DOE opens $59M FOA for advanced biofuels, ethanol GHG reductions
Summary
The U.S. Department of Energy on June 1 opened a $59 million funding opportunity to support the scale-up of integrated biorefineries and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction in first generation ethanol production. The FOA also aims to strengthen current first-generation corn ethanol production facilities by reducing their overall carbon footprint. Pilot projects awarded funding under the second topic area must produce at least 20,000 gallons of biofuel per year equivalent, according to the FOA. The requirements for fuel type, feedstocks and GHG reductions are largely the same as the first two topic areas, but the demonstration projects must produce at least 1 million gallons of biofuel per year equivalent. Other possibilities include, but are not limited to, the inclusion of bioproducts, and the development of predictive models and high-performance computing as tools to accelerate scale-up.