BIFF! BAM! BETO! DOE strikes at the feedstock problem with $52M in awards
6 awardees land Bioeconomy Investments in Feedstocks of the Future
We’ve shared so many times in The Digest what bioeconomy leaders have been whispering for years: affordable feedstock is the bioeconomy bottleneck — elsewhere there are challenges, including processing technology and policy stability, but feedstock cost is the Godzilla of All the Challenges. Not everyone listens to those who raise the cry, but the US National Labs and the BioEnergy Technologies Office have, and BETO is investing $52 million 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.
The six selectees will become members of the new BETO-funded Regional Biomass Resource Hub Initiative, led by Idaho National Laboratory. 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.
The 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 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 Winning Projects: Algae
Arizona State University – $10,000,000
Southwest Microalgal Research and Testing (SMaRT)
This project will evaluate two main approaches for algae cultivation: 1) Semi-continuous cultivation under nutrient replete conditions for biomass production and 2) 2-stage cultivation (growth and induction) to enhance the production of lipids. The research will be performed using a variety of raceway sizes, including sloped raceways driven by pumps rather than paddlewheels. One end goal of this project is to integrate empirical data collected at multiple scales with validated computational simulations and hydrodynamic modeling to enable a Digital Twin (or virtual testbed) to help guide, de-risk and mobilize the algae industry.
Photosynthex Corporation – $6,116,043
Economical Green Algae Cultivation for Renewable Fuels and Materials
This project will demonstrate, quantify, and optimize the cultivation of microalgae for the purpose of producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), bioplastics, and omega-3 fatty acids. The project will grow the high-yielding microalgae in outdoor raceway ponds without plastic liners. Key project objectives include optimizing algae cultivation and harvesting methods to maximize biomass yield and minimize costs. This project will validate large-scale algae production and all biomass produced will be converted for product manufacturing by commercial partners.
The Winning Projects: Herbaceous Energy Crops
University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign – $10,000,000
This project will link new and on-going data streams from commercial scale fields of miscanthus, switchgrass and sorghum over 9 states to demonstrate yield, composition, carbon intensity and ecosystem services, filling critical knowledge gaps in sustainable conversion-ready herbaceous feedstocks. A key innovation is leveraging existing fields for field evaluation, ecosystem modeling, and life cycle and technoeconomic analysis to determine the site and species-specific carbon intensity.
The Winning Projects: Intermediate Energy Crops
University of Minnesota – Twin Cities – $9,999,893
Oilseed Crops to Sustain the Environment and Meet Energy Demand (OILSEED)
This project will establish a relay cropping system that produces an intermediate oilseed (camelina or pennycress) as a harvestable winter crop between a summer annual grain and soybean—three crops in two years. In this system, soybean is interseeded into a standing oilseed crop in spring, the oilseed is harvested over the top of the immature soybean, and the soybean matures and is harvested in the fall. This cropping system is expected to produce low carbon intensity scores for the oilseed crops and address intractable environmental problems in agriculture.
CleanJoule – $7,999,471
Developing a Reliable Supply Chain of Camelina and Carinata for SAF
This project proposes to conduct cultivation studies of wheat-camelina system under no-till farming practice and compare it with baseline of wheat-fallow conventional tilling for production of sustainable aviation fuel. Concurrently, the team will evaluate a camelina and soybean relay cropping system in Minnesota, and carinata as a cover crop during winter fallow prior to cotton planting in Alabama. Expected outcomes include optimal cropping systems that will improve soil health and water use efficiency, mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, and provide biodiversity for pest control.
The Winning Projects: Short-Rotation Woody Crops
SUNY – The State University of New York – $7,906,991
This project will remove barriers to the expansion and commercialization of willow crops through innovations to lower production costs and carbon impact, including UAV precision management, new planting systems, improved genetics, and a prototype harvester. This project offers a unique opportunity to understand the dynamics of a large-scale, commercially managed short rotation woody crop system that is currently in the second half of its 20-25 year life cycle. The project team will also collect, analyze and share sustainability data related to willow production.
The Bottom Line
It’s a big invest on feedstock by DOE, and needed. We noticed more emphasis on oilseeds and woody biomass — we regard them as shorter-term prospects, than the typical investments in long-range feedstocks such as algae and energy crops. That’s good news for shorter-range targets such as the SAF Grand Challenge and for the 2030s, for sure. Those looking for a shot in the arm for the bioeconomy might see these as more early-stage R&D than the ready-for-deployment, large scale solutions the industry needs quickly — but it’s a step int he right direction, and a good job of listening to industry by government.
We’re delighted to see Idaho National Lab in the lead — they’ve continued to build up massive feedstock capabilities and its good to see those R&D chops increasingly recognized.
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