The US Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced its intent to issue two funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) in early 2023. These potential FOAs—“Reducing Agricultural Carbon Intensity and Protecting Algal Crops (RACIPAC)” and the “2023 Conversion R&D”—will enable the sustainable use of domestic biomass and waste resources to produce biofuels and bioproducts.

The prospective RACIPAC FOA would support high-impact research and development (R&D) focusing on reducing the carbon intensity of agricultural feedstocks, improving soil carbon levels, and protecting cultivated algae from pests under two areas of interest:

• Climate-smart agricultural practices for low carbon intensity feedstocks; and

• Algae crop protection.

The prospective 2023 Conversion R&D FOA would support the development of technologies that convert domestic lignocellulosic biomass and waste resources—including industrial syngas—into affordable biofuels and bioproducts that significantly reduce carbon emissions under two main areas of interest:

• Overcoming barriers to syngas conversion; and

• Strategic opportunities for decarbonization of the chemicals industry through biocatalysts.

Both potential FOAs will help to meet the goals of the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge, which are to reduce aviation emissions by 20% by 2030, and to produce sufficient sustainable aviation fuel to meet 100% of domestic aviation demand by 2050.