DOE Accepting Proposals for ‘Earthshot’ Research Centers

DOE’s Office of Science has released a call for proposals for Energy Earthshot Research Centers (EERCs). The centers will be led by DOE national labs and bring together multidisciplinary teams to conduct fundamental research related to one of DOE’s six Energy Earthshots, which set aggressive goals for driving down the cost of promising energy technologies. The teams could include partners from other national labs, universities, and industry.

Each Earthshot is associated with a specific research thrust:

• Hydrogen Shot centers will focus on the science of hydrogen production as well as methods for quantifying hydrogen sources and sinks.
• Long Duration Storage Shot centers will support research relevant to technology development across electrochemical, electrothermal, electromechanical, and chemical energy storage.
• Carbon Negative Shot centers will focus on developing methods for biological and geological carbon sequestration, investigating the fundamental kinetics of carbonization to advance direct air capture, and developing quantitative tools to monitor and assess carbon removal technologies.
• Enhanced Geothermal Shot centers will focus on experimental and computation research on the mechanics of geothermal systems, developing new approaches for geothermal data collection, and understanding the behavior of materials within the extreme conditions of geothermal wells.
• Floating Offshore Wind Shot centers will focus on improving materials for floating turbines, developing environmental models to inform the siting of wind farms, and developing technologies for energy transmission and storage.
• Industrial Heat Shot centers will focus on reducing the carbon footprint of heating, developing alternatives to industrial processes that require heat, and improving materials and processes to reduce heat usage.

Interested researchers should contact their division or area offices immediately. This is a limited submission call; internal concept papers are due by February 6, 2023 at noon (PT) for consideration. View the Lab concept paper and DOE pre-proposal process and guidelines. Submit concept papers here. Pre-proposals are due to the DOE in early March.

Interested researchers can also attend the following workshops for each of the Earthshot topics; the workshops will facilitate open and informal dialogues to share ideas, challenges, and opportunities for teaming up internally and externally on each EERC:

If you’re interested in sharing your ideas in the meeting, please add a slide to the meeting slide deck (see link in the calendar invite).

Read the DOE announcement and call for proposals.

View the Lab concept paper and DOE pre-proposal process and guidelines.

Submit concept papers here.