After Cold Fusion Now sent letters to Congressional Sub-committees requesting hearings on ARPA-E funding, and subsequent hearings were held into their funding priorities, ARPA-E has announced a funding opportunity for researchers in “Transformational Energy”.

What source of energy is more transformational than the ultra-clean fusion-sized power from hydrogen in a transition metal?

We urge all who can to apply for this funding. Sure its paperwork, and maybe you’ve been denied before, but this time, it could be different, it could mean important dollars moving into this field for the first time.

And if they don’t fund any cold fusion projects, well, we’ll….we’ll….
we will do nothing less than hold those responsible accountable.

From the press release of March 2, 2012 – 2:31pm from ARPA-E.gov:

ARPA-EWashington, D.C. – Today, the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) issued a $150 million funding opportunity open to all transformational energy technologies to support the Obama Administration’s all-of-the-above approach to solving our nation’s most pressing energy challenges. This Open Funding Opportunity Announcement is a call to our country’s brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to propose early-stage research projects that would not otherwise be able to attract private investment, but could lead to breakthrough energy technologies. This is the second open funding opportunity released under ARPA-E. The first was in 2009.

“Today we are calling on our nation’s best and brightest to catalyze energy breakthroughs in all areas imaginable through this Open Funding Opportunity Announcement, which illustrates the true purpose of ARPA-E,” said Director Majumdar. “Innovation is our nation’s sweet spot, and it is critically important that we look at every possible energy solution in order to ensure America’s future prosperity and security.”

This Open Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) joins ARPA-E’s other recently issued FOA – Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy (MOVE) – which will make $30 million available to find ways to harness our abundant supplies of domestic natural gas for vehicles and was announced by President Obama last week at the University of Miami.

More details on all of ARPA-E’s Funding Opportunities and Requests For Information are available HERE. Individual awards under the Open FOA will range between $250,000 and $10 million.

President Obama launched the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) in 2009 to seek out transformational, breakthrough technologies that are too risky for private sector investment but have the potential to translate science into quantum leaps in energy technology, form the foundation for entirely new industries, and in the future have large commercial impact.

Including its most recent round of selections, ARPA-E has funded a total of more than 180 projects, for $521.7 million in awards across 12 program areas. Demonstrating the success ARPA-E has already seen, the Agency announced last year that eleven of its projects that received $40 million from ARPA-E for innovative research, were able to use this funding to demonstrate results, which allowed these teams to secure more than $200 million in outside private capital investment.

ARPA-E’s third annual Energy Innovation Summit featured 107 speakers, including: President Bill Clinton; Microsoft Founder and Chairman, Bill Gates; Xerox CEO, Ursula Burns; FedEx CEO, Fred Smith; BDT Capital Chairman, Lee Scott; Deputy Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter; MIT President, Susan Hockfield; U.S. Energy Secretary, Steven Chu; and ARPA-E Director, Arun Majumdar. The Summit attracted 2,440 attendees from 49 states and 26 countries and featured a Technology Showcase displaying over 240 breakthrough energy developments from ARPA-E’s awardees, finalists and other teams.

News Media Contact: (202) 586-4940

Apply for the ARPA-E Open Funding here at their website.

Related Links

$29.5 billion requested by DoE; $0 for cold fusion by Ruby Carat February 12, 2012