Grants / Department of Energy / Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy

DE-FOA-0002533: RFI on Cleaning Up RadioIsotope Enventories (CURIE)

Closed Closed June 14, 2021 Opportunity DE-FOA-0002533 ☆ Save

This grant is closed. A newer notice from the same program is open now: Unlocking New Levels of Output and Capacity for Key Subsurface Resources (UNLOCK) (DE-FOA-0003630). Status: Closes November 20, 2026 (13 days left). It is in our archive of Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy notices from 2021.

• Award ceiling$1
• Award floor$1
• Cost sharingNot required
• Funding typeCooperative Agreement, Grant, Other

Key dates

Who can apply

This opportunity was open to any type of organization.

• Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility"

More grants for nonprofits, colleges and universities, state and local governments, tribes, small businesses, businesses, individuals.

Is this a realistic fit?

• Past Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy awards averaged $1.9 million; this notice allows up to $1 per award.
• Most of the program's money (43% over five years) went to colleges and universities.
• No cost sharing or match is required.

What the grant funds

The purpose of this RFI is to solicit input for a potential future ARPA-E research program focused on the development of technologies that would enable the effective management of the Nation’s commercial used nuclear fuel (UNF). The goals of this RFI are to (1) solicit information about reactor fuel needs for both the current commercial light-water reactor (LWR) fleet and future advanced reactors, and (2) seek insights into technology gaps and/or cost drivers that may be hindering economical recycling of existing LWR UNF.1 This information is needed to help ARPA-E identify ways in which the Nation’s roughly 86,000 MTU2 inventory of UNF, which has been increasing by approximately 2,000 MTU per year, can best be recycled to support current and advanced reactor fuel needs. Such activities are consistent with ARPA-E’s statutory goals, which include supporting the development of transformative solutions for addressing UNF.3 ARPA-E is interested in information about technologies with the potential to make recycling UNF at least as economical, safe, and secure as the current once-through fuel cycle.4 Such technologies would enable a UNF treatment facility to be economically constructed, managed, and operated; yield an actinide product that is cost-competitive with natural uranium (U) obtained from traditional mining and milling; and generate significantly lower waste volumes than those generated from existing commercial UNF treatment facilities. Implementation of advanced nuclear material accounting technologies and incorporation of a safeguards-by-design philosophy would support this objective by enabling precise, remote, near-real-time monitoring and accounting of special nuclear material5; decreasing hands-on-inspection requirements; and minimizing operational downtime to verify accuracy of material accounting. In aggregate, these innovations could substantially reduce the volume, heat load, and radiotoxicity of high-level waste requiring permanent disposal while providing a valuable and sustainable fuel feedstock for advanced fast reactors and the existing LWR fleet. The questions in this RFI are intended to allow relevant stakeholders a mechanism to provide input on (i) the nature of a potential UNF recycling facility, (ii) UNF recycling technology gaps, (iii) existing LWR and future advanced reactor feedstock and fuel needs, and (iv) cost drivers for UNF recycling facility capital and management and operations (M&O) costs.

Category: Opportunity Zone Benefits, Science and Technology and other Research and Development.

Applying now

This notice no longer takes applications. Apply under the newer notice, DE-FOA-0003630, which is open now.

The notice on Grants.gov keeps its full text and attachments, which is useful for planning a resubmission.