What is rendered lard and is there another option?

Bacon fat, olive oil, butter, all would be fine.

Rendered lard is pig fat that you have gently cooked over many hours to separate the oil from the meat.

Here are a couple of recipes:

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/rendered-lard-recipe-1959767
https://www.marthastewart.com/1165287/stove-top-rendered-lard

found using a simple Internet search with the search parameters "rendered lard".

If you find that too inconvenient and time consuming just buy the commercial stuff at the supermarket made by some big faceless corporation who did the work for you with their big industrial machines.

A commonly available brand in the USA is Armour:

https://www.armourlard.com/

Best of luck.