The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy intends to issue, on behalf of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), a funding opportunity announcement (FOA), “Targeted Algal Biofuels and Bioproducts.”
BETO’s 2019 projected state of technology for the cost of algal biofuels is modeled at about $7 per gallon gasoline gallon equivalent, without valuable co-products such as animal feed or commodity chemicals. This FOA seeks to improve the value proposition for algal biofuels by employing multi-disciplinary consortia to produce algae bioproduct precursors (alongside fuel components), as well as single-investigator or small-team technology development projects focused on crop protection and CO2 utilization technologies for improving biomass productivity. BETO hopes these strategies will enable a 30-50% cost reduction for algal biofuels.