BETO announces $52M for for energy crop acceleration projects

In Washington, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) has announced $52 million in funding for six university and industry projects to advance the production of low carbon intensity, purpose-grown energy crops critical to accelerating a clean energy bioeconomy. These projects will expand a domestic supply chain of alternative carbon sources essential to biofuels and bioproducts production that can lower net emissions in the transportation and industrial sectors, as well as innovate and grow the U.S. agricultural industry. 

Investment in this research supports DOE’s long-term objective to develop technologies that mobilize renewable carbon resources to increase the production of bioenergy and renewable chemicals and materials. Prime funding recipients are located in six states with proposed field and pond experiments across 18 different states. These selected projects will focus on the advancement of low carbon intensity, purpose-grown energy crops across varied agronomic and geographic landscapes through the generation of data and research findings. The projects will focus on one or more of the following feedstock resources: microalgae, switchgrass, miscanthus, high biomass sorghum, carinata, camelina, pennycress and shrub willow. 

With this funding, these projects will play an important role in supporting the federal government’s Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Grand Challenge goal to produce three billion gallons of SAF annually by 2030 and 35 billion gallons annually by 2050, enough to meet 100% of the projected U.S. aviation fuel demand. These research projects also support DOE’s Clean Fuels and Products Shot™ by focusing on lowering net emissions in the fuel and chemical industry through alternative sources of carbon to advance cost-effective technologies with a minimum of 85% lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. 

The six selectees will become members of the new BETO-funded Regional Biomass Resource Hub Initiative (RBRH), led by Idaho National Laboratory

(INL). INL will coordinate collaboration amongst the funding recipients to share experimental plans, report data, and collectively achieve the funding objectives. Selectees will be organized in groups to coordinate feedstock data standards and procedures, and to collectively overcome regional resource mobilization challenges and barriers. The RBRH groups will also work alongside a wide range of stakeholders, including national laboratories, universities, regional landowners and farmers, policy makers, among others, to ensure the RBRH is meeting the needs of the industry and communities they serve.