Description
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Eastern Region Acquisitions Division-Kansas City office intends to award, on a sole source basis, under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), with General Oceanics (GO), Inc., 1295 NW 163St, Miami, FL 33169 for one Autonomous Underway PCO2 Measuring System and spare parts for the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, FL. Background Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorology Laboratory/Ocean Chemistry and Ecosystems Division/Ocean Carbon Cycle group requires the purchase of a GO-8050 autonomous underway pCO2 system to measure the partial pressure of CO2 of seawater and atmospheric air on board ships of opportunity. The Ocean Carbon Cycle group is one of five US partners (along with the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science (BIOS), and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS)) to perform these measurements all over the world's oceans. Monitoring the pCO2 of the oceans is crucial for the understanding the role of the oceans has in global warming and for predicting, through modeling, the impact that human activities may have in the future on climate. These measurements are have been made by this group for almost two decades and are part of a unique dataset built by installing this instrument on board several ships of opportunity. Currently, the OCC grouph has 5 ships outfitted with this instrument, which has a estimated shelf life of about 5 years. It is essential that the data be continuously collected with a minimum of time gaps and to achieve this, we need to be able to replace aging systems. The only system which is less than 5 years old was purchased in 2014. The system purchased before last was bought in 2011 and is already 5 years old. In addition to a full system, spare parts are also require various in order to keep older systems running properly. These systems are installed in very harsh environments, which are not kind to electronics and scientific equipment. These spare parts include equilibrators, pressure regulators, flow switches and pumps, among others. A Sources Sought notice was posted to the Federal Business Opportunities website on June 17, 2016 and closed on June 27, 2016. No responses were received. Sole Source Justification This scientific instrument is the result of a community effort to produce the best pCO2 system available. The principles were laid out by a group of leading scientist specialized in this type of measurements and a prototype was built. Once the concept had been tested, General Oceanics (GO) was contacted to build it commercially. There are no other companies, which could provide a pCO2 system capable of measuring pCO2 with the same precision (+/- 2ppm for seawater and +/- 0.2 ppm for atmospheric air) and which could perform autonomously for several months while being regularly and automatically calibrated by 3 or more standard gases, regularly and automatically back-flushed with fresh water and alternate between seawater and atmospheric pCO2 measurements. The purchase of the this system is supported by the necessity of compatibility with the five other systems previous procured, which are all from GO. Not only the data quality (the highest in the scientific community) will be comparable to the data collected from the systems already in the field but also, replacing the current systems with this new one with require no change in infrastructure. The Government's mission is to monitor the surface pCO2 levels in the North Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico region to determine trends and variability in the oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide. The data ultimately feeds the models that allow the science community to make estimates on the earth global carbon budget, which is essential to global warming predictions. The data collection relies on 4-5 ships strategically chosen. If the equipment is not procured, the Government takes the risk of losing a significant percentage of the regional and temporal coverage, thus introducing significant errors in the ability to predict the system and affecting the information provided to the government to fight global warming.