Low oil prices are restraining the ability of renewable energy technologies to compete, but work forges ahead on alternatives to petroleum-based fuels.

And Big Oil is helping to find some of those alternatives.

In one project among several around the nation, ExxonMobil is working with researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on technology to bring down the cost of renewable diesel and jet fuel.

Researchers led by George Huber, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at UW-Madison, are working with ExxonMobil on the $600,000 project. The funding and partnership follow Huber's finding that biomass can be converted into fuel using much less costly enablers.