High-performance Optimized Recycled Nuclear Isotopes for Gen IV reactors (HORNIG)

NOFO Number: DE-FOA-0003623 – High-performance Optimized Recycled Nuclear Isotopes for Gen IV reactors (HORNIG) Agency Overview: The Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E), an organization within the Department of Energy (DOE), is chartered by Congress in the America COMPETES Act of 2007 (Public Law 110–69), as amended by the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (Public Law 111–358), as further amended by the Energy Act of 2020 (Public Law 116–260). ARPA-E issues this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) under its authorizing statute codified at 42 U.S.C. § 16538. The NOFO and any cooperative agreements or grants made under this NOFO are subject to 2 C.F.R. Part 200 as supplemented by 2 C.F.R. Part 910. ARPA-E funds research on, and the development of, transformative science and technology solutions to address the energy and environmental missions of the Department. The agency focuses on technologies that can be meaningfully advanced with a modest investment over a defined period of time in order to catalyze the translation from scientific discovery into early-stage technology. For the latest news and information about ARPA-E, its programs and the research projects currently supported, see: http://arpa-e.energy.gov/. ARPA-E funds transformational research. Existing energy technologies generally progress on established “learning curves” where refinements to a technology and the economies of scale that accrue as manufacturing and distribution develop drive improvements to the cost/performance metric in a gradual fashion. This continual improvement of a technology is important to its increased commercial deployment and is appropriately the focus of the private sector or the applied technology offices within DOE. In contrast, ARPA-E supports transformative research that has the potential to create fundamentally new learning curves. ARPA-E technology projects typically start with cost/performance estimates well above the level of an incumbent...