DOE Announces $200M Funding Opportunity for Biofuels

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) yesterday announced the issuance of a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for up to $200 million over six years to support the development of pilot and demonstration-scale biorefineries including the use of feedstocks such as algae and production of advanced biofuels such as bio-butanol, green gasoline and other innovative biofuels.

Projects are expected to begin in Fiscal Year 2009 and continue through Fiscal Year 2014. 

The FOA has two topic areas for biorefinery development:

• Pilot-scale, minimum throughput of one dry ton of feedstock per day with a minimum non-federal cost-share at 30%.
• Demonstration-scale minimum throughput of 50 dry tons of feedstock per day, with a minimum non-federal cost-share at 50%.

DOE anticipates making approximately 5-12 awards under this announcement, depending on the topic area, and size of awards. The intent of this FOA is to have integrated biorefinery projects at the pilot and demonstration scale levels operational within three to four years after applicants are selected. All projects must be located within the U.S., use feedstock from domestic biomass resources, and demonstrate significant greenhouse gas reductions on a lifecycle basis.

These pilot and demonstration-scale facilities are intended to lead to commercialization in the near term.  If deployed on a large scale, these commercial facilities could produce volumes that could significantly contribute to the Energy and Independence Security Act (EISA) Renewable Fuels Standard goal of 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels by 2022.

Mandatory letters of intent are due February, 20, 2009, and completed applications are due April 30, 2009.  The complete FOA (number DE-PS36-09GO99038), can be viewed at the web site below.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said last week the country will fall well short of its mandate for 36 billion gallons of ethanol by the year 2022, due to slow progress in the development of cellulosic ethanol.

And a new report by Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson, suggests cellulosic ethanol may have a more harmful impact on the environment than corn-based ethanol.

Please share your thoughts on advanced biofuels in the comments section.