The Energy Department announces its intent to issue, on behalf of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) entitled “MEGA-BIO: Bioproducts to Enable Biofuels.” This FOA supports BETO’s goal of meeting its 2022 cost target of $3/gallon gasoline equivalent for the production of hydrocarbon fuels from lignocellulosic biomass. One approach BETO has taken previously to achieve this goal is to focus on conversion pathways that produce biofuels, with little or no emphasis on coproducing bioproducts. As BETO increasingly focuses on hydrocarbon fuels, it is examining strategies that capitalize on revenue from bioproducts as part of cost-competitive biofuel production.

The intent of this FOA, therefore, is to identify research and development projects that develop biomass to hydrocarbon biofuels conversion pathways that can produce variable amounts of fuels and products based on external factors, such as market demand. These pathways could consist of a route to a platform chemical that could be converted to products or fuels or a route that coproduces chemicals and fuels. 

It is anticipated that the FOA may include the following areas of interest: 

  1. R&D to optimize one unit operation of the proposed conversion pathway 
  2. R&D to optimize and integrate multiple unit operations of the proposed conversion pathway

The FOA is expected to be posted on the EERE Exchange in or around January 2016. To see the full NOI, visit the EERE Exchange website.