This FOA (Funding Opportunity Announcement) supports two priority areas in the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) research and development (R&D) portfolio. The first of these priority areas addresses new strategies for energy and resource recovery from waste streams. Waste streams including municipal solid waste, animal manure, wastewater residuals and other organic wastes have been identified as a key feedstock for the production of biofuels and bioproducts. These wastes represent significant environmental liabilities in the forms of fugitive methane emissions, air and water quality impacts, and odors, amongst others. These wastes also disproportionately are cited in disadvantaged communities leading to a multitude of health impacts on the surrounding populations. There are also significant costs associated with the management of these waste streams including treatment, hauling, and disposal or tipping fees. These economic factors make these waste streams an economic liability to the communities managing them but also a cost-advantaged feedstock for the production of biofuels and bioproducts.
The second priority area addressed by this FOA targets improved organisms and inorganic catalysts. BETO’s Conversion R&D Program has identified process robustness as a key challenge that must be addressed prior to scale-up. This includes the development of more robust organisms and catalytic processes for the conversion of sustainable feedstocks and intermediates into biofuels and bioproducts. Topic Area 2 of this FOA (including subtopics 2a and 2b) seeks technologies to improve the economic viability of microbial production processes by improving the productivity and robustness of the engineered microorganisms. Topic Area 3 focuses on inorganic catalyst development and investigating catalyst robustness and the mitigation of negative impacts or impurities found in bio-derived streams. Topic Areas 2 and 3 will ultimately improve the economics of sustainable biofuels production to realize cost goals of under $2.50/gallon by 2030 and to enable more processes that are capable of producing sustainable aviation fuel and meet the White House’s goal of reducing aviation emissions by 20% by 2030.
Deadlines:
Topic Area 1: MSW Feedstock Technologies
Topic Area 2: Robust Microbial Cells
Topic Area 3: Robust Catalytic Processes
Topic Area 4: Community Scale Resource and Energy Recovery from Organic Wastes
Applications to Topic Area 4 will be accepted only from the following eligible prime applicants: States (including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and Northern Mariana Islands), local, Tribal, intrastate government agencies and instrumentalities, and non-profit organizations that are not 501(c)(4) organizations engaged in lobbying activities.
Other types of entities, including but not limited to Individuals, Institutes of Higher Education, FFRDCS, and for-profit organizations, are eligible to apply for funding as a subrecipient but are not eligible to apply as a prime recipient.
Topic Area 4 seeks community leadership in project design, feasibility, and ultimately execution of their projects to improve resource and energy recovery from waste. Because of this focus and to ensure community ownership of the project, BETO is seeking only community-related prime recipients for its Topic Area 4 awards, as specifically set forth above.
EERE expects to make a total of approximately $34,500,000 of federal funding available for new awards under this FOA, subject to the availability of appropriated funds. EERE anticipates making approximately 15-27 awards under this FOA. EERE may issue one, multiple, or no awards. Individual awards may vary between $500,000 and $2,500,000.
