Webinar: In this webinar, ARPA-E Program Director Rachel Slaybaugh provides an overview of the Modeling-Enhanced Innovations Trailblazing Nuclear Energy Reinvigoration (MEITNER) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA). https://arpa-e.energy.gov/?q=video-other/arpa-e-meitner-foa-overview-webinar
The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) intends to issue a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to support R&D on advanced nuclear reactor technologies that enable safe, secure, and flexible energy production by nuclear fission with dramatically lower capital and operating costs. These technologies are expected to be deployed for electricity production and/or uses such as production of industrial process heat or desalination.
Nuclear power plants currently provide nearly 20% of the total U.S. electricity generation with 99 operating nuclear reactors for a total installed capacity of 98.7 GW. These nuclear plants are all conventional, light-water cooled reactors (LWRs), which have been the workhorse of the nuclear industry for several decades now. However, nuclear power in the U.S. is facing significant challenges of high operational and maintenance costs, the impending retirement of power plants as reactors near the end of their operational lifetimes, and very slow, expensive construction of new LWR power plants to replace retirements or supplement the existing fleet.
The U.S. and many other countries around the world have explored new reactor types beyond LWR technology, including different coolants, moderators, fuels, and reactor core designs. These advanced reactor concepts are commonly called “Gen IV” nuclear reactors. While there is great promise for advanced Gen IV designs, there remain a large number of technical challenges – ranging from understanding of fundamental issues in materials to systems-level engineering for safe, practical, and economical construction and operation – before they are ready for deployment.
ARPA-E is planning a new R&D program seeking innovative designs of advanced nuclear power plants and computational validations of these designs that can achieve safe, secure, and economical power production. The envisioned program seeks transformative designs and manufacturing technologies to achieve semi-autonomous “walk-away safe” and secure operation; extremely low construction capital costs; and dramatically faster construction and commissioning times based on technologies such as modular assemblies and factory manufacturing. The program seeks cross-disciplinary teams of innovators from the nuclear community and other scientific and engineering disciplines to instill new, creative approaches in solving fundamental challenges in nuclear power plant design, construction, and operation. Success in this program will establish a set of high-fidelity designs of new advanced nuclear reactors and set a path for the U.S. to lead the world in “Gen IV and beyond” nuclear power technologies.
In order to realize the goals of this program, expertise in the following areas may be useful:
Factory manufacturing of safety-grade and/or large componentsLoad following and grid integrationGeneration of co-products such as industrial process heat, desalination, or hydrogenAdvanced construction techniques Reactor physics, neutronics, and shieldingStructural and functional materials Chemistry, chemical interactions, corrosion, and coolant chemistry controlNuclear fuel design, fabrication, and performancePower conversion, heat transportSensors, instrumentation, controls, autonomous operation, roboticsDiagnostics and prognosticsSafety, severe accidents, environmental impactsTechno-economic analysisNuclear security and safeguardsUsed fuel and waste managementAdvanced/emerging technologies (such as advanced manufacturing) Major experimental activities will not be funded under this program. However, it is the intent of ARPA-E to identify key experiments that need to be performed to validate the innovative designs in order to retire the key technical risks associated with the nuclear power plant designs. The proposal teams are encouraged to leverage other DOE Office of Nuclear Energy programs such as the GAIN (Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear) initiative (https://gain.inl.gov) to perform such experiments either during or after completion of the program.
As a general matter, ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.
The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting May 26, 2017. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.
Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.
By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.
This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in July 2017, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.