Resource Efficiency

Seabed mining may be the best option to fill the impending gap in terrestrial supplies for nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements, which are increasingly used to manufacture electric vehicles and large lithium-ion batteries. Deep Reach Technology will design a novel nodule collector to minimize the impact of sediment plumes, which may disperse and cover the seabed beyond the mining area. The project uses augmented screening and seabed electrocoagulation to achieve this goal. The proposed technology has the potential to fast-track deep sea mining.

Verdox will develop a scalable, proof-of-concept direct air capture (DAC) prototype used for capturing carbon. The technology uses electrochemical cells to facilitate carbon capture upon charging and releases carbon upon discharging (the “electro-swing”). The proposed project involves development of new materials and electrochemical cells and the fabrication and testing of a prototype.

Carbon mineralization, a promising carbon management technology, reacts CO2 gas with minerals containing magnesium and/or calcium. The reaction forms a stable, solid carbonate, which can be used in building materials. Community Energy will use minerals from the waste produced at mining facilities to enhance the rate of carbon mineralization, increase the amount of available minerals used to capture CO2, and produce building materials, such as aggregate for making cement, which can offset some of the carbon footprint associated with the cement industry.

Sequoia Scientific will develop a monitoring system to assess the concentrations and properties of sediment stirred up during deep-sea mining activities. The technology uses novel laser-light scattering and high‑resolution video imagery and processing to measure the concentration, size, and settling speed of the sediment in situ. The technology will help determine the environmental impact of deep-sea mining activities.

Carbon dioxide utilization can help reduce carbon emissions, but gaps remain in the value chain from initial capture to high-value products. Lectrolyst LLC will develop an electrochemical platform centered on selective two-step conversion of CO2 to acetic acid and ethylene, to fill this need. Preliminary life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis indicate ~200 million metric tons of CO2 emissions reduction when targeting these products at global scale while competing on a cost basis without considering carbon pricing.

The abyssal plain contains concentrated deposits of polymetallic nodules (critical minerals), an untapped resource of relevant minerals. Current prototype polymetallic nodule collectors propose to function as indiscriminate vacuums, strip-mining the sea floor and transporting everything to the surface to be filtered, with significant ecological and economic costs. Otherlab proposes to develop the “SeaSTAR” nodule collector, a large platform attached to a vacuum funnel ringed by robot arms.

Princeton University will improve and apply the existing GenX configurable electricity system planning model to evaluate the value of fossil-fueled power plants with CCS and direct air capture technologies in future electricity grids under a range of possible future scenarios, including high shares of variable renewable energy sources. With these improvements, Princeton University will explore the ‘design space’ or combination of possible cost and performance parameters for each major subcomponent of a generic natural gas-fired power plant with CCS.

The University of Florida will develop a backscatter X-ray platform to non-destructively image roots in field conditions. The team will focus their efforts on switchgrass, a promising biofuel feedstock with deep and extensive root systems. Switchgrass is also a good candidate to study because it is a perennial grass with great genetic diversity that is broadly adapted to the full range of environments found in the U.S. The project will leverage a DOE-funded switchgrass common garden with ten identical plantings that span growth zones from Texas to South Dakota.

Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) will develop DEEPER, a platform for identifying the traits of deeper-rooted crops that integrates breakthroughs in nondestructive field phenotyping of rooting depth, root modeling, high-throughput 3D imaging of root architecture and anatomy, gene discovery, and genomic selection modeling. The platform will be deployed to observe maize (corn) in the field under drought, nitrogen stress, and non-stressed conditions. Their key sensor innovation is to measure leaf elemental composition with x-ray fluorescence, and use it as a proxy for rooting depth.

Stanford University will develop a non-contact root imaging system that uses a hybrid of microwave excitation and ultrasound detection. Microwave excitation from the surface can penetrate the soil to the roots, and results in minor heating of the roots and soil at varying levels depending on their physical properties. This heating creates a thermoacoustic signal in the ultrasound domain that travels back out of the soil. The team’s advanced ultrasound detector has the ability to detect these signals and maintain sufficient signal-to-noise ratio for imaging and root biomass analysis.