ARPA-E: Facilitating Updates for Accelerating Low-Cost Plasma Heating and Assembly (ALPHA)

Accordingly this modification,

?Updated second deadline for questions, see cover page.
?Updated submission deadline for Replies to Reviewer Comments, see cover page and Required Documents Checklist.
?Updated submission deadline for Full Applications, see cover page and Required Documents Checklist.
?Provided C.F.R. citation, see Section II.B.3 of the FOA.
?Updated C.F.R. citations, see Section III.B.6 of the FOA.
?Updated C.F.R. citations, see Section IV.G.2 of the FOA.
?Inserted regulations applicable to resulting awards, see Section VIII.I of the FOA.

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov ARPA-E will not review or consider consider concept papers submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx).

Accordingly this modification,

? Inserted certain deadlines, including the deadlines for submitting questions and Full Applications. See Cover Page and Required Documents Checklist.

? Inserted Section IV.D.1 reference in order to clarify what applicants should provide in Section 4.1 (Technology to Market) of the Technical Volume. See Section I.E of the FOA.

? Inserted information concerning Full Application Technical Performance Targets. See Section I.E of the FOA.

? Revised the start date for funding agreements. See Section II.A of the FOA.

? Revised the following sections of the FOA to provide guidance on required application forms and the content and form of Full Applications and Replies to Reviewer Comments: Required Documents Checklist and Sections IV.D, IV.E, IV.G of the FOA. Applicants are strongly encouraged to use the templates provided on ARPA‐E eXCHANGE (https://arpa‐e‐foa.energy.gov).

? Inserted criteria that ARPA‐E will use to evaluate Full Applications. See Section V.A.2 of the FOA.

? Inserted criteria that ARPA‐E will use to evaluate Replies to Reviewer Comments in Section V.A.3 of the FOA.

? Inserted Program Policy Factors. See Section V.B.1 of the FOA.

? Inserted information concerning Full Application Notifications. See Section VI.A.3 of the FOA.

? Inserted Administrative and National Policy Requirements. See Section VI.B of the FOA.

? Inserted Reporting Requirements. See Section VI.C of the FOA.

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov ARPA-E will not review or consider consider concept papers submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx).

Accordingly this modification,

? Added footnote to clarify the requirement in Table 1. See Section I.E of the FOA.

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov ARPA-E will not review or consider consider concept papers submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx).

Accordingly this modification,

? Renumbers Figures 2.a and 2.b in Section I.G of the FOA.
? Clarifies Figures 2.a and 2.b to indicate Minimum Driver Intensity of (W/cm2) instead of (W/m2). See Section I.G of the FOA.

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov ARPA-E will not review or consider consider concept papers submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx).

The mission of ARPA-E is to identify and fund research to translate science into breakthrough energy technologies that are too risky for the private sector and that, if successfully developed, will create the foundation for entirely new industries.

Successful projects will address at least one of ARPA-E?s two Mission Areas:
1. Enhance the economic and energy security of the United States through the development of energy technologies that result in:
a. reductions of imports of energy from foreign sources;
b. reductions of energy-related emissions, including greenhouse gases; and
c. improvement in the energy efficiency of all economic sectors.
2. Ensure that the United States maintains a technological lead in developing and deploying advanced energy technologies.

This program seeks to develop and demonstrate low-cost tools to aid in the development of fusion power, with a focus on approaches to produce thermonuclear plasmas in the final density range of 1018-1023 ions/cm3. The program goal is to create a toolset that will allow a significant reduction in facilities costs for fusion development and to enable rapid learning through a high shot rate at a low cost-per-shot.

Fusion has been pursued for decades because it is perhaps the ideal power source, with abundant fuel, effectively zero emissions, manageable waste, and minimal proliferation risk.1 Significant resources have been devoted to fusion research in the US and internationally. To date, the largest fusion research efforts have focused on magnetic confinement of plasmas at densities of approximately 1014 ions/cm3 and on inertial confinement of plasmas at densities exceeding 1025 ions/cm3. Advances in scientific understanding and engineering of high energy density plasmas resulting from these research campaigns have been remarkable, but the ultimate goal of self-sustaining, controlled, thermonuclear fusion remains elusive. This reflects the extraordinary technical challenges of high energy plasma physics, which are compounded by the high cost of fusion research. In this FOA, ARPA-E pursues focused investments to develop tools for fusion approaches in the intermediate density regime, be
tween 1018 -1023 ions/cm3. This intermediate density regime has been highlighted in recent analyses as a potential low-cost route to fusion power, and because it sits between the operating densities of pure magnetic confinement and inertial confinement, developments in this regime will complement mainline fusion programs.

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov.Concept Papers, Replies to Reviewer Comments must be submitted through ARPA-E eXCHANGE (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/), ARPA-E?s online application portal. ARPA-E will not review or consider applications submitted through other means. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide (https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx).