upgrading technologies.

For more information about the consortium, visit the CO₂RUe website.