The objective of the Systems for Monitoring and Analytics for Renewable Transportation Fuels from Agricultural Resources and Management (SMARTFARM) program is to bridge the data gap in the biofuel supply chain by funding the development of technologies that can replace national averages and emissions factors for feedstock-related emissions with field-level estimates. The value of such technologies will be evaluated by their ability to reliably, accurately (i.e. low uncertainty), and cost-effectively quantify feedstock production lifecycle emissions (in g CO2e/acre) at the field level (i.e. scalable to >80 acres). If successful, the technologies funded by this phase of the SMARTFARM program will catalyze new market incentives for efficiency in feedstock production and carbon management, reducing annual U.S. emissions by ~1%,[1] and with substantially greater potential emissions reductions implications if expanded to other agricultural products beyond biofuels.
The SMARTFARM portfolio is structured in two initial phases: Phase 1 of the program, which is described in Topic H: Establishing validation sites for field-level emissions quantification of agricultural bioenergy feedstock production, of DE-FOA-0001953,[2] aims to support the establishment of high-resolution datasets that will be available to the public, without restriction, to support testing and validation of emerging monitoring technologies. These Phase 1 production sites will be outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment and monitored on a per-acre basis. The low profit margins of feedstock production[3] and high cost of monitoring technologies make it cost-prohibitive to monitor impacts on a larger scale at such high resolution, which is why this second phase of the portfolio intends to fund technologies capable of delivering the same estimates, at or below specified uncertainty levels, at a cost capable of delivering a positive return on investment when field-level carbon emissions reductions are connected to associated biofuel carbon markets. Under the SMARTFARM portfolio, Phase 2 technologies will be subject to rigorous testing to demonstrate performance in relevant deployment scenarios. Successful projects in this second phase of the portfolio will be encouraged to partner with Phase 1 site managers to deploy and validate their technologies.
[1] Assuming a 30% reduction in nitrogen inputs and nitrous oxide emissions for corn-grain ethanol and ~100 kg/acre/year increase in soil carbon across the projected 5 Quadrillion Btu capacity for terrestrial biofuel feedstocks.
[2] DE-FOA-0001953: Solicitation on Topics Informing New Program Areas, Topic H: Establishing validation sites for field-level emissions quantification of agricultural bioenergy feedstock production
[3] USDA Economic Research Service. Corn production costs and returns per planted acre, excluding Government payments. For the base survey of 2016, the U.S. average for net value of production less overhead and operating costs ranged from -$45 to -$75 per acre.