Bio-based fuels and chemicals, combined with sustainable agricultural and forestry practices, are key to enable a full transition away from petroleum. The team in ETA leads technoeconomic analysis and life-cycle assessment research in this area as part of the Joint BioEnergy Institute and has deployed public-facing webtools for evaluating a variety of bio-based production processes.

The transition toward a circular economy will require novel materials, advanced recycling processes, and a massive infrastructure build-out. The team has worked closely with basic scientists and stakeholders in the waste management industry to evaluate infinitely recyclable plastics and carbon fiber upcycling, and highlight key infrastructure gaps that must be filled to enable a clean, equitable transition to a zero-waste future.

Profitable and sustainable pathways for handling waste from the energy sector and for sourcing critical materials must be identified to meet growing demand. The ETA team uses a combination of geospatial analysis and material flow analysis to identify opportunities for new regional material supply chains, as well as technoeconomic analysis to verify the potential of developing new sources for lithium and for lowering the impact of existing mines.

New technologies for hydrogen production, storage, and use are necessary for scaling green hydrogen in hard to decarbonize sectors. The team in ETA leads high-throughput material screening, process design and simulation, and technoeconomic and environmental impact analysis, and leads the system analysis task for the DOE HyMARC program.

Increasing the use of variable renewable energy requires developing low-cost long-duration energy storage. The ETA team is using reverse engineering to benchmark scientific innovations for thermal energy storage and hydrogen storage from the technical requirements of a target application.

New geospatial approaches and detection technologies are emerging that could greatly reduce the cost of monitoring regions for methane leaks. The ETA team is working alongside EESA teams to apply these advances to develop low cost strategies for methane mitigation.

Negative emissions technologies such as direct air capture and enhanced weathering are critical for lowering the concentration of CO₂ in this century to sustainable levels. The ETA team is developing and applying rigorous and reproducible methods for verifying cost, benefits and net CO₂ reduction to clarify the state of technology and identify opportunities for overcoming deployment challenges, including the transport, storage, and use of captured CO₂ or carbon. This work is part of the Carbon Negative Initiative.

Using organic waste for the production of value-added energy carriers and other products can reduce our reliance on landfilling and reduce emissions of potent greenhouse gases such as methane. ETA scientists measure and model the emissions and economic implications of more sustainable waste management practices, including anaerobic digestion and composting.

New technologies for utilizing and recycling unconventional water sources and for more efficiently managing wastewater are essential to supply communities, farms, and industrial facilities across the U.S. and the world with adequate clean water. The team in ETA has deep expertise in TEA and LCA of water infrastructure systems and plays a leading role in the data, modeling, and analysis pillar of the National Alliance for Water Innovation.