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U.S. funding opportunity: $4m for Critical Materials Recovery from Geothermal Fluids

U.S. funding opportunity: $4m for Critical Materials Recovery from Geothermal Fluids Geothermal well at Menengai, Kenya (source: flickr/ ScientificDrilling)
Alexander Richter 2 Dec 2015

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable energy has launched a $4 million funding opportunity for critical materials recovery from geothermal fluids.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable energy has launched a funding opportunity for critical materials recovery from geothermal fluids.

The intent of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to promote the advancement of geothermal energy conversion processes by validating technologies capable of providing a secondary income stream from the same geo-fluids. Methods for economically capturing, concentrating, and/or purifying valuable materials contained within geothermal brines represent an opportunity to both meet critical U.S. materials needs and broaden, as well as strengthen, the value-proposition of geothermal energy operations. Results from this work can enhance current applications, support planned development, and potentially open additional regions in the U.S. for economic utilization of geothermal energy.

This FOA invites responses in two (2) general topic areas, outlined below. Collaboration among industry, national laboratories, and academic institutions is encouraged; teaming will be strongly considered during the application reviews. Applicants will also be encouraged to coordinate activities with the Department of Energy (DOE) Critical Materials Institute led by Ames Laboratory.

Topic Area 1: Engineering Validation of Existing Extraction Technologies

Responses to this Topic Area are to validate processes or procedures to recover these materials from geothermal fluids or produced waters. Proposals may include processes currently effective in other industries that may be transferable to high value/critical material/strategic materials extraction from geothermal fluids, or processes that already experimentally demonstrate effectiveness for material recovery.

Topic Area 2: U.S. Regional or Nationwide Assessment of High Value Materials in U.S. Geothermal Fluids and Produced Fluids

For the this Topic Area, the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) seeks approaches to economically and quickly build a public, U.S.-wide resource assessment of dissolved critical and high-value materials that may be site-specific, region-wide, or a national assessment. A successful application will demonstrate expertise in geologic regimes as well as sampling and analysis.

The EERE Exchange system is currently designed to enforce hard deadlines for Concept Paper and Full Application submissions. The APPLY and SUBMIT buttons automatically disable at the defined submission deadlines. The intention of this design is to consistently enforce a standard deadline for all applications.

Applicants that experience issues with submissions PRIOR to the FOA Deadline: In the event that an Applicant experiences technical difficulties with a submission, the Applicant should contact the Exchange helpdesk for assistance (EERE-ExchangeSupport@hq.doe.gov). The Exchange helpdesk &/or the EERE eXCHANGE System Administrators (EERE-ExchangeSupport@hq.doe.gov) will assist the Applicant in resolving all issues.

Links:

A webinar for this FOA will be held on Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 2:00 PM MST. Click the link below to register.

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4894436799571452417

Source: DOE EERE