On January 13, 2017, the DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), together with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), announced the intent to issue a request for applications (RFA) titled “Fiscal Year 17 Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI).” Projects funded through BRDI must address one of the foll owing topic areas: 

■Feedstocks development :  Research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) focused on feedstocks and feedstock logistics as it relates to the production of raw materials for conversion to biofuels and biobased products; 

■Biofuels and biobased products development :  RD&D focused on the development of cost-effective, innovative technologies for the use of cellulosic biomass in the production of biofuels, bioenergy, and biobased products, and product diversification to increase the feasibility of fuel production in a biorefinery; and 

■Biofuels development analysis :  Optimization of performance and quantification of the project’s impact on sustainability using systems evaluation methods.

The full RFA is expected to be posted on the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) Exchange in February 2017, with the full notice of intent currently available.