The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), intends to issue, on behalf of USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), a Request for Applications (RFA) entitled “Fiscal Year 15 Biomass Research and Development Initiative (“BRDI”).”
The RFA will address USDA and DOE programmatic objectives, administrative roles, and areas of interest in implementing Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI) grants. Section 9001(a) of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (FCEA) (Pub. L. 110-246) re-authorized the BRDI competitive grants program by amending section 9008 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (FSRIA), as amended, (Pub. L. 107-171) (7 U.S.C. 8108).
For fiscal year (FY) 2015, BRDI will require that funded projects address only one (1) of the following three (3) legislatively mandated technical areas:
1. Feedstocks development – The intent of this Topic Area is to address research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) activities regarding feedstocks and feedstock logistics (including harvest, handling, transport, preprocessing, and storage) relevant to production of raw materials for conversion to biofuels and biobased products. The BRDI program is designed to support near-term commercial systems. Projects should emphasize development and optimization of existing feedstocks that will be available for testing and demonstration during the life of the project. Proposals that include breeding or genetic improvement of feedstocks should reconcile this work with the Program’s emphasis on near-term impacts.
2. Biofuels and biobased products development – The intent of this Topic Area is to address RD&D activities to support (i) development of diverse cost-effective technologies for the use of cellulosic biomass in the production of biofuels, bioenergy, and biobased products; and, (ii) product diversification through technologies relevant to the production of a range of biobased products (including chemicals, animal feeds, and cogeneration power) that potentially can increase the feasibility of fuel production in a biorefinery.
3. Biofuels development analysis – The intent of this Topic Area is to apply systems evaluation methods that can be used to optimize system performance and market potential and to quantify the project’s impact on sustainability; therefore, successful applications will consider the lifecycle (cradle-to-grave) impacts including environmental, social, and economic implications that are attributable to the project. Successful projects should include these sustainability data in engineering process models and be used over the life of the project to improve the system and quantify sustainability impacts.
This Notice is issued so that interested parties are aware of NIFA's and EERE's intention to issue a RFA in the near term. NO APPLICATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED THROUGH THIS NOTICE. Please do not submit questions or respond to this Notice of Intent. Prospective applicants to the RFA should begin developing partnerships, formulating ideas, and gathering data in anticipation of the issuance of this RFA. It is anticipated that the RFA will be posted to Grants.gov in November 2014.