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Solicitation on Topics Informing New Program Areas (TINA) - Establishing Validation Sites for Field-level Emissions Quantification of Agricultural Bioenergy Feedstock Production
NOTE: The Solicitations and topics listed on this site are copies from the various SBIR agency solicitations and are not necessarily the latest and most up-to-date. For this reason, you should use the agency link listed below which will take you directly to the appropriate agency server where you can read the official version of this solicitation and download the appropriate forms and rules.
The official link for this solicitation is: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/
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The United States produces ~16 billion gallons of ethanol annually, meeting ~1% of our nation’s energy needs. Ethanol and other bio-based fuels have the potential to provide an emissions-free source of energy on a net basis, but not without a shift in feedstock production practices. Current feedstock production practices are driven by yield, and low profit margins leave feedstock growers with limited options for increasing productivity; often, this comes in the form of over-fertilization, which produces unnecessary emissions, impacts water quality, and has uncertain returns. While these impacts become clear when aggregated to the regional or national scale, field-level contributions remain unknown. ARPA-E seeks to fund the development of “ground truth” solutions that establish measurements and protocols for emissions monitoring at the field level and provide agronomic insight. The primary goal of this targeted topic is to fund project teams to establish publically available open-source, high-resolution datasets to support testing and validation of emerging biofuel production monitoring technologies. A submission to this Targeted Topic must include an applicable commercial field site (described in more detail below) and describe the Applicant’s ability to: - Establish a data protocol (e.g. modality, spatial resolution, and frequency) for quantifying field-level emissions, including soil carbon storage. - Develop clear methods for assessing commercial solutions for emissions quantification at the field level. - Garner stakeholder input and collaboration across the supply chain. - Secure and share field-level datasets (i.e. open access data) both during and after the period of performance. - Engage community members across the energy-water-food nexus to share best practices, collaborate on technology challenges, and encourage data standardization and transparency.
