Request for Information (RFI) on Steel Made via Emissions-Less Technologies (SMELT) | DE FOA 0002536

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002536

The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) issued this notice as a Request for Information (RFI) called Steel Made via Emissions-Less Technologies (SMELT), under funding opportunity number DE-FOA-0002536. The key point is that this is not a funding opportunity and it is not asking for grant applications. No awards are expected, the award ceiling is listed as $0, and there is no Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) associated with it at this time. Instead, ARPA-E is collecting technical and programmatic input that could shape a future ARPA-E research program.

The RFI is motivated by the scale of steel's energy use and climate impact and the expectation that global demand will grow substantially over the coming decades. The notice cites global crude steel production at roughly 1,700 million tonnes per year, with about two-thirds coming from primary production from iron ore and about one-third from recycled scrap. Steelmaking is described as responsible for about 7% of global energy use (over 38 exajoules) and about 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions (around 3.5 gigatonnes CO2e). In the United States, annual domestic production is given as about 80 million tonnes of steel, accounting for roughly 4% of U.S. emissions and 2% of U.S. energy use, with an additional 43 million tonnes of demand met through imports. ARPA-E also flags that global steel production could rise toward about 2,500 million tonnes per year by 2050 as developing economies grow, which makes deep emissions reductions increasingly urgent even though steel remains essential for infrastructure and broader development goals.

Technically, the RFI narrows in on ironmaking as the biggest emissions driver in the ore-to-steel value chain. The document points to the two dominant commercial primary routes today: blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF), estimated at about 2.2 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel, and natural gas direct reduced iron paired with an electric arc furnace (NG DRI-EAF), estimated at about 1.4 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel. ARPA-E states that there are not yet zero-emissions ironmaking technologies available at scale that can replace these pathways, so the agency is specifically seeking ideas for novel approaches to produce iron metal (Fe) from iron-bearing ores in ways that could credibly lead to net-zero greenhouse gas steelmaking at global scale. The scale target implicit in the discussion is enormous, on the order of multi-gigatonne-per-year steel production, meaning concepts need a believable pathway not just to work in a lab, but to eventually compete in throughput, reliability, and cost.

The RFI also situates its interest relative to two commonly discussed decarbonization strategies in industry. In the medium term, a widely cited approach is retrofitting carbon capture systems (CCS) onto existing blast furnaces, but ARPA-E notes this would raise the levelized cost of crude steel, with an estimated cost premium around $130 per tonne of steel. For the longer term, many companies are pursuing hydrogen-based direct reduced iron (H2 DRI), where hydrogen is produced via water electrolysis and then used as the reductant in the DRI process. The RFI notes that H2 DRI is currently more expensive than CCS retrofits under today's electrolyzer costs and electricity prices, though it could become more competitive if electrolyzer research and development succeeds and low-cost clean electricity becomes more available.

From an administrative standpoint, ARPA-E characterizes the opportunity category as discretionary and references cooperative agreements as the typical instrument type used by the agency, but again, that does not apply here because this notice is strictly an RFI. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to any type of entity, subject to any clarifications in the full text), which is typical for an information-gathering request where the agency wants broad input from industry, startups, universities, national labs, investors, and other stakeholders. Responses were requested as PDF submissions emailed to ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov, with the deadline listed as 5:00 PM Eastern Time on June 14, 2021. ARPA-E emphasizes that submitted information may be used to support internal planning for a possible future program.

Overall, SMELT is essentially ARPA-E signaling active interest in breakthrough, emissions-less ironmaking concepts and inviting the community to help define what a high-impact research program could look like. The central theme is moving beyond incremental improvements and toward fundamentally different ways of converting iron ore to iron metal that can plausibly deliver net-zero emissions steelmaking without sacrificing the scale and economics required for widespread global deployment. For full context and any specific questions ARPA-E posed to respondents, the notice directs readers to the complete RFI at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov.

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the opportunity zone benefits, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Request for Information (RFI) on Steel Made via Emissions-Less Technologies (SMELT)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.135.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 17, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 14, 2021 Reponses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 500 Eastern Time on 6/14/2021. For more information, please review the RFI in its entirety at https://apra-e-foa.energy.gov.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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