Request for Information (RFI): Reducing Environmental Methane Everyday of the Year (REMEDY) | DE FOA 0002419

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002419

The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) issued this opportunity as a Request for Information (RFI) titled "Reducing Environmental Methane Everyday of the Year (REMEDY)" (Funding Opportunity Number DE-FOA-0002419). It is not a funding call and it is not requesting grant or cooperative agreement applications. Instead, ARPA-E is collecting technical and programmatic input to help shape a possible future research and development program. The central objective behind the RFI is to identify technologies that could help reverse methane's atmospheric accumulation rate so that overall atmospheric methane concentrations begin to decline, rather than continuing to rise.

ARPA-E is asking for ideas that are both transformative and realistically implementable, with a clear emphasis on methane outcomes at meaningful scale. The RFI frames the technical space in three broad categories. The first is prevention of methane emissions from human activities before the gas escapes into the atmosphere. The examples given point to large, persistent sources where prevention can be difficult but impactful, such as improperly abandoned coal mines, abandoned oil and gas wells, and even "plugged" wells that still leak. It also notes uncontrolled landfill gas and agricultural emissions tied to farming and ruminant livestock. While the agency emphasizes energy-related methane as a priority area, it also signals openness to solutions that can be broadly applied across multiple sectors as long as they intervene upstream, prior to atmospheric release.

The second category is abatement at the source, meaning systems that deal with methane coming from identifiable outlets like stacks, vents, and leaks. ARPA-E highlights that real-world methane streams can vary widely, including steady or highly variable flow rates and methane concentrations. Temperature conditions may range from ambient all the way to elevated temperatures above 200 C, so solutions need to be robust across operating environments. The RFI encourages "system-level" solutions rather than isolated components, explicitly calling out integrated approaches that combine methane collection or capture hardware, a reactor or conversion unit, and monitoring and control systems. In practice, that suggests interest in end-to-end designs that can be deployed and operated reliably at industrial sites, not just lab-scale conversion chemistry.

The third category is removal of methane from the air, which targets diffuse emissions and atmospheric methane rather than point sources. The RFI provides examples such as enhancing oxidation reactions in the troposphere, promoting mineralization pathways (including biological oxidation of methane to CO2) in soils, and approaches that could recover methane for use as a fuel or chemical feedstock. ARPA-E notes that some technologies may span categories, and it gives a concrete example: biologically enhancing methanotrophs could potentially be used to prevent emissions in mines, abate emissions at leak points, and also remove methane from air in appropriate settings. Across this category, ARPA-E states a clear preference for oxidation of methane to CO2, reflecting the climate logic that methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 over common time horizons, so converting methane to CO2 can yield a net climate benefit if done efficiently and without creating other harms.

A major theme of the RFI is rigorous performance and lifecycle accounting. ARPA-E indicates it is interested in processes that reduce methane emissions by greater than 90 percent on a lifecycle basis, not merely at the device boundary. Respondents are expected to quantify inputs such as energy and water, which implies that solutions that look good on paper but require large energy penalties or heavy water use may not be competitive. The RFI also explains that its cost and water metrics are designed to allow comparisons between methane-focused approaches and more established CO2 control processes, reinforcing that ARPA-E is thinking about how methane solutions might compete within broader greenhouse gas mitigation portfolios.

The RFI lists specific performance targets that help define what ARPA-E considers credible and impactful. These include net greenhouse gas reduction greater than 90 percent based on lifecycle analysis using 100-year global warming potentials for all relevant species, freshwater consumption less than 3 cubic meters per ton of CO2-equivalent mitigated, and no emission of toxic or environmentally harmful substances. It also sets an economic target: methane reduction cost of $150 per ton of CO2-equivalent. For approaches that recover or beneficially use methane, ARPA-E adds a scale threshold, stating that such technologies need to demonstrate an ability to address at least 1 billion standard cubic feet per year economically, which signals interest in solutions that can move beyond niche deployment into material, sector-level impact.

Administratively, the opportunity is categorized under discretionary funding, with potential future instruments listed as cooperative agreements or grants, and the activity category is science and technology research and development (CFDA 81.135). Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning any type of entity could generally provide input, subject to any clarifications in the full RFI text. The RFI was created on September 21, 2020, with an original closing date of October 15, 2020, and it shows no expected awards because the document is purely informational and not a solicitation for funding. The full RFI is available through ARPA-E's funding opportunity portal at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov, where ARPA-E typically provides detailed instructions on the kind of technical data, deployment concepts, and cost or lifecycle assumptions it wants respondents to include.

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Request for Information (RFI): Reducing Environmental Methane Everyday of the Year (REMEDY)" 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 Sep 21, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 15, 2020. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1.00 in funding.
• 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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