RFI:Technology Advancements for Subsurface Exploration for Renewable Energy Resources or Carbon Storage | DE FOA 0002599

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1) What is this ARPA-E notice (DE-FOA-0002599)?

This notice is a Request for Information (RFI) from the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) titled "Technology Advancements for Subsurface Exploration for Renewable Energy Resources or Carbon Storage" (DE-FOA-0002599). It is used to gather input from the community about technical and market needs related to subsurface exploration and monitoring.

2) Is this a grant competition or a funding opportunity?

No. The notice is not a grant competition and it is not seeking applications for funding. ARPA-E repeatedly emphasizes that there is no Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) at this time.

3) Are there any award funds available through this notice?

No. Because this is strictly an information-gathering RFI (and not a funding solicitation), the listed award amount and expected number of awards are effectively none.

4) Why is ARPA-E issuing this RFI?

ARPA-E is gathering technical and market input to help shape a possible future research program. The goal is to understand what advances are needed so subsurface exploration and monitoring can become faster, cheaper, more scalable, and more informative for low-carbon applications.

5) What is ARPA-E interested in at a high level?

ARPA-E is interested in technologies that can deliver high-resolution, wide-area subsurface mapping to accelerate the low-carbon economy, especially where current tools and workflows were designed primarily for oil and gas exploration rather than renewable energy and carbon storage needs.

6) What low-carbon applications are mentioned in the RFI?

The RFI references applications such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) reservoir identification, discovery of new geothermal resources, mapping natural accumulations of energy-relevant minerals, and assessing potential geologic hydrogen resources.

7) What problem is ARPA-E trying to solve with subsurface mapping?

Many emerging energy and decarbonization activities depend on knowing what is underground, but existing tools, workflows, and datasets have largely been developed and optimized for oil and gas exploration. ARPA-E wants input on what needs to change so subsurface work better supports renewable energy and carbon storage projects.

8) What is meant by "frontier exploration" in this context?

"Frontier exploration" refers to early-stage screening over very large regions, often in areas with limited historical oil and gas activity and therefore limited high-quality imaging data. The RFI is probing ways to make this wide-area exploration more cost-effective.

9) What cost reduction targets does ARPA-E highlight?

A major theme is reducing early-stage (frontier) exploration costs by an order of magnitude or more for renewable energy and carbon storage projects.

10) What kinds of technical ideas is ARPA-E looking for to reduce wide-area exploration costs?

The RFI mentions ideas such as new survey methods, combining multiple imaging modalities with multi-physics models, improving or "upgrading" legacy datasets using advanced processing or geostatistics, and machine learning approaches that can fill data gaps or integrate disparate data sources.

11) What does the RFI say about using legacy subsurface datasets?

ARPA-E is interested in approaches that improve or "upgrade" legacy datasets, including advanced processing or geostatistics, and methods that help integrate older or incomplete information into more useful wide-area interpretations.

12) Is machine learning specifically called out?

Yes. The RFI explicitly references machine learning approaches that can intelligently fill in data gaps or integrate disparate data sources for wide-area exploration and mapping.

13) What is the RFI asking about data processing at scale?

Another major theme is handling extremely large datasets from wide-area and potentially nationwide subsurface surveys. ARPA-E is asking about approaches that can manage much larger volumes of data while reducing processing time by orders of magnitude.

14) Is ARPA-E only interested in algorithms, or also in practical workflows?

ARPA-E signals interest in both: better algorithms and practical, implementable workflows that can move from data collection to actionable maps and decisions quickly enough to match commercial development timelines.

15) How does ARPA-E connect subsurface mapping to project success rates?

The RFI ties improved subsurface understanding to outcomes like fewer dry wells in geothermal development and improved identification of mineral deposits, implying a focus on increasing confidence in site selection and reducing expensive failures.

16) What does the RFI suggest about how to improve site selection confidence?

The notice suggests improved success may come from higher-quality data, more comprehensive coverage, and improved interpretation methods that can discriminate between promising and non-promising sites using measurable probability factors rather than intuition or sparse indicators.

17) What is "4D subsurface mapping" and why is it important here?

The RFI emphasizes monitoring changes underground over time (often called 4D subsurface mapping). For CCS, geothermal operations, and other subsurface-based low-carbon technologies, tracking dynamic processes is critical for performance and safety.

18) What types of time-varying subsurface changes does ARPA-E highlight?

ARPA-E notes that relevant changes may differ from those traditionally modeled in oil and gas, and provides examples including rock morphology changes, active water-rock chemical reactions, fluid migration, fracture network evolution, and biological processes.

19) What kinds of innovations does ARPA-E seek for time-lapse monitoring?

The RFI seeks input on more sensitive survey techniques, more comprehensive physical and chemical models, and algorithms capable of interpreting time-lapse data to detect and explain evolving subsurface processes.

20) Is interdisciplinary collaboration a focus of the RFI?

Yes. ARPA-E is using the RFI to surface opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, noting that subsurface expertise is often siloed across fields.

21) Which disciplines does the RFI mention as commonly siloed?

The RFI mentions silos across geophysics, geology, hydrology, geochemistry, computational science, statistics, and machine learning.

22) Who was eligible to respond to the RFI?

The RFI had an unrestricted eligibility posture in the sense that any type of entity could provide input.

23) How were responses supposed to be submitted?

Responses were to be submitted as a PDF by email to ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov.

24) What was the submission deadline for the RFI?

The deadline stated in the notice was 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on December 1, 2021.

25) Where could applicants find the full RFI and instructions?

The full RFI and detailed instructions were posted on the ARPA-E funding site at arpa-e-foa.energy.gov.

26) Does this RFI mean ARPA-E will definitely release a funded program later?

The notice indicates ARPA-E is using feedback to decide whether and how to design a future funded program, but it emphasizes that no FOA exists at this time.

27) What is the main takeaway from this RFI?

ARPA-E is testing the landscape for transformative, practical subsurface imaging and data technologies that could dramatically reduce cost and risk for geothermal, CCS, minerals, and geologic hydrogen, and using input to inform the potential design of a future ARPA-E research program.