ARPA-E to give $38 million to develop agri-technologies reducing ethanol-related emissions

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced $38 million for 9 projects to develop technologies that reduce synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use in corn and sorghum farming – key crops for U.S. ethanol production.

The Technologies to Emend and Obviate SYnthetic Nitrogen’s Toll on Emissions (TEOSYNTE) program aims to reduce those fertilizers by implementing innovation solutions through the application of crop breeding, genetic engineering, and microbial technologies that will reduce agriculture-related emissions and lower operating costs for American farmers.

“American farmers play a central role in our economy and energy sector, and cutting fertilizer costs is key to helping them be cost competitive,” said ARPA-E Director Evelyn N. Wang. “With TEOSYNTE, we can lower the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer in U.S. agriculture, reduce imports of foreign fertilizer, help farmers maintain crop yields, and save over $6 billion in operating costs.”

TEOSYNTE projects will develop a variety of plant and microbial bio-design strategies such as, but not limited to, altering plant physiology, root architecture, or using microbes to increase delivery of nitrogen to plants. The program’s biotechnological advances could, in turn, enable transformative change across the wider agriculture sector.

Currently, corn and sorghum farmers use energy-intensive synthetic nitrogen fertilizers that are largely responsible for agriculture-related nitrous oxide emissions and account for a significant share of crop production costs. Approximately 80% of agriculture-related nitrous oxide emissions are the result of fertilizer application, and the fertilizers used account for up to 25% of farmers’ input costs. By reducing the need for those fertilizers, TEOSYNTE projects could prevent up to 78 million metric tons of new emissions generated during nitrogen fertilizer production and save U.S. farmers as much as $6.4 billion in operational costs.

Selected projects include, Texas A&M AgriLife Research (College Station, TX) that will develop sorghum traits using advanced breeding techniques, including genomic prediction models, marker association analyses, and marker-assisted trait integration.

Danforth Plant Science Center (St. Louis, MO) will develop corn varieties with improved root systems that enhance soil food web interactions.

Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO) will partner with Corteva, a U.S. plant breeding company, to enhance nitrogen absorption in maize.

ARPA-E claims to be the disruption wing of the DOE that funds and directs the discovery of outlier energy technologies that are strategic to America’s energy security.