ARPA-E makes available 20 grants of up to $500,000 for Low Energy Nuclear reactions AKA Cold fusion

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For all of those who criticize my coverage of cold fusion. I am not the agency making $10 million available for funding. The fact that ARPA-E is doing it is technology news.

The Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA-001002) is intended to provide rapid support to revolutionary applied energy research (Studies) that may lead to new ARPA-E programs to develop transformational and disruptive energy technologies. Studies are defined as single-phase efforts of durations less than 12 months and cost less than $500,000. Awards will be issued through Grants.

Here is a link to the document describing the funding opportunity.

This announcement is purposely broad in scope to encourage the submission of the most innovative, out-of-the-box ideas in energy technology. Since the first law of thermodynamics states that energy is always conserved, i.e. it can never be created or destroyed, our principal concern is with the conversion of energy into useful energy or maximizing usable energy (exergy). Useful energy can take many forms including: radiant energy from lights, electrical energy for appliances, thermal energy to heat homes, mechanical energy for transportation, chemical energy in the form of food, and energy used to make products. From the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of a system cannot decrease when converting energy from one form to another (ΔS ≥ 0), the end effect being that all useful energy humans consume ultimately results in the production of heat that is radiated into space, except for a few exceptions such as the energy embedded in products. It is therefore our endeavor to identify technologies that enable the efficient and cost-effective conversion between or within the various different forms of energy while minimizing exergy destruction. Within this general framework, ARPA-E seeks transformative ideas that enable the most efficient,economical, sustainable, and environmentally benign conversion of energy while minimizing exergy destruction.

ARPA-e was first funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Since that time, the Agency has funded about 285 projects totaling approximately $770 million across the entire technology landscape.

Low Energy Nuclear Reactions is in square 3-6

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