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January 2, 2016

An article in The Hill reports that as President Obama enters the final year of his Presidency, he will be seeking to preserve his work on climate change, “as opponents look to beat back the President’s ambitious policies.” The Hill highlights four areas where President Obama is facing legislative challenges from opponents, including his Clean Power Plan, the Clean Water Rule, ozone, and methane emissions.

January 4, 2016

In an article about regulations being pushed by the Obama Administration, Politico reports that energy efficiency is one of the Administration’s “better bets.” The Department of Energy “is working on dozens of new or updated efficiency standards for computers, gas furnaces, dishwashers, pool heaters, air conditioners, walk-in coolers and freezers, vending machines, ceiling fans, fluorescent lamp ballast, boilers, ovens, and hearths.” Politico says that efficiency measures do not normally “generate much attention because they’re, well, just a little bit boring,” but they are “expected to save consumers a lot of money, and also – along with already-completed rules on ice makers, industrial lamps, electric motors, and other products – to generate roughly half the carbon emissions cuts that the Obama administration pledged to deliver before the Paris climate talks.”

January 4, 2016

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that ahead of the Nevada caucuses Sen. Harry Reid “will host a dinner party for all three Democratic presidential candidates at the MGM Grand.” At a press conference yesterday “about his ‘Battle Born/Battleground’ First in the West Caucus Countdown Dinner with Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders,” Reid “boasted about Nevada’s position of importance in the nation’s primaries and caucuses.” The Democratic senator “said one advantage of Nevada’s new place of prominence is that candidates have had to articulate their stance on the Yucca Mountain Project.” Reid “concluded talking about Yucca Mountain by crediting the new caucus order as putting western states’ concerns at the forefront of the presidential discourse.”

January 4, 2016

Scientists at the Department's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) announce they have produced self-consistent computer simulations that capture the evolution of an electric current inside fusion plasma without using a central electromagnet, or solenoid. The simulations of the process, known as non-inductive current ramp-up, were performed using TRANSP, the gold-standard code developed at PPPL. The results were published in October 2015 in Nuclear Fusion. The research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

January 5, 2016

The Department of Energy announces that Dr. Sanjiv Malhotra will be the first Director of the Clean Energy Investment Center (CEIC), located within the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT). CEIC was established in 2015 as part of the Obama Administration’s Clean Energy Investment Initiative to advance private, mission-oriented investment in clean energy technologies that address the present gap in U.S. clean tech investment. CEIC will also help to enhance the availability of DOE’s resources to private sector investors and potential partners in the public.

January 5, 2016

The International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry announces formal verification of four new chemical elements, recognizing the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its collaborators for the discovery of elements 115 and 117. In their report, IUPAC concluded that the collaboration of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia, and the Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories had met the criteria for the discovery of elements 115 and 117. The IUPAC announcement invites the team to submit names and symbols for the two elements for review.

January 5, 2016

The DOE selects a Battelle Memorial Institute-led team to drill a test borehole of over 16,000 feet into a crystalline basement rock formation near Rugby, North Dakota. This is an important step in exploring the science needed for utilization of deep boreholes in crystalline rock formations. One of the most promising applications is the potential for disposal of certain types of high-level radioactive wastes; another could be geothermal energy development. The field test will provide insights into crosscutting subsurface science and engineering challenges such as drilling techniques, wellbore stability and sealing, and subsurface characterization.

January 6, 2016

The Indianapolis Star reports former Rep. Phil Sharp “will be honored for his work on energy security at a Jan. 20 ceremony at the Department of Energy in Washington.” He “is the second recipient of a medal given by the department to recognize contributions to advance understanding of energy policy choices and energy security interests.” In a statement Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said, “Phil Sharp has been a fixture in energy security and clean energy progress in every possible arena for the past five decades.” He continued, “From his work in academia, to Congress, to private sector and nonprofits, Dr. Sharp has developed and guided energy security conversations and policies.”

January 6, 2016

A team of researchers led by scientists from the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announce they have identified several mechanisms that make a new, cold-loving material one of the toughest metallic alloys ever. The alloy is made of chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt and nickel, so scientists call it CrMnFeCoNi. It’s exceptionally tough and strong at room temperature, which translates into excellent ductility, tensile strength, and resistance to fracture. And unlike most materials, the alloy becomes tougher and stronger the colder it gets, making it an intriguing possibility for use in cryogenic applications such as storage tanks for liquefied natural gas.

January 6, 2016

Roll Call reports that the Senate is primed to “catch up with the House as it tries to enact an energy policy update (S 2012) for the first time in more than a decade.” Roll Call explains that the bill would “streamline permitting for gas exports while also boosting energy-efficiency standards for commercial and federal buildings, permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund and requiring infrastructure upgrades to ensure grid reliability and security.” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski says the bill “is really an energy policy modernization act.”

January 6, 2016

The Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel reports that Protomet, “which makes machined parts for the government and automotive industry as well as products for boats,” is considering a 100,000-square-foot expansion and wants to acquire DOE property next to Bethel Valley Industrial Park. Protomet “is in need of 25 acres immediately, with another 10 acres eyed for its long-term strategy,” the News Sentinel reports, adding that DOE owns 214 acres west of the park. DOE is more likely to approve a land transfer to the Oak Ridge Industrial Development Board, which could then make the property available to Protomet.

January 7, 2016

Fuel Fix (TX) reports Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto will give “the opening keynote at this year’s IHS CERAWeek conference” next month “as the U.S.’s southern neighbor continues to open its oil and gas resources to private investment.” Peña Nieto “is one of many high-profile speakers slated to participate at the annual conference that gathers many of the energy sector’s most influential leaders for a week at the Hilton Americas in Houston.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden and TransCanada President and CEO Russ Girling are also slated to speak at the conference.

January 7, 2016

A team at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility announces it has developed a software application that mines the source code for computational patterns, helping users identify additional opportunities for extracting parallelism from parts of the code for greater efficiency on high performance computing systems

January 8, 2016

Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory report they followed the journey of atmospheric particles within anvil-shaped storm kings called convective clouds, and analyzed how well the model could simulate the particles' travels. The researchers have devised a new modeling approach that tackles a couple of particle problems: how they are moved to the upper troposphere (about 5-6 miles above Earth), and how efficiently they leave the atmosphere inside droplets, rain, or snow.

January 8, 2016

A study at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory shows how calcium carbonate forms composites to make strong materials such as in shells and pearls. The results or the study show that such clumps become incorporated via chemical interactions with atoms in the crystals, an unexpected mechanism based on previous understanding. By providing insight into the formation of natural minerals that are a composite of both soft and hard components, the work is believed to have the potential to help scientists develop new materials for a sustainable energy future, based on this principle.

January 8, 2016

The Tri-City Herald (WA) reports the Energy Department is making preparations “to drill a test borehole more than 3 miles deep in a North Dakota rock formation to study a disposal method that could be used for some of Hanford’s radioactive waste.” The Herald adds “a team led by Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, has been chosen to drill the test borehole near Rugby, N.D.” In a statement Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said, “This is an important first step to increasing our scientific understanding of the potential uses for crystalline rock formations, including the feasibility of boreholes as an option for long-term nuclear waste disposal.” The Energy Department is planning “a $35 million, five-year project to test the boreholes on about 20 acres of state-owned land in North Dakota.”

January 9, 2016

The Aiken (SC) Standard reports the Department of Energy owes South Carolina for missing its January 1 deadline to have processed 1 metric ton of plutonium at the Savannah River Site, though the MOX facility currently under construction, or to have shipped it out of state. A 2003 agreement set penalties at $1 million a day for an annual cap of $100 million. In a letter sent to Energy Secretary Moniz last month, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley informed the DOE of the state’s intent “to collect the money.” According to the article, Sec. Moniz has not yet responded. Congressional lawmaker’s, though, are seeking ways to appropriate funds to help the DOE pay the South Carolina fine.

January 11, 2016

DOE announces release of a Request for Information (RFI) on the optimal design of Saltstone Disposal Units (SDU) in support of the Savannah River Site (SRS) liquid waste program mission, along with plans to hold an Industry Day to provide additional information on the SDU project. This effort seeks input from commercial industry to help identify the optimal system, structure or component (SSC) to safely contain and disposition low-level nuclear waste in the form of Saltstone. The goal of this inquiry is to ascertain from industry experts the most cost-effective and timely way to design and construct SDUs with sufficient capacity to maintain uninterrupted liquid waste processing at SRS. The Request for Information, posted on the Federal Business Opportunities at https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOE/PAM/SRO/DESOL0009364/listing.html, outlines the detailed information DOE is seeking to support its evaluation of the most cost-effective SSC to safely contain and disposition Saltstone within specified design and schedule constraints.

January 11, 2016

A team of scientists from the Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory say they've found a way to build a better battery. While increasing the amounts of chemicals whose reactions power the battery can lead to instability, and smaller particles can improve reactivity but expose more material to degradation, the team found that their test batteries incorporating a two-level cathode exhibited improved high-voltage cycling behavior—the kind you'd want for fast-charging electric vehicles and other applications that require high-capacity storage. The scientists describe the micro-to-nanoscale details of the cathode material in a paper published in the journal Nature Energy January 11, 2016. 

January 11, 2016

The AP reports Cabinet members in the Obama Administration “will be traveling around the country in the coming days to help promote President Barack Obama’s State of the Union proposals.” The “road tour,” according to the White House, “is geared toward highlighting pressing issues facing the country such as climate change, health, criminal justice and access to opportunity.” The “road tour” will take place “after Obama gives his State of the Union address Tuesday night outlining plans for his final year in office.” McClatchy reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz “will travel to Miami, to tour projects aimed at protecting the electric power grid against climate change.”

January 13, 2016

Using the supercomputing resources at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, University of Chicago and Argonne researchers announce they may have found a way to miniaturize microchip components using a technique producing zero defects.

January 13, 2016

A “Review & Outlook” piece in the Wall Street Journal says that Energy Secretary Moniz is sending a warning about the state of the US nuclear deterrence capability. Late last month Moniz wrote to White House budget director Shaun Donovan to reconsider the proposed fiscal 2017 budget because it “would not be responsible to submit a budget with such obvious programmatic gaps.” Without the necessary funding, the budget will not have “credibility with Congress and stakeholders” and will “fuel uncertainty” within the National Nuclear Security Administration. But the Administration is only requesting half the funding needed for nuclear facilities between the years of 2018 and 2021. In his letter Moniz also expressed concern about high-tech aspects of the nuclear program. Moniz said that by fiscal 2018, “failure to address these requirements in the near term...will put the NNSA budget in an untenable position.” The Journal concludes that as evidenced by Moniz’s letter, the country needs a president that will be serious about the issue of nuclear deterrence.

January 13, 2016

The Washington Post reports President Obama during his final State of the Union “took credit...for surging growth in solar and wind power during his seven years in office, while hinting of new efforts to limit pollution from oil and gas operations.” According to the Post, Obama “framed the expansion of renewable energy as an economic success story, but one that happens to pay dividends for the health of the planet.” The Post added Obama also “called for stepping up investment in communities hurt by the decline of fossil fuels, alluding to plans announced last year to expand jobs and training in coal states.”

January 13, 2016

The Denver Post reports that according to a new Department of Energy report, Colorado is “fast becoming a hot bed of energy and clean technology industries, including fuel cells and hydrogen.” The adoption of fuel cells by companies such as Walmart, AT&T, and Google, “boosted industry sales to near $2.2 billion in 2014, nearly double from the prior year, according to the report.”

January 14, 2016

The DOE builds on its Grid Modernization Initiative – an ongoing effort that reflects the Obama Administration’s commitment to improving the resiliency, reliability, and security of the nation’s electricity delivery system. During his visit to a utility control center in Miami, FL, Secretary Ernest Moniz announced the release of DOE’s comprehensive new Grid Modernization Multi-Year Program Plan, a blueprint for modernizing the grid. The Secretary also announced the award of up to $220 million over three years, subject to congressional appropriations, to DOE’s National Labs and partners to support critical research and development in advanced storage systems, clean energy integration, standards and test procedures, and a number of other key grid modernization areas. Additional programs, initiatives, and funding opportunity announcements related to the Grid Modernization Initiative will be announced in the coming days.

January 14, 2016

Researchers at the Department’s BioEnergy Science Center are looking beyond the usual suspects in the search for microbes that can efficiently break down inedible plant matter for conversion to biofuels. A new comparative study from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory-based center finds the natural abilities of unconventional bacteria could help boost the efficiency of cellulosic biofuel production. A team of researchers from five institutions analyzed the ability of six microorganisms to solubilize potential bioenergy feedstocks such as switchgrass that have evolved strong defenses against biological and chemical attack. Solubilization prepares the plant feedstocks for subsequent fermentation and, ultimately, use as fuel. The paper, published in Biotechnology for Biofuels, is the most comprehensive comparative study of its type to date. 

January 14, 2016

The Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) announces it is preparing to break ground on its first utility-scale solar plant, a 27.5-megawatt (MW) project on 300 acres in a Navajo community south of Monument Valley, Arizona. On Dec. 16, 2015, NTUA announced an agreement to develop the utility-scale project with the Salt River Project (SRP), a community-based nonprofit utility serving the Phoenix area. The approximately $64 million Kayenta Solar Facility is funded, in part, by tax credits and federal loans. Expected to be completed in 2016, the plant will provide electricity to an estimated 7,700 households. Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said the tribe’s first-ever large-scale renewable energy project will benefit the Navajo Nation and its people.

January 15, 2016

Former Energy Secretary Steven Chu writes in an op-ed for the Boston Globe that “we need meaningful actions that will dramatically decrease carbon emissions at the lowest possible cost” and that a significant price on carbon is needed to “stimulate a widespread switch from fossil fuels.” Chu continues, “I also see no credible scenario to minimize the climate risks without large-scale carbon capture, recycling, and sequestration.” As an alternative to a cap-and-trade system, Chu favors a revenue-neutral carbon tax. “A simple carbon tax maximizes transparency, minimizes market manipulation and regulatory complexity, and provides investment certainty,” he writes.

January 15, 2016

In support of the Administration’s goal to produce more carbon-free energy, the Department announces the selection of two companies, X-energy and Southern Company, to further develop advanced nuclear reactor designs. These awards, with a multi-year cost share of up to $80 million for both companies, will support work to address key technical challenges to the design, construction, and operation of next generation nuclear reactors.

January 15, 2016

The Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces $11 million in funding for seven transformational projects that will develop realistic, open-access models and data repositories to aid in improving the U.S. electric grid. ARPA-E’s new program, Generating Realistic Information for the Development of Distribution and Transmission Algorithms (GRID DATA), follows the release of DOE’s comprehensive new Grid Modernization Multi-Year Program Plan announced yesterday by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in Miami, FL, which is part of an ongoing effort that reflects the Obama Administration’s commitment to improving the resiliency, reliability, and security of the nation’s electricity delivery system.

January 15, 2016

The Department announces the award of a contract to Portsmouth Mission Alliance, LLC of Idaho Falls, Idaho, for the performance of infrastructure support services at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS or Portsmouth Site) near Piketon, Ohio. The value of the contract is $122.8 million, with a full potential value of $139.7 million including the total maximum value of services under the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract line items. The base period of performance is three years with an additional 22-month option period. Seven proposals were received in response to the solicitation.

January 16, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz issues a statement on Implementation Day for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which begins, “Implementation Day is a milestone in the effort to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful in nature by blocking potential pathways to a bomb. As a result of years of negotiations and months of preparations for the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s breakout time has increased from just two to three months before the agreement to at least one year.” 

January 18, 2016

Lawrence Livermore scientists, working with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and university colleagues, report they have found that half of the global ocean heat content increase since 1865 has occurred over the past two decades. "In recent decades the ocean has continued to warm substantially, and with time the warming signal is reaching deeper into the ocean," said LLNL scientist Peter Gleckler, lead author of a paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

January 18, 2016

Researchers with the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California Berkeley report they have created the first computational model that simulates the light-harvesting activity of the thousands of antenna proteins that would be interacting in the chloroplast of an actual leaf. The results from this model point the way to improving the yields of food and fuel crops, and developing artificial photosynthesis technologies for next generation solar energy systems.

January 19, 2016

As part of the Energy Department’s Grid Modernization Initiative announced by Secretary Ernest Moniz last week to improve the resiliency, reliability and security of the nation’s electrical power grid, DOE announces $18 million in funding for six new projects across the United States. These projects will enable the development and demonstration of integrated, scalable, and cost-effective solar technologies that incorporate energy storage to power American homes after the sun sets or when clouds are overhead.

January 19, 2016

The UAE Ministry of Energy and the Department of Energy co-sponsor a workshop to examine technological and economic factors for carbon dioxide (CO2) utilization to recover oil and water in the Gulf Region. The workshop took place at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center during the World Future Energy Summit and Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. The workshop brought together government and industry technical experts from the Middle East and the U.S. to discuss the full lifecycle of carbon capture, utilization, and storage, including CO2 management and storage options that maximize the overall economic and environmental benefits of these recovery processes.

January 19, 2016

The Department’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory reports that catalogs of galaxies and stars derived from the data collected during that Science Verification season (November 2012 to February 2013) have been released to the public. Astronomers and astronomy buffs can download the data from the website for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, which manages the processing of all the images taken for the Dark Energy Survey.

January 20, 2016

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and battery-maker Aquion Energy will partner with the Department of Energy in an initiative exploring boosting large-scale energy storage for solar generation. The $2 million project “will focus on the development of smart inverters that could be linked to a software system capable of monitoring and controlling the flow of power,” the Post-Gazette explains. Research is planned for the next three years and includes a 2017 demonstration with the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. NRECA chief scientist Craig Miller said the batteries are “a way to take solar and really integrate it with grid operation.” The initiative is one of six projects announced on Tuesday as part of the DOE’s Grid Modernization Initiative. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review adds that Carnegie Mellon is also a partner on a separate $4 million grant awarded last week.

January 20, 2016

The Department announces the 16 collegiate teams selected to participate in the Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2017 competition. The teams, from colleges and universities across the United States and around the world, will now begin the nearly two-year process of building solar-powered houses that are affordable, innovative and highly energy-efficient.

January 20, 2016

The Department announces it has reached 8 million tons of uranium mill tailings removed from the Moab site in Utah under the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project. That is half of the estimated total 16 million tons to be shipped to an engineered disposal cell near Crescent Junction, Utah.

January 20, 2016

Purdue University researchers, working at the Department’s Argonne Advanced Photon Source, reveal the structure and function of an enterovirus, using x-ray crystallography.  Researchers have determine d the crystal structure of this strain by itself and when bound to the anti-viral drug pleconaril. 

January 20, 2016

An article examining the role Sarah Palin might play in a Trump administration in the Christian Science Monitor says that in an interview last fall with CNN, Palin said, “I think a lot about the Department of Energy, because energy is my baby, oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped on this part of the earth for mankind’s use.” She went on to say, “If I were head of that, I would get rid of it and I would let the states start having more control over the lands that are within their boundaries.” At the time, many media outlets noted that the Energy Department “mainly oversees the US nuclear weapons program and conducts energy-related research.” Current Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is a nuclear physicist. DOE doesn’t “regulate oil and gas development”; that is the job of the Department of Interior. The Monitor suggests Interior “might actually be a better fit for Palin.”

January 21, 2016

Scientists at the Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory report they have made a "vitamin mimic" — a molecule that looks and acts just like the natural vitamin to bacteria, but can be tracked and measured by scientists in live cells. The research offers a new window into the inner workings of living microbes that are crucial to the world's energy future, wielding great influence in the planet's carbon and nutrient cycle and serving as actors in the creation of new fuels.

January 21, 2016

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announces more than $58 million in funding for vehicle technology advancements and released a report highlighting the successes of DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program while touring the newest vehicle technologies at the Washington Auto Show today. Continuing the Obama Administration’s commitment to supporting the domestic automobile industry, Secretary Moniz announces a $55 million funding opportunity that will solicit projects across vehicle technologies like energy storage, electric drive systems, materials, fuels and lubricants and advanced combustion. Secretary Moniz also announces that two innovative projects at CALSTART and the National Association of Regional Councils will receive $3 million to develop systems that help companies combine their purchasing of advanced vehicles, components, and infrastructure to reduce incremental cost and achieve economies of scale.

January 21, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz announces new leadership at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: “The Department of Energy welcomes Dr. Michael Witherell as the new director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Mike’s background includes key academic, research, and management roles as a leading particle physicist teaching at some of America’s finest universities, former director of DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and Presidential Chair in Physics at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB).  These experiences will ensure that LBNL continues to advance solutions to pressing scientific and energy challenges under his leadership.”

January 21, 2016

James Conca writes for Forbes that the Department of Energy “is going to implement a consent-based strategy” on nuclear waste disposal. In an earlier action, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz “announced that DOE is moving forward with planning for a repository for defense-generated nuclear waste” while taking steps to advance an interim storage facility for commercial nuclear waste, “using a phased, adaptive and also consent-based approach.” Conca writes that DOE is funding a study on Deep Borehole Disposal, “but Congress doesn’t exactly like the deep borehole idea because they would not be able to gang up on one state and force it down their throat.” Conca writes that “each state would have its own deep nuclear disposal boreholes and wouldn’t be able to promise their citizens that the nuclear waste would ever leave their state.”

January 22, 2016

Using the Mira supercomputer, physicists from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory report they have uncovered a new understanding about electron behavior in edge plasma. Based on this discovery, improvements were made to a well-known analytical formula that could enhance predictions of and, ultimately, increase fusion power efficiency.

January 22, 2016

The New Mexico Environment Department, the Department of Energy, and its contractors sign two settlement agreements to resolve the State of New Mexico Environment Department’s claims against DOE and its contractors related to the February 2014 incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad and the associated activities at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Under the $74M agreements, which provide funding and scheduling parameters for a set of Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) in both the Carlsbad and Los Alamos communities, New Mexico’s roads, water infrastructure, and emergency response infrastructure will receive critical improvements. The finalized settlement agreements are based on the State of New Mexico’s and DOE’s General Principles of Agreement signed by the parties on April 30, 2015. 

January 24, 2016

The Aiken (SC) Standard reports the Savannah River National Lab “is included in three projects selected” for more than “$7 million in funding over several years to address critical grid-related needs.” Clemson and SRNL, “pending congressional appropriations,” will “partner to modernize and protect the nation’s electric grid.” The efforts are part of the Energy Department’s “new Grid Modernization Initiative – one that partners the agency with leading experts and resources to collaborate on modernizing the nation’s grid.” Clemson and the lab will “develop and evaluate transformer load control strategies, according to the Lab.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, earlier this month, “announced the new Grid Modernization Multi-Year Program Plan – a blueprint for modernizing the grid that would award up to $220 million over three years if Congress provides funding, according to a news release.”

January 27, 2016

In a study published in Nature Communications, a team led by researchers at the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, reports they have utilized the largest collection of metagenomic datasets to uncover a completely novel bacterial phylum that they have dubbed “Kryptonia.” “We were interested in looking for novel, divergent bacterial or archaeal sequences that hadn’t been previously characterized,” said study first author Emiley Eloe-Fadrosh, a DOE JGI research scientist. “We didn’t have a particular target to go after, but reasoned that there was likely a wealth of untapped diversity just waiting to be discovered in all the metagenomic data.”

January 27, 2016

A team of scientists with the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California Berkeley report they have recorded the first ever observations of rotating topologies of electrical polarization that are similar to the discrete swirls of magnetism known as “skyrmions.” If these smoothly rotating vortex/anti-vortex topologies prove to be electrical skyrmions, they could find potential applications in ultracompact data storage and processing, and could also lead to the production of new states of matter and associated phenomena in ferroic materials.

January 27, 2016

Furthering efforts to encourage clean energy innovation in nuclear energy, the Department releases a draft Request for Assistance (RFA) today for the Nuclear Energy Voucher Program to be used by small business applicants. The voucher program will give businesses access to DOE’s unique, globally recognized facilities and researchers, which will help them further their efforts to develop next generation nuclear energy technologies. The Nuclear Energy Voucher Program represents a pilot initiative of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) to provide the nuclear community with access to the technical, regulatory, and financial support necessary to move new or advanced nuclear reactor designs toward commercialization while ensuring the continued safe, reliable, and economic operation of the existing nuclear fleet.​ GAIN was launched in November 2015 as the nuclear energy component of DOE’s Clean Energy Investment Center.

January 27, 2016

The Department announces $2.85 million in funding for four projects that will advance the development of renewable energy technologies at facilities across the federal government. As the nation's largest single user of energy, the federal government is leading by example and these projects will reduce carbon emissions, while strengthening America's economic, energy, and environmental security. This award announcement follows on the heels of the President's State of the Union address where he discussed how clean energy technologies such as solar are providing real-world solutions. Not only do they reduce the carbon pollution that causes climate change, but they are increasingly becoming more cost-competitive with existing technologies, even without accounting for the climate benefits.

January 27, 2016

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said that oil companies should stop resisting the idea of putting a price on carbon emissions in an effort to fight global warming. In reference to the climate deal reached in Paris, Moniz said, “Paris has got to tell people the handwriting is on the wall. ... And the question is, ‘What’s the best way of getting there, and the way that gives companies and everybody else the most certainty?’” However, Moniz believes that will be an issue for another administration. Following an appearance at the Commonwealth Club of California, Moniz said, “Realistically this year, it’s going to be about carrying out the program we have in place.” He added, “A nice, simple carbon price, I just have to believe, is going to be the place we end up. ... And hard-nosed business guys, I think, are going to know that, too.”

January 28, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration announces a grant award of $25 million to a University of California, Berkeley-led consortium of eight universities for research and development (R&D) in nuclear science and security. This long-term investment will support the consortium at $5 million per year for five years. The grant, awarded for the second time to the Berkeley-led consortium, followed announcement of a funding opportunity issued in May 2015. 

January 28, 2016

On NBC Nightly News  , Richard Engel spoke with Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, who discussed conditions set by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the nuclear agreement reached last July. Salehi, an MIT-educated scientist, said one condition was “no political negotiations,” and Khamenei “also insisted talks had to be quick and preserve Iran’s right to enrich uranium.” Meanwhile, Salehi spoke about the five “martyrs” of Iran’s nuclear program. Engel said Salehi “claims Israel did the killings, with Washington’s tacit approval.” Salehi said he hopes to one day become a martyr of the program as well, because it is “a source of pride.” An article appearing on the NBC News website highlights the relationship between Salehi and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Salehi and Moniz were both at MIT at the same time. During the negotiations the two “discovered that they had friends in common.” Salehi and Moniz “could discuss both the specific safeguards Washington wanted to place on Iran’s nuclear program and the specific facilities that Iran wanted to keep.” Salehi said, “He (Moniz) was a very rational person, wise person. Of course, he was looking for his own national interest, as I was looking for my own national interest.”

January 29, 2016

The Hill reports senators yesterday “approved four amendments to an energy overhaul bill, the first of what will likely be several amendment votes while the energy bill is on the floor.” The bill “would change a host of policies, including provisions to speed up the export of liquefied natural gas, indefinitely expand a conservation fund, update the electricity grid and reform and update other energy policies.” As of Thursday morning, “senators had offered 89 amendments to the legislation...Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said.” Murkowski, who co-sponsored the bill, said, “It is the beginning of a series of steps that we will take to modernize our nation’s energy, as well as our mineral policies.”

January 29, 2016

Researchers who had long assumed that tiny objects would instantly blow up when hit by extremely intense light from the world’s most powerful X-ray laser at the Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, report that these nanoparticles initially shrank instead – a finding that provides a glimpse of the unusual world of superheated nanomaterials that could eventually also help scientists further develop X-ray techniques for taking atomic images of individual molecules. The experiments took place at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, a DOE Office of Science User Facility. Its pulses are so bright that they can be used to turn solids into highly ionized gases, or plasmas, that blow up within a fraction of a second. Fortunately, for many samples researchers can take the data they need before the damage sets in – an approach that has been used to reveal never-before-seen details of a variety of samples relevant to chemistry, materials science, biology and energy research.

January 29, 2016

The Department announces public hearings to receive comments on the Draft EIS (DOE/EIS–0463).  The Draft EIS evaluates the potential environmental impacts of DOE’s proposed Federal action of issuing a Presidential permit to Northern Pass LLC (the Applicant) to construct, operate, maintain, and connect a new electric transmission line across the U.S./Canada border in northern New Hampshire.

January 29, 2016

The AP reports Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein are “seeking a federal investigation into the ongoing lead of natural gas from a utility’s underground storage site that has forced thousands of people to leave nearby Los Angeles neighborhoods.” The Senators are introducing a new amendment to proposed energy legislation that would “direct Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to lead a review of the cause and response to the leak at a Southern California Gas Co. facility.”

January 30, 2016

The Los Angeles Times reports that based on a technical review completed by the DOE on the waste treatment facility designed for the Hanford nuclear site, the project manager Bechtel is being ordered “to fix more than 500 problems that could compromise future operations.” The federal project director, William Hamel, is cited as saying the DOE “is trying to identify any potential defects as early as possible and get them addressed before they cause further schedule delays or later problems.” Former Energy Secretary Steven Chu halted site construction in 2013 given potentially dangerous flaws, though current Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is cited as ordering a faster schedule for waste solidification “at the low-level melter.”

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February 1, 2016

AFP reports that Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Ali Akbar Salehi have been nominated for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize because of their role in the “breakthrough on the Iran nuclear standoff.” Director of the Peace Research Institute of Oslo Kristian Berg Harpviken says Moniz and Salehi are among his favorites.

February 1, 2016

In an experiment packed with scientific firsts, Berkeley Lab scientists report they have demonstrated that a laser pulse can accelerate an electron beam and couple it to a second laser plasma accelerator, where another laser pulse accelerates the beam to higher energy—a fundamental breakthrough in advanced accelerator science.

February 2, 2016

Atomic City Underground reports the Manhattan Project National Historical Park was created in November of last year, “when Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Secretary of Interior Sally Jewel put their signatures on the memorandum of agreement” which “directed how the two agencies would work together to develop the three-site national park.” The plans for the park “are just getting started, and that was the topic of a public meeting Monday evening and a flurry of activities by park leaders — including Tracy Atkins, who was named the park’s interim superintendent earlier this week.” The National Park Service encouraged those in attendance “to fill out comment cards and share their thoughts and suggestions about what’s important, which may influence the way the Manhattan Project is interpreted at the sites.” According to the Underground there was a “good turnout” with “some diverse thoughts” presented.

February 2, 2016

The Department’s Office of Electricity and Energy Reliability announces the publication of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the Integrated Interagency Pre-Application Process (IIP) on electric grid transmission.

February 2, 2016

This week, the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science User Facility, turns one decade old. ALCF is home to Mira, the world’s fifth-fastest supercomputer, along with teams of experts that help researchers from all over the world perform complex simulations and calculations in almost every branch of science. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, ALCF highlights 10 accomplishments since the facility opened its doors.

February 3, 2016

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory physicists collaborating on the Wendelstein 7-X (W 7-X) stellarator fusion energy device in Greifswald, Germany, are on hand when German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushes a button to produce a hydrogen-fueled superhot gas called a plasma. The occasion officially recognized a device that is the largest and most advanced fusion experiment of its kind in the world.

February 3, 2016

The Hill reports the Senate energy reform bill being negotiated “includes a number of cybersecurity provisions” that supporters “say will help bolster the power grid’s lagging digital defenses.” A section of the bill “dedicated to cyber threats” would “empower” the Energy Department “to take swifter action in the event of a major hack, authorizing it to direct energy companies in a cyber crisis.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised “the cyber passages on Tuesday while encouraging his colleagues to vote for the bill, which is expected to pass sometime Thursday.”

February 4, 2016

The New York Times reports that “Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked action on a comprehensive energy bill that had drawn broad bipartisan support after lawmakers failed to agree on including a $600 million amendment to address the crisis over lead-tainted water in Flint, Mich.” The votes “will delay, but not derail, the legislation,” and immediately following the votes, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “said [the bill’s] authors would work through the weekend to find a path forward on both the energy bill and the Flint aid amendment.”

February 4, 2016

Scientists have for the first time reengineered a building block of a geometric nanocompartment that occurs naturally in bacteria. Researchers at the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory devised synthetic shell structures derived from those found in a rod-shaped, ocean-dwelling bacterium, Haliangium ochraceum, and reengineered one of the shell proteins to serve as a scaffold for an iron-sulfur cluster found in many forms of life. The cluster is known as a “cofactor” because it can serve as a helper molecule in biochemical reactions. They introduced a metal binding site to its shell that will allow electrons to be transferred to and from the compartment. This provides an entirely new functionality, greatly expanding the potential of nanocompartments to serve as custom-made chemical factories. Scientists hope to tailor this new use to produce high-value chemical products, such as medicines, on demand.

February 4, 2016

The Aiken (SC) Standard reports former Sen. Richard Lugar said that shutting down the MOX facility at the Savannah River Site would be “catastrophic.” The former Republican senator spent yesterday “morning touring the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility – the main building in the MOX project that is expected to convert 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel.” The Standard says yesterday was also a “day of concern because of President Barack Obama’s budget rollout scheduled for Feb. 9.” Obama’s “proposal may include language to kill MOX and move forward with a downblending method that would dilute the plutonium and ship it to a repository.” The article adds that “plutonium disposition language in Obama’s Feb. 9 budget proposal will be influenced by a report spearheaded” by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

February 4, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz issues a statement on India joining the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC), which begins: “India’s membership in the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC) is a crucial step toward facilitating the growth of safe, civilian nuclear energy in the world’s second most populous country. In addition, India’s membership is a major step towards the global liability regime called for by the IAEA's Nuclear Safety Action Plan to provide prompt compensation in the event of an accident and to establish a legal framework for commercial arrangements.” 

February 4, 2016

The Department announces the award of a contract to Fluor Idaho, LLC, for the performance of ongoing Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) and Idaho Clean-up Project (ICP) work scopes in support of the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s cleanup mission at the Idaho Site. The value of the contract is $1.4 billion (including options), and the contract term five years. Two proposals were received in response to the solicitation.

February 4, 2016

As part of the Better Buildings Initiative, the Energy Department features 12 new partnerships with cities, counties, and states to unlock the power of building energy performance data for the purposes of informing decision making on energy efficiency opportunities in their local communities. Through the Standard Energy Efficiency Data (SEED) Platform Collaborative, these partners will improve the quality and consistency of building energy data and increase community-wide support to enhance management, promote transparency, and increase the value of building energy performance information.  

February 5, 2016

As part of a continued push to encourage energy innovation and commercialization, the Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) issues their first solicitation for proposals that help bring cutting-edge energy technologies to market. The office’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) has been newly infused this year with $20 million from across the Department. The funds will be used to advance promising energy related technologies with commercial potential and help strengthen partnerships between the national labs and private sector companies that can deploy energy technologies to the marketplace. TCF funds will be used to match 50% non-federal funds from private partners. This funding opportunity expands DOE’s efforts to catalyze the commercial impact of the Department’s portfolio of research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities to increase return-on-investment from federally-funded research.

February 8, 2016

The “Morning Energy” blog of Politico reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will travel to “Southern California to see a leaking natural gas storage facility for himself.” The leak at “a Southern California Gas Co.’s Aliso Canyon storage facility has now emitted 5 billion cubic feet of gas, according to measurements from the California Air Resources Board.” Politico adds that “an amendment to the stalled energy bill would call for Moniz to lead an investigation into the leak.”

February 8, 2016

Scientists at the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announce they have developed the first known statistical theory for the toughness of polycrystalline graphene, which is made with chemical vapor deposition, and found that it is indeed strong (albeit not quite as strong as pristine monocrystalline graphene), but more importantly, its toughness—or resistance to fracture—is quite low. Their study, “Toughness and strength of nanocyrstalline graphene,” is published in Nature Communications.

February 8, 2016

The Department announces $21 million in new funding to lower solar energy deployment barriers and expand access to solar energy to all Americans. The Department is making $13 million available to help states take advantage of falling solar prices and maximize the benefits of solar electricity through energy and economic strategic planning. This new program will offer technical and analytical support in the development and implementation of solar energy deployment plans. An additional $8 million under this funding opportunity will support research on solar energy innovation and technology adoption patterns in order to increase understanding of solar deployment barriers and other "soft costs."

February 9, 2016

President Barack Obama’s final budget proposal for the Department of Energy includes a significant increase in clean energy R&D needed to drive economic growth, ensure energy security and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The President’s budget proposal includes continued investments in DOE’s core missions of scientific research, national and energy security, and cleaning up the environmental legacy of the Cold War. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz reports the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2017 budget reaffirms President Obama’s commitment to Mission Innovation, an agreement made by the United States and 19 other countries to double clean energy R&D over five years. The request puts forward $5.85 billion in discretionary funding for clean energy R&D at DOE, a 21 percent increase from FY 2016, including increases for DOE’s innovation incubator ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) and the creation of new regional partnerships that will drive breakthroughs at research universities, labs, and companies across America.

February 9, 2016

The Department’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs announces it is proposing a Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 budget of nearly $23 million, or an increase of $7 million from the FY 2016 budget of $16 million. The Office is proposing to double its technical assistance budget to $6 million to meet the increased demand for providing technical assistance to Indian Tribes, including Alaska Native village and regional corporations, and Tribal Energy Resource Development Organizations. The request would also fund an additional six full-time staff members needed to carry out the Office of Indian Energy’s programs, especially in remote communities in Alaska and the Arctic. The Office will continue to provide $12 million in financial assistance in the form of grants for the deployment of innovative energy systems and technologies and for the efficient delivery of technical assistance through intertribal technical assistance networks. 

February 9, 2016

President Obama’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 Budget includes a programmatic level of $878 million for the Office of Fossil Energy (FE), including the use of $240 million in prior year funds, to advance technologies related to the reliable, efficient, affordable and environmentally sound use of fossil fuels, implement ongoing federal responsibilities at the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves, and manage the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve and Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve to provide strategic and economic security against disruptions in U.S. petroleum supplies. The President’s request includes $600 million for Fossil Energy Research and Development (FER&D), including the use of $240 million in prior year funds from existing Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) projects that have not reached financial close. Of this total, $564 million is targeted to support Mission Innovation, an initiative launched by the U.S. and 19 other countries to accelerate widespread clean energy technology innovation and cost reduction. It is a widely-shared view that innovation is essential for economic growth by providing affordable and reliable energy for everyone, is critical for energy security, enhances U.S. competitiveness, and is the key to a transition to a low carbon energy future. The FY 2017 Request also includes $257 million for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, $14.95 million for the Naval Petroleum Reserves, and $6.5 million, as well as use of $4 million in prior year balances, for the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve.

February 9, 2016

Reuters reports that the Department of Energy has approved liquefied natural gas exports from ConocoPhillips’ Kenai LNG export terminal in Alaska. The Energy Department approved the company’s application to export around 40 billion cubic feet over the next two years, beginning February 19.

February 10, 2016

The Albuquerque (NM) Journal reports that Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Tuesday that the Obama Administration will reopen the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant by the end of 2016 and move ahead with plans to transfer diluted plutonium there within the next decade. The Journal reports that “Moniz focused heavily on the DOE’s desire to get WIPP up and running, calling it a ‘high priority.’” Sen. Martin Heinrich said, restoring WIPP to safe operation “should be the priority before there is any further discussion of expanding WIPP’s mission to accept additional types of waste.”

February 10, 2016

The Portsmouth (OH) Daily Times reports President Obama on Tuesday released his budget proposal for the 2017 fiscal year, which would allocate $322 million to “decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) efforts at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, an increase of over 10 percent from the FY 2016 enacted level.” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said he is “encouraged that the President’s budget proposal would ensure that cleanup at the site continues at its current pace and jobs are maintained.” Meanwhile, the Tri-City Herald (WA) reports President Obama’s budget proposal for the 2017 fiscal year includes “an overall decrease in money spent nationwide for cleanup of defense sites like Hanford.” The Herald adds Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) denounced the reduced funding as “inadequate” and “shortsighted,” while Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) warned the cuts “for Hanford funding, and specifically the Richland Operations Office, would result in cleanup delays, increased total project costs and missed legal milestones within the River Corridor.” He added, “The proposed reduction in funding violates the federal government’s legal and moral obligation to clean up Hanford and prepare the Mid-Columbia for a post-cleanup future.”

February 11, 2016

The Department announces partnerships with 21 companies, federal agencies, and state and local governments to promote the use of DOE's Building Energy Asset Scoring Tool (the Asset Score). The Asset Score, first released in 2014, is a free, web-based software tool that identifies opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of a building's structure and energy-related systems. To date, the Asset Score has been used on 825 commercial and multifamily residential buildings nationwide totaling more than 83 million square feet.

February 11, 2016

The Canadian Press reports Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr and “his counterparts from the United States and Mexico” are in Winnipeg “to talk climate change and energy.” The gathering is the second time Carr, US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, and Mexican Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquin Coldwell have “met since the Liberals took power in Ottawa last fall.” During the visit, “face-to-face meetings with representatives of industry associations, non-governmental organizations, energy regulators, and others will also take place.”

February 12, 2016

The Wall Street Journal reports the US, Canada and Mexico on Friday announced a preliminary information sharing agreement to develop clean-energy initiatives. The agreement was signed by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr and Mexican Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquin Coldwell. Areas of cooperation include emissions reduction and carbon-capture initiatives, with the agreement calling for the creation of a centralized database through which information may be shared.

February 12, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz today announces the availability of up to $7 million to establish a technical assistance regional energy providers’ network to Indian tribes and Alaska Native communities. Participants will be chosen through a competitive process and will receive five weeks of intensive training through the Department of Energy, DOE’s national labs and other entities, giving tribal communities and Alaska Native villages the knowledge, skills and resources needed to implement successful strategic energy solutions.

February 12, 2016

DOE’s Office of Indian Energy also releases a report titled “Solar Energy Prospecting in Remote Alaska: An Economic Analysis of Solar Photovoltaics in the Last Frontier State.” The analysis, conducted by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Lab’s (NREL), focuses on two of the most pressing issues for remote Indian Alaska – reducing or stabilizing the unsustainably high cost of diesel generation, and providing reliable and resilient energy in areas that lack infrastructure. The report finds that significant potential exists for strategically deployed solar photovoltaic systems in remote Arctic villages and communities. In fact, the solar resource in some regions of Alaska “is at least comparable, if not favorable, to that of Germany, which leads the world in solar PV installations.”

February 12, 2016

The White House announces it is helping communities tackle climate change challenges by linking two new programs: Climate Action Champions and Resilience AmeriCorps. These two initiatives help communities apply creative solutions to address the impacts of climate change using the best data to advance comprehensive, community-driven strategies. Building on the Obama Administration’s work with the State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, participants are better able to develop and implement local climate resilience plans via peer-to-peer support and technical assistance.

February 16, 2016

Researchers at the Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announce they have created one of the largest biomolecular simulations to date—a 23.7-million atom system representing pretreated biomass (cellulose and lignin) in the presence of enzymes. The size of the simulation required Titan, the flagship supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, to track and analyze the interaction of millions of atoms.

February 17, 2016

The Department unveils the Better Buildings Challenge SWAP, which involved Hilton Worldwide and Whole Foods Market swapping energy management teams at their facilities in San Francisco. As part of the SWAP, each team identified innovative ways to save energy in Hilton San Francisco Union Square, a 1.8 million sq. foot hotel and Whole Foods Ocean Avenue, a 25,600 sq. foot grocery store.  A reality-style web series, including behind-the-scenes footage, featuring both teams is now available at http://betterbuildingssolutioncenter.energy.gov/swap.

February 17, 2016

The Energy Department announces $3 million for ten new projects that will enable private-sector companies to use high-performance computing resources at the department's national laboratories to tackle major manufacturing challenges. The projects range from improving turbine blades in aircraft engines and cutting heat loss in electronics to reducing waste in paper manufacturing and improving fiberglass production. Led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory as strong partners, the High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) Program is forging these new partnerships to increase the efficiency of manufacturing processes, accelerate innovation, and improve the quality of clean energy products.

February 18, 2016

The Department announces that an agreement has been reached to support possible siting of an innovative small modular reactor (SMR) project within DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site. This Site Use Permit has been granted to Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) to support possible siting of an innovative small modular reactor (SMR) project within the boundary of DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site.

February 18, 2016

The Department announces the locations of eight public meetings on the Department’s consent-based siting initiative. These eight public meetings are part of the Department’s effort to seek input from the public on designing a fair and effective process for siting the facilities needed to manage the nation’s spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.

February 18, 2016

A team of researchers report in the journal Science that anaerobic gut fungi perform as well as the best fungi engineered by industry in their ability to convert plant material into sugars that are easily transformed into fuel and other products. “Nature has engineered these fungi to have what seems to be the world’s largest repertoire of enzymes that break down biomass,” said Michelle O’Malley, lead author and professor of chemical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The researchers found that the fungi adapt their enzymes to wood, grass, agricultural waste, or whatever scientists feed it. The findings suggest that industry could modify the gut fungi so that they produce improved enzymes that will outperform the best available ones, potentially leading to cheaper biofuels and bio-based products. To make the finding, O’Malley drew upon two Department of Energy Office of Science User Facilities: the Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the DOE Joint Genome Institute. O’Malley’s study is the first to result from a partnership between the two facilities called Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science or FICUS. The partnership allows scientists around the world to draw on capabilities at both SC user facilities to get a more complete understanding of fundamental scientific questions. O’Malley’s team also included scientists from PNNL, DOE JGI, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and Harper Adams University.

February 18, 2016

ABC World News   reports that the storage well that was leaking methane in Porter Ranch, California has been “permanently sealed.” For four months the 16,000 people evacuated from the neighborhood have been in temporary housing; they can start to move back. Meanwhile, “more than 60 lawsuits have been filed.” NBC Nightly News   report, “Southern California gas is facing multiple lawsuits and investigations.” The CBS Evening News   report, “Monitors will stay in place to make sure the air is safe to breathe.”

February 18, 2016

The Houston Chronicle reports that a team of scientists drawing from the Department of Energy, General Electric, and Austin-based Wetzel Engineering “is exploring whether there’s a better way of manufacturing the giant turbine blades and getting them into the field” to wind project sites. The team led by the Energy Department “is pursuing two distinct prototypes through a $1.8 million federally funded project. Last year Wetzel was awarded a $1 million grant to develop a lightweight blade that can be built on site. GE is working on a more traditional blade that has a joint running through it, allowing it to be broken down for easier transport.”

February 19, 2016

The AP reports the Energy Department announced an agreement yesterday “with an energy cooperative that could lead to the building of small commercial nuclear reactors at an eastern Idaho federal nuclear site.” DOE “granted a site-use permit to Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) to access the 890-square-mile area containing the Idaho National Laboratory to find a spot to build what are called small modular reactors.” Company spokesman LaVarr Webb said, “UAMPS will seriously be traveling across the INL and looking at specific locations.” According to Webb, a site will most likely be selected in the next two months. But “additional steps in the process, such as an environmental analysis if the company decides to move forward, means the small modular reactors likely wouldn’t be operational before 2023.” In a statement, Lynn Orr, DOE under secretary for science and energy, said, “Today’s announcement is a part of the Department of Energy’s ongoing commitment to strengthening nuclear energy’s role in America’s low carbon future.”

February 19, 2016

The Department issues a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC (NWP) for violations of DOE worker safety and health and nuclear safety requirements.  Concurrently, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) issued a PNOV to Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS) for violations of DOE’s nuclear safety requirements.  Issuance of these PNOVs marks the completion of DOE’s investigations and enforcement process regarding two events in 2014 at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).

February 20, 2016

The Columbus (OH) Dispatch reports the American Centrifuge Project in Piketon “will begin laying off workers Feb. 29, the company that operates it announced Friday.” Centrus, the company that owned it, “struggled to receive a federal loan guarantee, demand for enriched uranium dropped worldwide, and ultimately, it could not receive enough government support to keep it funded.” The company “has decided to shutter the plant.” Most recently, the Energy Department “had paid for a three-year research and development project to test new technology for enriching uranium. But that project completed its work Friday as well.” Sen. Rob Portman said, “This is just wrong.”

February 22, 2016

DOE reports it has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) in which it proposes to require that a person importing into the United States any covered product or equipment subject to an applicable energy conservation standard provide, prior to importation, a certification of admissibility to the DOE for the covered product or equipment.  The certification would be submitted to DOE through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).

February 23. 2016

The Department releases the annual Better Buildings Alliance 2016 Winter Progress Update featuring new partners, recent reports and resources, and upcoming priorities identified in the coming year. As part of Better Buildings Initiative, the Better Buildings Alliance is an important peer exchange network providing a platform for commercial building owners, corporate sustainability directors, facilities managers, and engineers to collaborate with other experts, and together work to accelerate adoption of innovative, energy efficiency solutions nationwide. During the past year, 12 new partners and 7 affiliates have joined the program, expanding the Alliance to more than 200 partner organizations. Partners now represent 11 billion square feet of the nation's commercial building space and a diverse representation of sectors across the United States. In this update, each of the five sector groups—commercial real estate, healthcare, hospitality, higher education, retail, and food service and grocery—identifies two-to-three energy efficiency-related partner priorities for the upcoming year. See all the progress in this infographic.

February 24, 2016

As part of the Obama Administration’s efforts to cut energy waste in the nation’s buildings, the Department recognizes the city of West Palm Beach for their leadership in improving energy efficiency across 1.4 million square feet of building space by 20 percent within 10 years. The city of West Palm Beach has met their Better Buildings Challenge goal of 20 percent energy reduction and today Mayor Jeri Muoio is announcing a new 15 percent energy reduction goal for 2025.

February 24, 2016

The Department announces the launch of its Energy Materials Network (EMN), a new National Laboratory-led initiative that will give American entrepreneurs and manufacturers a leg up in the global race for clean energy. Leveraging $40 million in federal funding, EMN will focus on tackling one of the major barriers to widespread commercialization of clean energy technologies: the design, testing, and production of advanced materials. By strengthening and facilitating industry access to the unique scientific and technical advanced materials innovation resources available at DOE’s National Labs, the network will help bring these materials to market more quickly.

February 24, 2016

Representatives from the U.S. and Norway announce that the U.S. will lead the International Test Center Network (ITCN), a global consortium of facilities conducting research and development (R&D) on carbon capture technologies. The Department of Energy's Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, Christopher Smith, and director of Norway’s Technology Centre Mongstad, Roy Vardheim, made the announcement during a ceremony in Houston, Texas.

February 24, 2016

In what the Washington Post’s “Power Post” blog said is “the first breakthrough in the politically charged fight over how to help Flint and other cities that are struggling with contaminated water,” Michigan Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, working with Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe “and a bipartisan group of at least seven other senators,” have reached a deal to “provide funding to help cities like Flint, Mich., replace aging lead pipes that have contributed to public health crises in several states.” The deal would provide “$70 million in credit subsidies for water infrastructure projects, $100 million for subsidized loans and grants to help states with spoiled water supplies and $50 million for public health programs.” The Hill reports that “to pay for the bill, the Senate would pull money back from the Energy Department’s Advanced Vehicle Technology Manufacturing program, a little-used program that is a favorite of Michigan’s auto industry and its congressional delegation.”

February 25, 2016

E&E Daily reports Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz “is offering a fix to help mend the ‘broken’ relationship between the national labs” and the Energy Department. This week the DOE released “a sweeping document” as a “formal response to recommendations from a congressionally mandated commission that found distrust between DOE and the labs is inhibiting their performance, despite their many successes and ‘great value’ to the nation.” Last year the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories “released its final report” following “18 months of analysis.” DOE in its report to Congress “supported many of the recommendations generally and outlined multiple new ways to address each of them.” Among the things the agency intends to do is “compile an annual report to Congress outlining DOE’s ‘operational successes and continued challenges’ in overseeing the laboratories.”

February 25, 2016

The Houston Chronicle reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy “urged energy executives at the IHSEnergy CERAWeek conference” yesterday “to find ways to cut carbon emissions and integrate cleaner forms of energy.” McCarthy told CERAWeek, “The clean energy train has left the station, folks. ... The energy market is shifting and we anticipate taking meaningful climate action.” With nearly “200 countries pledging to reduce carbon emissions in Paris, the climate agreement could pose a major threat to the oil industry in Texas.” However, the accord is also “expected to spur a boom in renewable energy and carbon capture technology.” Moniz said, “The Paris agreement and the actions that will be taken will only cement the formation of clean energy markets and the infrastructure that goes with them. That’s going to be trillions of dollars of opportunity.”

February 25, 2016

E&E News PM reports that the National Carbon Capture Center in Alabama, which is operated by Southern Company, will “host” the Carbon Capture International Test Center Network, an international coalition “focused on boosting carbon capture technology.” The National Carbon Capture Center will lead the coalition for a two-year term, in partnership with the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy. Southern Company executive vice president Kimberly Greene said, “Through our partnership with DOE and ITCN members, we are building on our commitment to finding real solutions by developing advanced, coal-based technologies.”

February 25, 2016

Scientists on the DZero collaboration at the Department’s Fermilab announce they have discovered a new particle—the latest member to be added to the exotic species of particle known as tetraquarks. This latest discovery comes on the heels of the first observation of a pentaquark—a five-quark particle—announced last year by the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. “The discovery of a unique member of the tetraquark family with four different quark flavors will help theorists develop models that will allow for a deeper understanding of these particles,” says Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer.

February 25, 2016

The Department recognizes the city of Orlando and Parkway Properties for their leadership in improving energy efficiency across a combined 20 million square feet of building space by 20 percent within 10 years. Through the department’s Better Buildings Challenge, Orlando-based Parkway Properties’ showcase project, office tower One Orlando Centre, is expected to save nearly 18 percent in energy costs and over 1.7 million gallons of water through energy and water efficiency efforts.

February 25, 2016

E&E Publishing reports that Interior Secretary Sally Jewell signed agreements with Mexico on Thursday “aimed at boosting coordination on energy issues and preparing both countries for climate change.” In Mexico City, Jewell “signed a memorandum of understanding between the Department of the Interior and Mexico’s energy ministry to facilitate discussion on ‘common safety and environmental standards’ and allowing more information sharing on issues related to both fossil and renewable energy development.” Jewell said, “I commend Mexico for its ambitious energy reforms and look forward to partnering with its new regulatory institution, the Energy, Environment and Safety Agency, as we seek to develop energy safely and responsibly.” Jewell was in Mexico City as part of a delegation to Mexico led by Vice President Joe Biden and also including Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. The AP (2/25) also provides coverage of this story.

February 26, 2016

The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces up to $30 million in funding for a new program focused on creating innovative components for the next generation of batteries, fuel cells, and other electrochemical devices. ARPA-E’s Integration and Optimization of Novel Ion Conducting Solids (IONICS) program will create high performance separators and electrodes built with solid ion conductors.  The IONICS program will also focus on new processing methods and device integration to accelerate these high performance components to commercial deployment. 

February 26, 2016

NNSA reports the dismantlement of W69 canned subassemblies (CSAs) has been completed at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The W69 was the warhead for the short-range attack missile (SRAM) and was retired from the U.S. nuclear stockpile in 1992. The last W69 weapon was dismantled in 1999. The Y-12 site originally assembled the W69 CSA in the 1970s and began disassembly in 2012.

February 27, 2016

The AP reports a US investigative team including cybersecurity officials from the Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, and FBI found “a December hack on the Ukrainian power grid was coordinated and highly sophisticated.” The report found the “well-planned strike, which blacked out more than 225,000 people, hit three regional electronic power distribution companies within 30 minutes of each other on Dec. 23.”

February 27, 2016

The Seattle Times reports Haifang Wen, an assistant professor at Washington State University, “has been charged with engaging in a scheme to defraud the federal government of $8 million in federal research funds.” Wen and two others “received about 30 grants from federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy, that were to be used for the development of asphalt-composition technologies.”

February 29, 2016

Building on President Barack Obama’s announcement last week that 45 projects from Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) have secured more than $1.25 billion in private sector follow-on funding, ARPA-E announces the full list of projects that have received private sector investment at the seventh annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit. In addition, ARPA-E announces that 36 projects have formed new companies, 60 projects have partnered with other government agencies for further development and an ever increasing number of technologies have already been incorporated into products that are being sold in the market. The full list of ARPA-E projects announced is available here: http://go.usa.gov/cvUQz

February 29, 2016

The Washington Examiner reports that House Republicans “want a government watchdog to probe whether the Energy Department can still complete the nation’s nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and if new funding is necessary.” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), and Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office “asking that it to investigate whether the Energy Department can still proceed with the formal application process to build Yucca, after the Obama administration scrapped the project in 2009, directing the agency to withdraw its application from the country’s nuclear power regulator.” The NRC continues to review the Energy Department’s application, but the “lawmakers want to know if they should still allocate federal taxpayer money to the Department of Energy to support its end of the application process.”

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March 1, 2016

The Office of the General Counsel reports DOE settled enforcement actions against Utility Refrigerator, True Manufacturing, and Victory Refrigeration for distributing commercial refrigeration equipment in the United States that do not meet applicable energy conservation standards. As a part of the settlement, Victory Refrigeration paid a civil penalty of $1,600 after manufacturing and distributing 8 units of commercial refrigerator-freezer model RFS-1D-S1-EW-PT-HD.  True agreed to a $36,400 civil penalty after manufacturing and distributing 182 units of commercial refrigerator models TCGG-72 and TCGG-72S.  Utility Refrigerator agreed to pay a civil penalty of $200 after manufacturing and distributing 1 unit of commercial refrigerator model PT-R-75-SS-3S-3S-N.  DOE found that the models did not comply with the maximum permissible rates of energy consumption. Documents related to the distribution of products that do not comply with the federal energy conservation standards are available here.

March 1, 2016

Building on the notable successes of the SuperTruck initiative, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Reuben Sarkar announces SuperTruck II, an $80 million funding opportunity, subject to congressional appropriations, for research, development and demonstration of long-haul tractor-trailer truck technology. Sarkar made the announcement at the GreenTruck Summit in Indianapolis, Indiana. Sarkar also announced more than $12 million in selections for three new cost-shared projects focused on the research, development, and demonstration of plug-in electric powertrain technologies for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.

March 1, 2016

The DOE-NE Voucher Program for small businesses is open for applications. As part of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative, the voucher program will provide up to $2 million in this pilot year for access to expertise, knowledge, and facilities of the National Laboratories and our partner facilities to help advance nuclear energy technologies. Additional information is available on the ‘Apply for a Voucher’ page on the GAIN website, including an expanded scope description, frequently asked questions, copies of the standard research agreements that will be needed for the selected application, as well as the final Request for Assistance.

March 1, 2016

The Department announces the nine teams chosen as finalists in the Wave Energy Prize, which hail from California, Maine, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington. The Prize is a 20-month design-build-test competition that aims to double the energy captured from ocean waves. Increasing the energy harnessed by wave energy converter devices will reduce costs and make this renewable energy source more competitive with traditional energy solutions. Waves provide a continual source of energy whether it’s sunny or cloudy, windy or calm. Recent studies found that America’s technically recoverable wave energy resource is estimated to range between 898-1,229 terawatt hours (TWh) per year, distributed across the coast of Alaska, the West Coast, the East Coast, the Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. For context, approximately 90,000 homes can be powered by 1 TWh per year. This means that even if only 5 percent of the potential is recovered, millions of homes could be powered by wave energy as the technology progresses.

March 2, 2016

The 86th Lessons Learned Quarterly Report highlights practices to improve NEPA implementation for environmental justice and public access to references; these practices remind us of NEPA’s emphasis on meaningful public involvement.

March 3, 2016

Deputy Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs for the Republic of Korea Cho Tae-yul announces the launch of the High Level Bilateral Commission (HLBC).  In their roles as HLBC Co-Chairs, Deputy Secretary Sherwood-Randall and Vice Minister Cho also announced that the first meeting of the HLBC will take place in Seoul on April 14.  Deputy Secretary Sherwood-Randall will travel to Seoul to Co-Chair the HLBC as part of a trip focused on nuclear security, safety, nonproliferation, and clean energy.

March 3, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, working in collaboration with the Government of Switzerland, announces that approximately 20 kilograms of separated plutonium have been transported from Switzerland to the United States. The successful transport of this plutonium was completed through a multilateral effort that included NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN), Switzerland’s Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER), and the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE). With this removal, Switzerland is now free of all separated plutonium. 

March 4, 2016

E&E Daily reported West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin on Thursday told Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz that the Obama Administration “can’t keep beating the living crap out of us” and needs to increase coal technology efforts. Manchin’s “comments were among several regional concerns expressed by lawmakers during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on DOE’s fiscal 2017 request – including calls for more department money for nuclear waste cleanup, tidal power research and Indian tribes.” But coal’s “plight” came up “several times, with Manchin noting a plunge in employment rates in multiple West Virginia counties reliant on the fossil fuel.” In response to Manchin, Moniz said, “We all obviously very much appreciate the social impacts” of the job losses in the state. He went on to add that “a jobs program focused on coal country now has its own separate budget line item.” The Portsmouth (OH) Daily Times reports Sen. Rob Portman “grilled” Moniz on the funding of projects in Piketon.

March 4, 2016

The Office of the General Counsel reports DOE recently resolved enforcement actions against a variety of companies for failure to certify that the products they were distributing meet the applicable energy or water conservation standards.  DOE found that Utility Refrigerator had failed to certify the compliance of its commercial refrigeration equipment, Fujitsu General America had failed to certify certain new central air conditioners and heat pumps, Systemair had failed to certify its single package vertical air conditioners and heat pumps, Wolverine Brass had failed to certify its faucets and showerheads, ETL had failed to certify its showerheads, and Lochinvar had failed to certify its pool heaters. DOE assessed civil penalties of $8,000 in each case.  As part of the settlement, each company must submit the required certification reports, which include a certification that the products have been tested in accordance with the DOE test procedure and that the products meet the applicable standard(s).

March 7, 2016

The Department’s Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center issues a Sources Sought/Request for Information (RFI) seeking interested parties with specialized capabilities necessary to successfully perform all or a portion of the elements of scope for the upcoming competitive Environmental Management (EM) procurement for the Hanford Site occupational medical services, hereafter referred to as “Richland Acquisitions – Post Fiscal Year 2018 OccMed Contract” and to further determine whether or not all or a portion of the work can be set-aside for small and disadvantaged businesses. The type of contract and period of performance is yet to be determined. DOE is seeking feedback from interested parties regarding options for efficient and effective performance of scope elements.

March 7, 2016

E&E Publishing reports that the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Department of Energy “are teaming up to accelerate deployment of technologies that could improve natural gas pipeline safety and infrastructure.” The three-year partnership is designed to share knowledge on about emerging technologies on “everything from methane leaks to natural gas pipeline chemistry.” The initiative may support tours of DOE’s national labs, “technical workshops,” meetings, and forums.

March 9, 2016

A multi-institution team is using the supercomputing resources at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility to simulate 10 million years of cosmic time, tracking evolving properties of galaxies to understand the epoch of reionization as galaxies formed after the Big Bang. The researchers’ goal was to learn about reionization across the universe, while predicting its imprints that can be observed today on these nearby celestial objects. Astronomers think that when dwarf galaxies much smaller than the Milky Way were engulfed by reionization, for example, their star formation was suppressed. If the team’s newest simulation confirmed this, it would solve a major puzzle in the standard theory of cosmology. Its first results are soon to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

March 10, 2016

The Department announces that 33 small businesses have been selected to work directly with DOE national labs to accelerate the transformation toward a clean energy economy. The selected businesses will be afforded access to world-class laboratory resources to help move these innovative ideas and technologies closer to the marketplace. The department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy will invest nearly $6.7 million under Round 1 of the new Small Business Vouchers (SBV) pilot. These partnerships between clean energy small businesses and DOE national laboratories help promote economic development and American innovation by pairing DOE's unparalleled laboratory resources and expertise with small business drive and creativity.

March 11, 2016

The Energy Department announces up to $25 million in available funding aimed at advancing technologies for energy-efficient electric motors through applied R&D. This effort will fund innovative technologies that will significantly increase the efficiency of electric motors, which use approximately 70% of the electricity consumed by U.S. manufacturers and nearly a quarter of all electricity consumed nationally. The Energy Department plans to select eight to twelve projects through the Next Generation of Electric Machines: Enabling Technologies funding opportunity. Specifically, this funding targets the development of key technologies that will enable further efficiency enhancements and weight reductions in a cost effective way, while addressing the limitations of traditional conductive metals and silicon-infused "electrical" steels used in motor components.

March 14, 2016

The New York Times reports that according to a study published in Nature Climate Change, “most projections vastly underestimate the number of people at risk” from sea-level rise “because they do not account for population growth.” Using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the study’s researchers estimate that 4.2 million people in the US will be at risk if seas rise by three feet, or 13.1 million with a six-foot increase, a high-end estimate. One of the study’s authors, Mathew Hauer at the University of Georgia, said “We could see a huge-scale migration if we don’t deploy any protection against sea level rise.”

March 14, 2016

The Department announces that the Better Buildings Home Upgrade Program and Home Energy Information Accelerators are working with partners across the nation and are making important progress in lowering the costs of energy upgrade programs, while improving overall program effectiveness and enhancing access to information on home energy performance for consumers. These efforts help homeowners save money, while creating local jobs and improving the environment.

March 15, 2016

The DOE-funded Power Systems Engineering Research Center (PSERC) offers a free public webinar that will address the problems with obtaining data from power grid models, and the inadequacies of the power system model data that is available. This presentation will address this problem by discussing the creation of large-scale, geographically-based, fully public synthetic power grid models. It will also address needed characteristics in these models, as well as how they can be created, and why they matter to researchers and to power engineers.

March 17, 2016

The Wall Street Journal reports Energy Secretary Moniz on Thursday expressed concerns that China’s plans to process spent nuclear fuel into plutonium that could be used in weapons could heighten the risk of proliferation. “We don’t support large-scale reprocessing,” Moniz told the Journal on Thursday, adding that China’s plans aren’t “positive in terms of nonproliferation.” Noting Moniz’s comments, the AP (3/18, Pennington) reports Assistant Secretary Thomas Countryman similarly told a Senate panel yesterday that the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel “has little if any economic justification” and raises concerns about proliferation. The AP calls his comments “unusually critical” as the President “prepares to host more than 50 world leaders for a nuclear security summit in Washington at the end of this month.”

March 17, 2016

A report from the Department describes how, at national labs, universities, and specially designated collaborative centers called Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs), where scientists dedicate several years to foundational questions, research funded by the DOE's Office of Science is being used to develop new ideas, new materials, and new designs to continue to push solar energy to take center stage. The report highlights five ways that these scientists are taking on the challenges.

March 17, 2016

With the help of Argonne scientists and the immense power of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a team of Yale University researchers reports in a new study in the journal Nature that it has solved the mystery of the Tully Monster, an oddly configured sea creature with teeth at the end of a narrow, trunk-like extension of its head and eyes that perch on either side of a long rigid bar. "The APS give scientists from Yale and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago a revealing look at these prehistoric fossils that allowed them to see that these creatures had a backbone," said Carmen Soriano, a study co-author and beamline scientist at Argonne, where the APS is located. "Until now, the Tully Monster had no clear affiliation inside the animal world. Our understanding of this extinct creature has been greatly improved.”

March 17, 2016

A new, highly permeable carbon capture membrane developed by scientists from the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory could reportedly lead to more efficient ways of separating carbon dioxide from power plant exhaust, preventing the greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. In a first, the scientists engineered the membrane so that carbon dioxide molecules can travel through it via two distinct channels. Molecules can travel through the polymer component of the membrane, like they do in conventional gas-separation membranes. Or molecules can flow through “carbon dioxide highways” created by adjacent metal-organic frameworks. Initial tests show this two-route approach makes the hybrid membrane eight times more carbon dioxide permeable than membranes composed only of the polymer. Boosting carbon dioxide permeability is a big goal in efforts to develop carbon capture materials that are energy efficient and cost competitive. The research is the cover article of the March issue of the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

March 17, 2016

The Energy Department announces up to $3 million in available funding for manufacturers to use high-performance computing resources at the Department's national laboratories to tackle major manufacturing challenges. The High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) program leverages supercomputers at our national labs to accelerate advanced clean energy technologies and energy-efficient solutions that improve our nation’s economic competitiveness in manufacturing.  This effort also advances President Obama's National Strategic Computing Initiative, unveiled in July 2015, which calls for public-private partnerships to increase industrial adoption of high-performance computing.

March 18, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz, accompanied by senior officials from the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA), the Department of Defense, and a host of international VIPs, participate with the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) to commission China’s new nuclear security Center of Excellence (COE). The COE will address China’s domestic nuclear security training requirements, provide a forum for bilateral and regional best practice exchanges, and serve as a venue for demonstrating advanced technologies related to nuclear security. The COE is a major achievement for China in advance of the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit.

March 22, 2016

E&E News PM reports a bipartisan group of House legislators yesterday “introduced legislation that would allow the Energy Department to pitch in against the Islamic State group.” The bill would authorize the agency “to provide technical assistance to the U.S. military in cracking down on the Islamic State group’s oil production – a key source of revenue for the terrorist group.” The legislation follows yesterday’s “terrorist attacks in Brussels, in which at least 30 people died during explosions at the airport and a subway station.” In a statement Rep. Pete Olson “said the Islamic State group’s oil production ‘funds crimes against humanity’ but also the group’s survival.” He added, “We must take every measure to cut off ISIS [the Islamic State group] funding at the source. ... DOE energy experts can provide critical guidance to [the Department of Defense] as they work to stop these terrorists.” Fuel Fix (TX) reports the bill also instructed the DOE to brief Congress “on any opportunities to offset ISIS oil and gas.”

March 22, 2016

The Department announces funding for 24 American Indian and Alaska Native communities to deploy clean energy and energy efficiency projects. DOE plans to invest over $9 million in 16 facility- and community-scale energy projects in 24 tribal communities. 

March 22, 2016

Researchers at the Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory report they have made a better thermoplastic by replacing styrene with lignin, a brittle, rigid polymer that, with cellulose, forms the woody cell walls of plants. In doing so, they have invented a solvent-free production process that interconnects equal parts of nanoscale lignin dispersed in a synthetic rubber matrix to produce a meltable, moldable, ductile material that’s at least ten times tougher than ABS (a moldable thermoplastic polymer, shorthand for its acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene components). The resulting thermoplastic—called ABL for acrylonitrile, butadiene, lignin—is recyclable, as it can be melted three times and still perform well. The results, published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, may bring cleaner, cheaper raw materials to diverse manufacturers.

March 22, 2016

As the first-ever International Synchrophasor Symposium continues in Atlanta, GA, the Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) releases a new report chronicling American efforts to deploy this technology as well as two new funding opportunities to further advance the technology.  Adam Cohen, DOE’s Deputy Under Secretary for Science and Energy, made the announcements during his remarks at the symposium. Synchrophasor technology, which uses systems of phasor measurement units (PMUs) to measure data and time-synchronize it using GPS satellites, provides system operators with a near real-time snapshot of the electric grid’s operating status. The data provided by these systems and its many applications are leading to a more reliable and resilient electric power grid.

March 22, 2016

The Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability hosts a public workshop to discuss the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the Integrated Interagency Pre-Application Process (IIP) on electric grid transmission. The IIP is intended to provide a roadmap and encourage early coordination between electric grid transmission project proponents and permitting agencies on transmission projects. The IIP process, as proposed, is designed to improve interagency and intergovernmental coordination, to encourage early engagement with stakeholders, and to help ensure Project Proponents develop and submit accurate and complete information early in the project planning process. The public workshop will include a presentation describing the proposed rule and will allow for questions and comments about and on the rule.  

March 23, 2016

DOE National Park Program Manager at Hanford, Colleen French, and Manhattan Project National Historical Park Interim Superintendent Tracy Atkins write for the Tri-City Herald (WA) that the Manhattan Project National Historical Park’s story “brings together phenomenal scientific achievement, engineering and construction efforts of a scale and at a pace never before undertaken.” DOE will “continue to expand access to B Reactor this year, including more school and public tours,” while the National Park Service will partner with DOE in 2016 to improve existing interpretation and train docents.

March 23, 2016

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory report they have discovered a way to use a microscopic swirling flow to rapidly clear a circle of tiny bacteria or swimming robots. "This discovery offers a new approach for control and manipulation of microscopic swimmers," said Argonne physicist and co-author Igor Aronson, and it could be useful in tiny microfluidic ("lab-on-a-chip") devices that can quickly run chemical or biological analyses or perform tasks. In the study, published in Nature Communications, the researchers placed a magnetic particle in the center of a liquid film filled with swimming bacteria. Normally the bacteria swim randomly; but when scientists spun the particle by applying a rotating magnetic field, the swimmers shot away from the center, like a school of fish that suddenly realized there's a shark in their midst. This technique could separate live from dead bacteria, or different species, bacterial strains or mutants from one another. "The shape and swimming rates of different species would mean they separate," Aronson said.

March 23, 2016

Using cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientist Eva Nogales and her team report they have made a significant breakthrough in our understanding of how our molecular machinery finds the right DNA to copy, showing with unprecedented detail the role of a powerhouse transcription factor known as TFIID. This finding is important as it paves the way for scientists to understand and treat a host of malignancies. “Understanding this regulatory process in the cell is the only way to manipulate it or fix it when it goes bad,” said Nogales. “Gene expression is at the heart of many essential biological processes, from embryonic development to cancer. One day we’ll be able to manipulate these fundamental mechanisms, either to correct for expression of genes that should or should not be present or to take care of malignant states where the process has gone out of control.” Their study has been published online in the journal Nature in an article titled, “Structure of promoter-bound TFIID and insight into human PIC assembly.” 

March 24, 2016

Politico’s “Morning Cybersecurity” reports Energy Department Chief Information Officer Mike Johnson told members of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz’s advisory board, “The question is not if people are going to get in” the agency’s computer systems, “it’s when or if they’re already in what are they going to do. My main concern is how quickly can we detect that and then restore operations.” He said that taking down the agency’s CFO’s systems would bring the department “‘to its knees within a day or two’ because it wouldn’t be able pay anyone or validate its many contracts.”

March 24, 2016

NBC News reports on its website that a study in the journal Science says scientists created “a bacterium with a minimal number of genes needed to keep it going.” The team says they don’t know what a third of the 473 genes do, but that the microbe dies without them. Scientists hope to use the organism “as a platform to create designer life forms.” Samuel Deutsch of the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute said this “represents a remarkable landmark in terms of the ability to deconstruct and understand complex biological systems.” PBS NewsHour reports Deutsch said the bacterium “displayed substantial defects in growth and morphology that suggest it is extremely unlikely that such a cell would survive outside of the laboratory. Hence any potential risks...are minimal.” NPR reports that such an organism’s potential for creating biofuels is the reason that the study was funded in part by the Department of Energy.

March 24, 2016

The Department releases the agency’s first annual analysis of how changes in America’s energy profile are affecting national employment in multiple energy sectors. By using a combination of existing energy employment data and a new survey of energy sector employers, the inaugural Energy and Employment Report (USEER) provides a broad view of the national current energy employment landscape. A copy of the full report is available HERE.

March 24, 2016

A new study by scientists at the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reveals that much more is going on at the microscopic level of cloud formation than previously thought. The scientists determined that organic molecules effectively depressed the surface tension of the water, allowing for more efficient formation of bigger cloud droplets. “Conventional wisdom says that the water solubility of the aerosol is the key factor in the formation of cloud droplets,” said study senior author Kevin Wilson, the deputy director of science at Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division. “The more easily a particle dissolves in water, the easier it is for a cloud droplet to form. What we’re finding is that relying upon solubility alone doesn’t always work. Our study suggests that what the aerosol is doing at the interface with water is what matters in accurately predicting whether it will go on to form cloud droplets.” The findings, to be published in the March 25 issue of the journal Science, could improve the accuracy of climate change models that predict the potential cooling effect of reflective clouds based upon the particles in the air.

March 25, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz issues a statement congratulating Jonathan Pershing: “We congratulate Jonathan for his appointment as Special Envoy for Climate Change at the Department of State. While I will miss Jonathan’s wise counsel and good humor, I look forward to continuing to work closely with Secretary Kerry and Jonathan as our Departments work towards domestic and international implementation of the Paris agreement through clean energy solutions.”

March 25, 2016

Building on the Department of Energy’s ongoing efforts to modernize the grid and accelerate the deployment of renewable energy, Secretary Ernest Moniz announces that DOE will participate in the development of the Plains & Eastern Clean Line Project (Clean Line), a major clean energy infrastructure project. The Clean Line project will tap abundant, low-cost wind generation resources in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandle regions to deliver up to 4,000 megawatts of wind power via a 705-mile direct current transmission line — enough energy to power more than 1.5 million homes in the mid-South and Southeast United States. This marks the first use of Congressional authority conferred to DOE as part of Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 with the objective of promoting transmission development. Congress passed this provision when it was becoming clear that our nation’s transmission infrastructure was beginning to show its age and needed modernization.

March 26, 2016

The New York Times reports the Department of Energy approved a new transmission project proposed by Clean Line Energy Partners “aimed at bringing wind energy out of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle.” Originally delayed given some resistance from lawmakers, the project received “a green light” from the federal government. The Times indicates Clean Line Energy Partners still needs to purchase the land for the lines, which might require eminent domain. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said, “Moving remote and plentiful power to areas where electricity is in high demand is essential for building the grid of the future.”

March 26, 2016

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports the Department of Energy’s first annual “United States Energy and Employment Report” found that “for every 10 Americans working to create and distribute energy in 2015, there were roughly seven others working to limit its consumption.” DOE Senior Adviser on Energy and Industrial Policy David Foster said, “The transformation of our energy system and the growth of energy efficiency technologies is creating opportunities for thousands of new jobs.” The agency partnered with BW Research Partnership to identify jobs related to energy-efficiency, as “advancements of energy efficiency technology and alternative fuels research” have blurred lines, leading to construction workers working on energy efficiency projects, auto workers producing electric vehicles, and farmers growing corn as a feedstock for alternative fuels.

March 29, 2016

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy honor 49 businesses and organizations in 35 states for their commitment to saving energy and protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency achievements. Recipients of the 2016 Energy Star Partner of the Year Award include Beazer Homes, The Home Depot and Verizon.

March 30, 2016

The Aiken (SC) Standard reports the Energy Department on Wednesday “formally signed a plan” to “prepare and move 6 metric tons of plutonium from the Savannah River Site” to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. The NNSA’s “official record of decision designates downblending and storage as the preferred plan for the material as part of the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.” Gov. Nikki Haley’s office made the announcement on Tuesday night. The announcement “means that South Carolina will not become what Gov. Nikki Haley called a permanent dumping ground for nuclear materials in a letter” to Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.

March 31, 2016

Administrator Frank Klotz of the Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration and Chairman Un Chul Lee of the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) Nuclear Safety and Security Commission reach agreement on the terms of the Administrative Arrangement to the U.S.-ROK Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement (U.S.-ROK 123 Agreement). Building on the momentum from the recent launch of the High Level Bilateral Commission, conclusion of the Administrative Arrangement constitutes an important milestone in the further deepening of U.S.-ROK civil nuclear cooperation. 

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April 1, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration releases the annual reports outlining the strategic direction for two of its vital and enduring missions—maintaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent and reducing the threat of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. These reports are key planning documents for the nuclear security enterprise and guide program activities to ensure U.S. national security and advance global nuclear security. The Fiscal Year 2017 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (SSMP): Biennial Plan Summary updates last year’s full report on NNSA’s strategic program for maintaining the nuclear stockpile over the next 25 years without nuclear explosive testing. The corresponding report, Prevent, Counter, and Respond—A Strategic Plan to Reduce Global Nuclear Threats (FY 2017–FY 2021) updates last year’s full report on NNSA’s integrated strategy for preventing, countering, and responding to nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear and radiological terrorism threats, now and in the future.

April 1, 2016

The Wall Street Journal reports the US and Japan on Friday announced a plan to ship weapons-grade nuclear materials from Japanese research facilities to the US in an effort to prevent rogue countries and terrorists from gaining access to it. The Journal says the countries have already completed the removal of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium fuel from one of two sites, and a shipment is on its way to the US. Reuters reports Energy Secretary Moniz said, “This is the largest single nuclear material removal in the history of this summit process.” Moniz added, “This process will permanently remove any risk of this material falling into the wrong hands.”

April 4, 2016

The Department’s Brookhaven Lab reports that upgrades to its isotope production and research facility may increase the yield of key medical isotopes. The DOE Office of Science’s Nuclear Physics Isotope Development and Production for Research and Applications program (DOE Isotope Program) seeks to make critical isotopes more readily available for energy, medical, and national security applications and for basic research. Under this program, scientists, engineers, and technicians at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory recently completed the installation of a beam raster (or scanning) system designed to increase the yield of critical isotopes produced at the Brookhaven Linac Isotope Producer (BLIP), the Lab’s radioisotope production and research facility, in operation since 1972. 

April 4, 2016

The Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources, Dr. Yuval Steinitz, and the Secretary of Energy, Dr. Ernest Moniz, sign an amendment to an existing agreement between the Department of Energy and the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure that will further enhance cooperation between the two countries. 

April 4, 2016

The Washington Examiner reports the Obama Administration yesterday “tightened security cooperation with Israel” in an effort “to counter possible attacks against the Jewish state’s energy and water supplies.” Signed Monday in Jerusalem, the agreement “comes a month after the Justice Department charged Iranian cyber warfare hackers of targeting New York’s water infrastructure.” The Examiner adds, “Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz signed the agreement with Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water Resources Dr. Yuval Steinitz.” Steinitz said, “I am certain that cooperation in the energy sector will expand in the years to come. ... I thank Secretary Moniz for the friendship and cooperation. The United States is Israel’s greatest friend, and we appreciate this friendship.” The agreement “includes areas for increased cooperation, including ‘protection of the energy and water infrastructure against physical, electromagnetic, and cyber threats.’”

April 6, 2016

The Kazakhstan - United States Energy Partnership Commission holds a meeting at the Energy Ministry of the Republic of Kazakhstan, co-chaired by Energy Minister K.A. Bosumbayev and Secretary Ernest Moniz. The Republic of Kazakhstan was represented at the session by officials from the Energy Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, Kazatomprom, Kazenergy Association, KazMunaiGas, Samruk-Energy, EXPO-2017, the National Nuclear Center, and the Nuclear Physics Institute. Also present were representatives of the United States Department of Energy, the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan, and the National Nuclear Security Administration. The session was held as a follow-up to the 11th session of the Commission held in 2015, and included the ceremonial signing of a joint statement of the Kazakhstan-United States Energy Partnership Commission.

April 6, 2016

The Department announces approximately $35 million in funding, subject to congressional appropriations, to assist small- and medium-sized U.S. manufacturers with increasing their energy efficiency, productivity, sustainability and competitiveness and to help address the shortage of engineering professionals with applied energy-related skills. The Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC) program provides hands-on training and extensive education for undergraduate and graduate engineering students in manufacturing processes, energy assessment procedures, and energy management systems. Led by engineering faculty, the selected IACs will perform on-site assessments at small- and medium-sized manufacturing business partners, currently defined as having gross annual sales below $100 million, fewer than 500 employees, and annual energy bills between $100,000 and $2.5 million. Energy, productivity, water-resource use, and waste assessments will be conducted by students and faculty of the IACs as a service to the participating companies. In exchange for hosting the hands-on assessment training opportunities for students, these small- and medium-sized manufacturers receive an assessment that the company can use to improve their operations.  When implemented, the recommended actions will result in energy and water savings, waste reduction, opportunities for smart manufacturing, and potential enhancements to cyber security and related information technologies, as well as sustainability and productivity improvements for these manufacturers at the heart of the U.S. economy.

April 6, 2016

The Environmental Justice Interagency Working Group Promising Practices report is released. The report is a compilation of approaches that the NEPA Committee gleaned from an almost 4-year review of agency practices.  To learn more and download the document, see www.energy.gov/node/1679486.

April 12, 2016

The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces up to $60 million in funding for two new programs that aim to solve some of the nation’s most pressing energy challenges by accelerating the development of novel energy technologies. The first program, NEXT-Generation Energy Technologies for Connected and Automated on-Road vehicles (NEXTCAR) seeks to develop new technologies that decrease energy consumption of future vehicles through the use of connectivity and automation. The second program, Rhizosphere Observations Optimizing Terrestrial Sequestration (ROOTS) seeks to improve crop breeding for root and soil function to allow for greater carbon storage in plants.

April 12-15, 2016

From April 12 through April 15, the Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s conducts low-altitude helicopter flights around Boston to measure naturally occurring background radiation. Officials from NNSA announce the radiation assessment will cover approximately 13 square miles. A twin-engine Bell 412 helicopter, operated by the Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measuring System from Joint Base Andrews, will be equipped with radiation sensing technology. The helicopter will fly in a grid pattern over the area at 150 feet (or higher) above the ground surface, at a speed of approximately 80 miles per hour. Flyovers will occur only during daylight hours and are estimated to take about two days to complete. The measurement of naturally occurring radiation to establish baseline levels is a normal part of security and emergency preparedness. NNSA is making the public aware of the upcoming flights so that citizens who see the low-flying aircraft are not alarmed.

April 13, 3016

Scientists worldwide now have access to a powerful new resource at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, to help them address pressing science challenges related to the environment, biology and energy. The new 21 Tesla Ultra-High-Resolution Mass Spectrometer, or the 21T for short, allows scientists to analyze and separate atoms and molecules according to their size and molecular structure with a clarity and precision well beyond conventional mass spectrometers. Officials from EMSL, PNNL, DOE's Office of Science, DOE's Pacific Northwest Site Office, elected officials and scientists are gathering this week to celebrate the science that will be made possible by the 21T, which is available for use by scientists around the world. 

April 13, 2016

The Hill reports a Senate subcommittee “decided to avoid hot-button issues” in approving a $37.5 billion bipartisan funding bill for the federal government’s energy and water development programs. The bill would boost funding by $355 million over 2016 levels, “with a $1.163 billion increase for the Department of Energy’s defense-related programs and an $808 million decrease for the non-defense portions of the bill, which include DOE and the Army Corps of Engineers.” Appropriations Subcommittee chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said “it’s the kind of bill that ought to be able to go to committee tomorrow and go to the majority leader and let him put it on the floor.” Alexander also “emphasized how much the bill does for nuclear power.” Ranking minority member Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the bill contains some compromises for Democrats, “but she is happy with it nonetheless

April 14, 2016

TIME reports the Senate leaders agreed to support a bipartisan energy bill Wednesday that excludes aid for residents of Flint, Michigan who suffered during the city’s water crisis. The legislation was “previously mired in a partisan debate over whether to use the bill as a vehicle to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to improve Flint’s water pipes and aid the health of residents.” A bloc of Democrats supported providing the aid, while Republicans opposed the measure “because of the way Flint would be funded.” The energy bill represents the “most significant energy legislation since 2007” and aims to “boost energy efficiency, update the nation’s power grid and improve oil and gas infrastructure.”

April 14, 2016

Deputy Secretary of Energy Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall and Republic of Korea (ROK) Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-Yul co-chair the first meeting of the U.S.-ROK High Level Bilateral Commission (HLBC) in Seoul, South Korea, this week.  The HLBC is an essential element of the successor U.S.-ROK “Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy,” commonly referred to as the U.S.-ROK 123 Agreement.  As described in the U.S.-ROK 123 Agreement, the HLBC will serve as a senior level forum to facilitate peaceful nuclear cooperation in areas of mutual interest related to civil nuclear energy.

April 14, 2016

Bloomberg News reports the US government indicted Szuhsiung Ho, a nuclear engineer and an American citizen, and China General Nuclear Power and Energy Technology International for conspiracy to “illegally produce nuclear material outside the country without Energy Department authorization.” According to the unsealed 17-page indictment, Ho and the Chinese nuclear company plotted since 1997 “to shrink the time and cost of designing nuclear reactor components by obtaining technical assistance from unidentified experts in the US.” John Carlin, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security, said Ho “allegedly approached and enlisted US based nuclear experts to provide integral assistance in developing and producing special nuclear material in China.” The indictment says some of the experts Ho approached worked for an unnamed Pennsylvania-based nuclear power company.

April 15, 2016

The Energy Department announces nearly $4 million for projects to increase access to solar data. Four partners will help launch the new Orange Button℠ initiative, which will increase solar market transparency and fair pricing by establishing data standards for the industry. In order to understand the financial risk of solar energy project development, the solar energy community relies on fragmented datasets released by state energy offices and a limited number of private organizations regarding project origination, grid integration, operations, and retirement. These datasets vary widely in format, quality, and content, which makes it difficult for potential providers to have an accurate understanding of potential markets. The Orange Button project will standardize this data, making it easier to share and secure, which will ensure a more standardized and transparent marketplace.

April 17-19, 2016

The Department’s Office of Indian Energy sponsors the Native American Finance Officers Association’s (NAFOA’s) 34^th Annual Conference April in Phoenix, Arizona. This two-day conference is an opportunity for tribes to explore solutions to the economic and financial issues facing Indian Country, and provides networking opportunities with tribal leaders, professionals, and influential federal agencies. The agenda features discussions about new opportunities for tribal governments to identify and implement viable innovative energy and infrastructure solutions to foster energy independence and economic growth.

April 20, 2016

The Senate, in an 85 to 12 vote on Wednesday, passed the Energy Policy Modernization Act with bipartisan support. The New York Times reports that the bill was approved “largely by avoiding the hot-button topics of climate change and oil and gas exploration that have thwarted other measures.” The bill “includes provisions to promote renewable energy, improve the energy efficiency of buildings, and to cut some planet-warming greenhouse gas pollution.” The Houston Chronicle reports that Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has offered his tentative support to the Senate energy bill. The Hill reports that Sens. Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders were not present to vote. The Wall Street Journal reports that Congress is now planning to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill. The House version contains measures that the White House has expressed concern about, such as a more expedited review process for natural-gas exports, but has not threatened to veto.

April 21, 2016

E&E Publishing reports that two amendments within the bipartisan energy bill passed by the Senate yesterday have stirred controversy over “whether biomass is a renewable energy source on par with wind and solar in the eyes of federal policy.” The amendment introduced by Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) calls on the EPA as well as the Agriculture and Energy departments to “craft a coordinated policy on biomass that reflects ‘the carbon-neutrality of forest bioenergy.’” Some environmental groups, however, are angry at the idea that biomass is inherently carbon neutral, and sent a letter to lawmakers saying they would not support the energy bill due to the inclusion of the biomass amendments. The environmental groups argued that “Legislating the carbon neutrality of an emissions-producing technology sets a dangerous precedent for all climate science, in that it attempts to override physical facts with policy declarations.”

April 22, 2016

Reuters reports the Energy Department will purchase 32 metric tons of heavy water from Iran’s nuclear program for $8.6 million and the delivery is expected to occur within weeks. Reuters notes the Iran nuclear deal requires Tehran to reduce its stockpile of heavy water, which it can choose to sell, dilute, or dispose of. A DOE spokeswoman said the US “will not be Iran’s customer forever” and Reuters indicates US officials hope the deal will lead to other countries also purchasing the heavy water.

April 22, 2016

The Department announces winners of its third annual Race to Zero Student Design Competition, a collegiate competition engaging university students to design zero energy ready homes. A zero energy ready home is a high-performance home that is so energy efficient it can offset all or most of its annual energy consumption with renewable energy. This significantly reduces a home's annual electricity costs while improving comfort, health, safety, and durability.

April 22, 2016

In an interview on Earth Day with Bloomberg TV’s Surveillance   Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz discussed a range of issues related to the Paris climate agreement. When asked if he thinks that Paris climate agreement will be ratified before President Obama’s term is up, Moniz said, “Today, as you have said, what we will see is the vast majority of countries signing on to the agreement. There is a second step that involves internal processes to denote acceptance. The United States and China have announced that both of us plan to reach that stage this year. So the answer is yes, we are going through the internal processes to reach acceptance this year.”

April 24, 2016

Arkansas News reports that Arkansas Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman said Friday they seek to kill a planned $2.5 billion energy transmission project by Clean Line Energy Partners across Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee by blocking DOE funding for it. Cotton and Boozman said that Thursday they filed a proposed amendment to a DOE appropriations bill that would block funding for all projects carried out under Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 including the proposed 705-mile Plains & Eastern Clean Line. Cotton and Boozman said in their release, “The Department of Energy’s decision to move forward with the Clean Line transmission project despite the objections of Arkansans is executive overreach at its worst.” Clean Line said in a statement Friday that the amendment “creates a hostile environment for private investment in Arkansas.”

April 25, 2016

The Washington Examiner reports the Obama Administration is interested “in trying to commercialize carbon capture,” which the Examiner says is “crucial to meeting the goals of the climate deal agreed to by President Obama in Paris in December.” US Chamber of Commerce Institute for 21st Century Energy vice president for federal affairs Dan Byers said carbon capture was a sensible option when natural gas prices were $10 a unit, but since natural gas prices have dropped to about $2 per unit, “it’s hard for us to envision [CCS] is economic under these low gas prices.” Byers concluded, “If it’s having that difficult a time under those situations, it’s only going to get tougher.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz “and the industry like to refer to ‘carbon capture utilization and storage,’ or CCUS, which is seen as the only version of the technology that can be made affordable enough to deploy.”

April 26, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration conducts the fifth experimental conventional explosion as part of its Source Physics Experiment (SPE) series. The SPE series, conducted at the Nevada National Security Site, improves the United States’ capability to detect and characterize underground nuclear explosions.

April 26, 2016

The Department awards more than $5 million to undergraduate and graduate students in pursuit of nuclear engineering degrees and other nuclear science and engineering programs relevant to nuclear energy. The awards include 57 undergraduate scholarships and 33 graduate-level fellowships for students at American colleges and universities.

April 26, 2016

At the Rural Energy Conference in Fairbanks, AK, the Department of Energy announces 13 recipients of Remote Alaska Communities Energy Efficiency (RACEE) technical assistance, and released its “Sustainable Energy Solutions for Rural Alaska” report. The RACEE Competition is a $4 million joint effort between DOE’s offices of Indian Energy (IE) and Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), focused on significantly accelerating efforts by remote Alaska communities to adopt sustainable energy strategies. During phase one, 64 communities pledged to reduce per-capita energy use by 15 percent by 2020 and were designated as Community Efficiency Champions, incorporating them into a peer network and making them eligible to apply for technical assistance to prepare implementation plans. DOE is providing $600,000 in funding to the Alaska Energy Authority to deliver technical assistance to 13 communities selected in Phase two of the RACEE Competition.

April 26, 2016

The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces up to $30 million in funding for a new program for technologies that use renewable energy to convert air and water into cost-competitive liquid fuels. ARPA-E’s Renewable Energy to Fuels through Utilization of Energy-dense Liquids (REFUEL) program seeks to develop technologies that use renewable energy to convert air and water into Carbon Neutral Liquid Fuels (CNLF), which can be stored, transported, and later converted into hydrogen or electricity to provide power for transportation. 

April 26, 2016

The Department recognizes six organizations for their leadership in replacing and upgrading rooftop units as part of the Better Buildings Alliance Rooftop Unit Campaign (ARC). Combined, these organizations in a single year have saved an estimated 1 trillion British thermal units (Btu) or more than $11 million on utility costs with efficient rooftop unit (RTU) replacements, retrofits, and quality management and operations. Since 2013, 250 ARC partners have upgraded 59,500 RTUs for a total energy savings of 10 trillion Btu, or $93 million in cost savings

April 27, 2016

E&E News PM reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz yesterday “outlined an effort to strengthen the role of the undersecretary for management and performance, whose office he established shortly after joining the president’s Cabinet in 2013, as part of a broad plan to reorganize the department.” The move “brought together DOE’s mission support functions...and sketched out new paths of authority and accountability.” E&E says “two and a half years later...Moniz’s action effectively paves those paths with cement, setting up a plan the department could use under the next president.” Moniz, in a memo to DOE staff, “announced operational and personnel changes that will ‘better enable [the office] to provide the cross-departmental operational leadership that I envisioned at the time it was established.’” The most important change “is the establishment of a five-person ‘DOE Operations Committee,’ chaired by Deputy Undersecretary David Klaus.”

April 27, 2016

Energy ministries from Canada, Mexico, and the United States announce that nine companies will join the North American Energy Management Pilot Program to promote implementation of the ISO 50001 international energy management system standard. 3M, ArcelorMittal, BMW, Cargill, Cummins, Ingersoll Rand, Intertape Polymer Group, New Gold, and Titan America will receive training and technical assistance to achieve ISO 50001 and Superior Energy Performance® (SEP™) certification. Their participating facilities consume the equivalent energy of over 1.2 million typical U.S. households annually. The energy and cost savings to these companies and the economy are significant, as the standard helps increase a company's return on investment while enhancing sustainability. The program will help these companies save money while reducing their energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

April 28, 2016

The AP reports Volkswagen CEO Matthias Mueller “says he apologized in person to US President Barack Obama for the carmaker’s emissions scandal, in which it rigged its cars to cheat on diesel engine pollution tests.” While speaking at Volkswagen’s annual news conference on Thursday, Mueller indicated he had a “two-minute” conversation with Obama in Hannover, Germany this week. Mueller said, “I took the opportunity to apologize to him personally for this matter.” Mueller added, according to the New York Times (4/28, Ewing, Subscription Publication, 14.18M), “I thanked him for the constructive cooperation with his officials. Of course I also expressed the hope that I will be able to continue to fulfill my responsibility to 600,000 employees and their families as well as suppliers and dealers.”

April 29, 2016

The Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation announce a collaboration to accelerate research, development, demonstration, and deployment of innovative smart transportation systems and alternative fuel technologies. The agencies formalized this collaborative relationship through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was unveiled yesterday at a symposium called Achieving Zero-Emission Mobility: The Role of Innovative Electric Vehicle Companies, hosted by the University of California Center on Economic Competitiveness in Transportation in Berkeley, California.

April 30, 2016

DOE participates in National PrepareAthon! Day, an opportunity for individuals, organizations, and communities to prepare for specific hazards through drills, group discussions, and exercises. The goals of the campaign are to help people understand which disasters could happen in their community, know what to do to be safe and mitigate damage, take action to increase their preparedness, and participate in community resilience planning. As a part of the National Response Framework (NRF), the Federal government established Emergency Support Functions that help the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) prepare for and respond to emergencies that affect the Nation. DOE is the lead agency for Emergency Support Function 12 – also known as ESF-12 – for Energy, when activated by FEMA. In the event of an emergency, we coordinate the response among Federal, State and local agencies, help facilitate the restoration of energy systems, and provide situational awareness. After a disaster strikes, ESF #12 and the energy community focus on ensuring critical infrastructure such as power plants, medical facilities, and response facilities have the energy supplies needed to operate. Earlier this month, we exercised our emergency response capabilities with our private and public partners. Conducting such exercises is vital to being prepared for the next disaster.

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May 2, 2016

As part of the Energy Department’s ongoing efforts to modernize the nation’s grid through the Grid Modernization Initiative, the Department announces $25 million in available funding through an effort called Enabling Extreme Real-Time Grid Integration of Solar Energy (ENERGISE) to help software developers, solar companies, and utilities accelerate the integration of solar energy into the grid.

May 3, 2016

E&E News PM reports that the Energy Department will discuss its plans for “long-term storage of nuclear waste in a Southern California meeting next month.” The meeting was requested by Rep. Darrell Issa, whose district is “home to the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.” DOE acting assistant secretary for nuclear energy, John Kotek, will speak at the June 22 meeting. The meeting will discuss “the Obama administration’s consent-based approach” to deciding the locations of interim and permanent storage sites. Issa asked the DOE last month to “hold a meeting to outline the financial costs and safety risks of storing nuclear waste at the San Onofre plant.”

May 3, 2016

Students from Montgomery Blair High School from Silver Spring, Md. win the 2016 U.S. Department of Energy National Science Bowl® in Washington D.C. This year's championship team in the middle school competition is Joaquin Miller Middle School from San Jose, Calif. Altogether, about 9,000 high school students and 5,100 middle school students from all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands participated in this year's regional competitions. In the high school competition, Montgomery Blair High School defeated Lynbrook High School from San Jose, Calif. by correctly answering the physics question, "Material A has a bulk modulus that is twice the bulk modulus of material B. If both A and B have the same densities, by what factor must the speed of sound in B be multiplied to find the speed of sound in A?" with the correct answer, "√2." The members of the winning high school team are Eric Lu, Arnold Mong, James Vinson, Alex Miao, and Elliot Kienzle, and they are coached by Tran Pham.

May 4, 2016

Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Dr. David Danielson announce the second round of funding for the Energy Department’s Technologist in Residence (TIR) program. At its core, the new program aims to strengthen lab-industry relationships to support industry needs and leverage the national lab network for strategic, long-term, collaborative R&D. Up to $2.3 million will support the Energy Department’s national laboratories in teaming up with manufacturing companies to tackle technical challenges of interest to the participating company or consortium.  Leveraging the expertise, resources and capabilities of the national labs—including one-of-a-kind analytical tools such as supercomputers—the program advances U.S. clean energy manufacturing competiveness and unleashes innovations that participating manufacturers can use to save energy, increase productivity, and commercialize high-impact technologies.

May 5, 2016

The Washington Examiner reports the White House “got firmly behind natural gas exports” yesterday “as key to boosting energy security and prosperity in Latin America.” Vice President Joe Biden, at the US-Caribbean-Central American Energy Summit, said, “We want you to be energy secure so more people across the region can … grow. ... The more you grow, the more you prosper, the better it is for my country.” He added there’s an “abundance of natural gas” due to the US shale boom, “which means our neighbors have access to cheaper energy.” But “critics say the administration has leaned more toward solar and wind when it comes to its energy policy because of the president’s focus on climate change in his last year in office.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who also addressed the summit, said DOE “is studying how to bring more natural gas to the Caribbean and the region.” Moniz stated, “Clearly we are a rather significant producer of natural gas.”

May 5, 2016

The Deseret (UT) News reports “the removal of 16 million tons of radioactive waste perched on the banks of the Colorado River near Moab” is over halfway finished, “but the work has slowed and the project is facing funding cuts.” Rep. Jason Chaffetz “said any reduction in federal spending to eliminate the ‘massive hazard’ is unacceptable, especially in light of the US Department of Energy’s request for more money to spend on headquarter operations.” In a letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Chaffetz wrote, “While projects in the field are suffering from budget cuts, headquarter operations in Washington, D.C., were increased nearly 80 percent in 2016 and the department is requesting an additional 8 percent increase for 2017.” The Utah Republican’s letter “noted the radioactive tailings, a legacy of the defunct Atlas uranium ore processing mill, pose a unique threat to downstream Colorado River users.”

May 5, 2016

President Obama welcomes more than 100 leading scientists and engineers from across the country (and around the world) to thank them for their work on some of the most challenging and complex issues in science and technology. These individuals, the latest recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), spent two days in Washington, D.C., meeting with Administration leaders and sharing the insights of their work. During his visit with these awardees, President Obama congratulated them on their achievements and urged them to continue to lead the way in driving discovery and innovation. He also noted that the recipients, all of whom are either employed or funded by the Federal government, underscored the importance of our Nation’s investments in research and development.

May 5, 2016

The Energy Department requests proposals for a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute as part of the Administration’s broader National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI), which drives collaboration between small- and medium-sized companies, academic institutions, industrial research organizations, and national laboratories. The Modular Chemical Process Intensification Institute — the fourth led by the Energy Department within the NNMI — represents a critical step in the Administration’s effort to double U.S. energy productivity by 2030. It will focus on developing breakthrough technologies to increase the energy efficiency of manufacturing processes used across an array of U.S. industries, including ethylene for plastics and biofuels used in sustainable transportation. Concept papers for this $70 million funding opportunity announcement are due June 15.

May 6, 2016

The Des Moines (IA) Register reports while at a forum on energy policies, markets and the grid in Iowa on Friday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz indicated “Energy security remains a top concern.” He said, “Energy security for the United States is not simply a national issue but an international issue,” highlighting the need for the US to reduce oil dependence and to also continue to develop alternative, renewable energy sources. In an interview with the Register, Secretary Moniz pointed toward the decline in coal-powered energy, the flexibility built into the Clean Power Plan, as well as the “lower carbon footprint” of ethanol based energy over that of natural gas.

May 6, 2016

Recognizing the importance of biofuels to energy and climate security, the Energy Department announces up to $90 million in project funding focused on designing, constructing and operating integrated biorefinery facilities. The production of biofuels from sustainable, non-food, domestic biomass resources is an important strategy to meet the Administration’s goals to reduce carbon emissions and our dependence on imported oil.

May 6, 2016

In support of National Small Business Week, the Energy Department announces 61 new projects led by small businesses in 25 states to develop clean energy technologies with a strong potential for commercialization and job creation. These award selections are for $150,000 each, totaling more than $9 million, and will help small businesses with promising ideas that could improve manufacturing processes, boost the efficiency of buildings, increase transportation sustainability, and generate electricity from renewable sources. Companies competing for these grants were encouraged to propose innovations to meet ambitious cost and performance targets. The small businesses receiving the awards are located in 25 states.

May 9, 2016

E&E News PM reports the Department of Energy moved this week to finalize the first-ever efficiency standards for battery chargers, “which would essentially extend California’s requirements to the rest of the country.” The final rule would take effect in 2018 and require new chargers to be about 11 percent more efficient. “It would save consumers up to $1.2 billion over 30 years and reduce energy use by 500 million kWh annually.”

May 9, 2016

The Y–12 National Security Complex announces it has completed disposition of 2,247 containers of mixed waste more than two years ahead of a September 2018 deadline. The waste removal was mandated by the Oak Ridge Reservation Site Treatment Plan through a State of Tennessee Department of Environmental and Conservation Commissioner’s order to the Department of Energy. The disposition of this material is part of a larger effort to dispose of legacy waste materials. Mixed waste is defined as material that consists of hazardous and radioactive waste.

May 9, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration achieves a major milestone in improving the management of the Nuclear Security Enterprise’s infrastructure through the successful migration of all current information on building inventory and condition into one system—BUILDER, a new cutting-edge infrastructure management tool recommended by the National Academy of Sciences. BUILDER, a Department of Defense-developed and government-owned system, will provide greater consistency and transparency on infrastructure management to NNSA leadership and external stakeholders. BUILDER will be fully implemented across the complex in FY 2018, laying the foundation for optimizing return on maintenance dollars across the entire enterprise.

May 9, 2016

The Department in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, and National Institute of Food and Agriculture award up to $10 million in funding, available through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI). With up to $3 million in available funding, DOE has selected two projects from Ohio State University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology that will receive between $1 million to $2 million. The USDA is funding five projects for a total of $7.3 million, and selections include the University of California-Riverside, the University of Montana, Missoula, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, the State University of New York, and Dartmouth College. Read more about USDA’s selections in the USDA announcement.

May 9, 2016

The Energy Department announces $14 million to dramatically increase the efficiency of our nation’s homes and buildings. These projects will cut energy costs for thousands of American families and businesses, while leading to greater demand for new building products and technologies, many of which can be produced in the U.S. Through the Commercial Buildings Integration program, the Energy Department will make six awards for up to $8.4 million to nationally scale-up replicable, energy-efficient solutions for small and medium office buildings, apartments, stores, restaurants, and businesses. In 2015, commercial buildings used nearly 20 percent of the nation’s total energy—more than half of which is consumed by small and medium buildings (under 100,000 square feet). These new partners will implement deep retrofit and workforce training programs, spur adoption of advanced energy-efficient technologies, and initiate efficiency programs for small businesses in low-income communities. The projects will improve the efficiency of at least 2,600 buildings nationwide, leverage almost $17 million in partner resources, and create nearly 500 jobs.

May 10, 2016

In an energy news roundup, the AP reports California lawmakers are throwing their support behind a plan to move radioactive waste from the state’s closed nuclear power plants to a storage site in West Texas after officials were unable to secure enough political support to relocate that waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The Texas site is owned by Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists, “which submitted a nuclear waste storage proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Council.” Opposition to the plan from Texas environmentalists “is beginning to take root, but Texas politicians have showed only limited concerns about the site.”

May 10-11, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration and the China National Energy Administration (NEA) hold the 11^th annual Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) meeting of the 1998 U.S.-China Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Technology (PUNT) Agreement at the Savannah River National Laboratory. The PUNT JCC is an annual meeting for the United States and China to manage and oversee bilateral technical cooperation carried out under the PUNT Agreement, a government-to-government mechanism established to support the civilian development of nuclear energy in both countries while addressing nuclear security, safety, nonproliferation, and environmental risks.

May 11, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro release Better Buildings Challenge partner results, announced three new focus areas in local communities, and highlighted overall signs of growth in the initiative’s reach and influence. Since 2011, both the number of Better Buildings Challenge partners and energy efficiency commitments have tripled, resulting in energy cost savings that now exceed the $1.3 billion mark and the avoidance of 10 million tons of harmful carbon emissions.  There are now 310 Better Buildings Challenge partners who are set to achieve goals of at least 20 percent energy reduction within 10 years. Together they represent 34,000 buildings and facilities, 4.2 billion square feet, and $5.5 billion dollars in energy efficiency investment. Latest reporting shows partners are on track, decreasing energy use on average by over two percent each year.

May 11, 2016

The Department’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) selects Pennsylvania State University as the lead institution to establish the University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research. The Coalition will bring together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from participating universities to address the fundamental research challenges that impede advancement of fossil energy-based technologies. Research performed by Coalition members will directly support the Office of Fossil Energy’s Coal and Oil and Gas programs by focusing efforts in a variety of pertinent areas that include, but are not limited to, advanced energy systems, carbon dioxide capture and storage, natural gas resources and infrastructure, and onshore and offshore oil and gas technology. The Coalition will facilitate basic and applied energy research and promote multidisciplinary collaboration among the member universities and NETL.

May 12, 2016

The AP reports that the Senate on Thursday approved a $37.5 billion measure to fund energy and water programs next year. Supporters said the measure, which funds DOE programs, “would strengthen US nuclear deterrence, promote energy security and improve flood-control projects nationwide.” The legislation also includes a pilot program to allow storage of nuclear waste at private facilities.

May 12, 2016

As part of the Energy Department's commitment to drive clean energy innovation and boost American industrial competitiveness, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Dr. David Danielson announce the launch of the Manufacturing Innovation through Energy and Commerce (MITEC) pilot in four states—Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, and Virginia. The program will provide small businesses access to the advanced tools, technology transfer expertise, and research capabilities of the Energy Department's national laboratories and to the technical assistance and business development resources of the Department of Commerce's Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), which is a program within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

May 16, 2016

The Department announces up to $10 million in funding for six projects representing innovative technologies and solutions to advance bioenergy development. These projects, located in Arizona, California, North Carolina, Delaware, and Illinois, will support the Bioenergy Technologies Office's (BETO) work to develop renewable and cost-competitive biofuels from non-food biomass feedstocks by reducing the technical risk associated with potentially breakthrough approaches and technologies for investors. This funding will also support the development of a more robust bioeconomy, which can create green jobs, spur innovation, improve the environment, and achieve national energy security.

May 17, 2016

The Energy Department announces five additional military bases will join Solar Ready Vets, a solar jobs training program that prepares service members for careers in the solar industry when they leave active duty. The Department is also awarding $10 million to 10 new projects through its Solar Training and Education for Professionals (STEP) funding program, which was created to help meet the solar industry’s growing demand for well-qualified, highly skilled installers and other industry-related professionals.

May 17, 2016

The Hill reports the Energy Department “is expanding its training program for veterans looking to enter the solar power industry.” Officials said yesterday that “five new military bases” will be a part of the Solar Ready Vets program, which trains “veterans and outgoing service members for jobs in the solar sector.” In addition, DOE announced that “ten solar training projects will split $10 million in grants” from the agency. In a statement Deputy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall said, “At DOE, we are committed to training the solar workforce of the future through our partnership with the Department of Defense, the solar industry, and community colleges around the country.”

May 18, 2016

The Energy Department releases the On the Path to SunShot reports, a series of eight research papers examining the state of the U.S. solar energy industry and the progress made to date toward the SunShot Initiative’s goal to make solar energy cost-competitive with other forms of electricity by 2020. The solar industry is currently about 70 percent of the way towards achieving the Initiative’s 2020 goals, but as solar has become more affordable, helping the industry grow by an astonishing 23-fold since the beginning of the Obama Administration, new challenges and opportunities have emerged.

May 19, 2016

The Energy Department convenes a summit on Improving the Economics of America’s Nuclear Power Plants. Secretary Moniz, Members of Congress, stakeholders, and experts discussed potential solutions to address the unique challenges facing the nuclear industry in the United States, including early plant retirements. Nuclear energy currently makes up 60 percent of the United States’ non-carbon emitting energy portfolio. The U.S. nuclear fleet is a key component of our nation’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent below its 2005 level in 2025

May 20, 2016

The Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announces the city of San Francisco has been selected as the first Climate Action Champion to pursue hydrogen and fuel cell technologies for local transportation, in addition to new analysis projects by Strategic Analysis, Inc. The nearly $4.75 million in funding for both efforts will go towards the development of education and outreach programs to increase the deployment of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and hydrogen infrastructure, as well as provide detailed cost analyses for hydrogen fuel cell systems, hydrogen storage, and hydrogen production and delivery technologies. Today's selections were announced by Deputy Assistant Secretary Reuben Sarkar during a meeting in Berkeley, California of the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells in the Economy, a government partnership of 17 countries and the European Commission coordinating activities in hydrogen and fuel cells.

May 22, 2016

Bloomberg BNA reports that at a summit on May 19 titled “Improving the Economics of America’s Nuclear Power Plants,” Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz “called the growing number of closures of nuclear reactors in competitive, deregulated markets a ‘huge problem.’” Moniz said, “The importance to incentivizing continued operation [of nuclear plants], I think, is very clear, but the solutions are less clear.” The summit “featured presentations by members of the nuclear industry, lawmakers and officials from the DOE and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.” Moniz said that there’s an urgency to save “existing nuclear plants as a carbon-free energy source to meet state renewable energy standards and the Clean Power Plan initiative.” Participants at the summit “debated how nuclear power should be valued in the wholesale electric markets today.”

May 23, 2016

The AP reports President Obama signed legislation altering federal law in order to remove “outdated and offensive terms used to describe minority groups.” The AP specifically mentions the Department of Energy Organization Act, explaining that in it the terms “Negro” and “Oriental” will be replaced by “African American” and “Asian American” respectively.

May 23, 2016

The Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces $31 million in funding for 14 projects as part of ARPA-E’s newest program: Single-Pane Highly Insulating Efficient Lucid Design (SHIELD). SHIELD project teams are developing innovative window coatings and windowpanes that could significantly improve the energy efficiency of existing single-pane windows in commercial and residential buildings.

May 24, 2016

The Energy Department announces four research and development (R&D) projects in California, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming that will receive up to $4 million in total funding to assess the occurrence of rare-earth minerals and other critical materials that may be dissolved in higher-temperature fluids associated with energy extraction. Critical materials like rare-earth elements and lithium play a vital role in many clean energy technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and energy-efficient lighting. More of these materials—which are of high value or critical to U.S. businesses and other national interests—may become available and economically recoverable through this research.

May 25, 2016

The AP reports that the House “has reversed itself and approved a measure aimed at upholding an executive order that bars discrimination against LGBT employees by federal contractors.” Openly gay Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney attached the measure to a funding bill for the Energy Department after “several Republicans rethought their opposition.”

May 25, 2016

The AP reports, “The House has voted to bar the US government from future purchases of heavy water from Iran, undercutting the controversial nuclear pact with that nation and earning a certain veto threat on a key government funding bill” covering the Energy Department. Last month, the Administration completed an $8.6 million purchase of Iranian heavy water.

May 26, 2016

Atomic City Underground reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz yesterday “released an assessment report of the US participation in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, and he recommends that the US continue its role in the project [that] has struggled with schedules and costs.” He “cited recent improvements on several fronts at the project,” which is being built in Cadarache, France, “but also acknowledged the ongoing issues that must be addressed and reevaluated a couple of years down the road.” American involvement in the project is based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Moniz stated, “ITER remains the best candidate today to demonstrate sustained burning plasma, which is a necessary precursor to demonstrating fusion energy power. Having fully assessed the facts regarding the U.S. contributions to the ITER project, I recommend that the U.S. remain a partner in the ITER project through FY 2018 and focus on efforts related to First Plasma.”

May 26, 2016

E&E Publishing reports a “strategic crude stockpile in Southeast Texas was off limits for five weeks after a corroded saltwater pipeline ruptured” last month. The accident “at the Big Hill Strategic Petroleum Reserve blasted a briny geyser of Gulf of Mexico water that swamped a swath of the 275-acre property.” DOE “insists it could have cut the five-week repair time in half if there were an emergency requiring a withdrawal from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.” The pipeline rupture “highlights bipartisan warnings from Capitol Hill about decaying infrastructure that supports the national oil bank.” Sen. Lisa Murkowski has promised “to press DOE for answers after seeing the video of the SPR geyser.” The Obama Administration has not “been shy about asking for funding to upgrade the SPR.” Last year, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told a Senate panel that while SPR is the “nation’s most central energy security asset,” it needs a significant life extension, and yet routine maintenance is regularly deferred.

May 26, 2016

USA Today reports on “a convoluted late-night dance that allowed Democrats to add gay rights protections to an energy spending bill,” only to have “Republicans and Democrats” vote “together to kill the underlying bill.” The “stumble on the House floor on a bill that was not expected to be this controversial...will send House leaders back to the drawing board to resurrect the bill that funds a broad array of energy and water programs.” The New York Times says “the bill’s failure, by a vote of 305 to 112, portends another difficult year for spending legislation and raises questions over whether the ambitions of the new House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, will yield any significant results.”

May 26, 2016

The Department issues a Draft Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Los Alamos Legacy Cleanup Contract (LLCC) acquisition. A contract that primarily includes cost-plus-award-fee contract line items for the purpose of continuing the legacy cleanup mission is anticipated. The Draft RFP provides for full and open competition, and the Draft RFP includes requirements for meaningful work to be performed by small business concerns. The total estimated value of the contract is approximately $1.7B over the prospective ten-year period of performance, including option periods.

May 26, 2016

The Department's Better Buildings Initiative announces a partnership with CoStar Group, Inc., a provider of data and intelligence solutions to commercial real estate professionals, to expand the visibility of energy-efficient buildings in U.S. property markets and promote the benefits of energy efficiency for building owners and occupants.

May 27, 2016

Following more than 10 years of struggle through political and engineering hurdles by Cleveland Foundation President and CEO Ronn Richard, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp (LEEDCo) has been awarded $40 million by the DOE “to build a six-turbine pilot wind farm in Lake Erie by the end of 2018.” Provided LEEDCo is able to meet all “engineering, permitting and construction goals set by the DOE,” they will receive the grant in three installments of $13.3 million each. House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee member Marcy Kaptor said, “There is something that will be born here that is larger than this installation. What will be born is the concept of a new grid, not just for this region but for the entire Great Lakes.”

May 27, 2016

The Department of Energy and General Motors Co. crown The Ohio State University this year’s winner of the EcoCAR 3 – Advanced Vehicle Technology Competition during an awards ceremony at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. This is the second stage of an ongoing 4-year competition that culminates in 2018. Ohio State took first place last year, and in the final year of EcoCAR 2, making this the third consecutive win for the team.

May 31, 2016

At the fifth annual Clean Energy Education & Empowerment (C3E) Women in Clean Energy Symposium today, nine distinguished women across multiple disciplines are honored for outstanding leadership and accomplishments in clean energy. The Symposium is being held at Stanford University and is hosted by the Department of Energy, MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), and Stanford University Precourt Institute for Energy. Dr. Sarah Kurtz, a Research Fellow with the National Center for Photovoltaics and a Principal Scientist at the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), will receive the C3E Lifetime Achievement award. Eight other women will receive awards in the categories of advocacy, business, education, entrepreneurship, government, international, law and finance, and research. The winners were nominated and selected by the U.S. C3E Ambassadors.

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June 2, 2016

 Politico reports the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report saying “hurricane damage will ‘increase significantly in the coming decades’ due to climate change.” The CBO added that humans are contributing to the increasing temperatures. The report said, “Human activities around the world – primarily the burning of fossil fuels and widespread changes in land use – are producing growing emissions of greenhouse gases.” The report also provided recommendations for policymakers that could help decrease the costs of hurricane damage, such as a “coordinated effort to significantly reduce global emissions.”

June 2, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz hosts 23 governments and the European Union for the seventh Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM7) and the inaugural Mission Innovation (MI) Ministerial. At CEM7, three new global campaigns are launched:  the Advanced Cooling Challenge, the Energy Management Campaign, and the Corporate Sourcing of Renewables Campaign. The countries also agreed to launch a new phase of collaboration - “CEM 2.0.” In a second ministerial meeting also in San Francisco, the 20 Mission Innovation partners welcomed the European Union as the 21^st member, and all members released their respective baseline investment and doubling plans. Collectively, the MI partners committed to double nearly $15 billion per year in baseline funding for global public investment in clean energy research and development, reaching just under a combined total of $30 billion per year by 2021.

June 3, 2016

In support of the objectives of the 7th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) and inaugural Mission Innovation Ministerial in San Francisco, the Honourable Jim Carr, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, Pedro Joaquín Coldwell, Mexico’s Secretary of Energy, and Dr. Ernest Moniz, United States’ Secretary of Energy, review their cooperative efforts underway to foster sustainable energy development, address climate change, and encourage economic growth. The Clean Energy Ministerial and first official Mission Innovation Ministerial come just over one hundred days after Secretary Moniz, Minister Carr, and Secretary Joaquín Coldwell met in Winnipeg and signed the Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Climate Change and Energy Collaboration.

June 3, 2016

The Department announces the selection of two projects that will test emerging enhanced water recovery (EWR) technologies for their potential to produce useable water from carbon dioxide (CO2) storage sites. The two projects were competitively selected from the five Brine Extraction Storage Test (BEST) projects awarded in September 2015. The purpose of BEST field projects are to develop and validate engineering strategies and approaches for managing formation pressure, as well as plume movement in the subsurface, through brine extraction. The field projects will also help to find cost effective ways to treat extracted brines in order to generate a usable water supply and support DOE’s objectives to improve water management and conservation for power generation, hydrocarbon production, and industrial processes; particularly in regions where water resources are scarce.

June 3, 2016

The U. S. and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announce the intention to establish an international consortium to promote the research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycles. The announcement underscores the commitment by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to increase government funding for clean energy technologies under the Mission Innovation Initiative unveiled during last year’s climate negotiations in Paris. Mission Innovation represents a landmark commitment by the U.S. and 19 other countries to double clean energy research and development (R&D) investment to tackle global climate change, provide affordable clean energy to consumers, and to create additional commercial opportunities in the clean energy economy. 

June 6, 2016

The Energy Department announces $22 million to support research, development, and demonstration of innovative plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) and direct injection propane engine technologies, as well as community-based projects to accelerate the adoption of light, medium, and heavy duty vehicles that operate on fuels such as biodiesel, electricity, E85, hydrogen, natural gas, and propane. DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy seeks cost-shared projects across three areas of sustainable transportation technologies. A new "plug-in electric drive vehicle program" focuses on research, development, and demonstration of medium and heavy duty PEVs, from class 3 to 7, including vehicles that can use their onboard energy storage to provide power to electrical loads external to the vehicle. Once adopted by the market, these vehicles will significantly reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Also, DOE seeks cost-shared projects for the research, development, and demonstration of direct injection propane engines for on-highway vehicles that could result in substantial reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

June 6, 2016

A shipment of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)’s Fast Critical Assembly (FCA) reactor arrives safely at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., and Y-12 National Security Complex near Oak Ridge, Tenn.

June 10, 2016

The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces up to $25 million in funding for a new program focused on creating innovative components to increase the energy efficiency of datacenters. ARPA-E’s ENergy-efficient Light-wave Integrated Technology Enabling Networks that Enhance Datacenters (ENLITENED) program seeks to double datacenter energy efficiency by using innovative data-communications network designs and methods.

June 10, 2016

Building on the new commitments to the Global Lighting Challenge announced last week during the Clean Energy Ministerial, the Energy Department announces funding for nine research and development projects that will support solid-state lighting (SSL) core technology research, product development, and manufacturing research and development. The projects will help accelerate the development of high-quality light-emitting diode (LED) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting products that can significantly reduce energy costs for American families and businesses by using less electricity than products currently in use and ensure that the U.S. remains globally competitive.

June 10, 2016

At the third-annual SelectUSA Summit in Washington, DC, before an audience of business leaders, economic development officials, and investors from around the world, President Obama announces that the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) will lead the new Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute, in partnership with the Department of Energy. The winning coalition, headquartered in Los Angeles, California brings together a consortium of nearly 200 partners from across academia, industry, and non-profits—hailing from more than thirty states—to spur advances in smart sensors and digital process controls that can radically improve the efficiency of U.S. advanced manufacturing.

June 13, 2016

Through the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN), the Department is providing up to $2 million for the Nuclear Energy Voucher pilot program. The goal of the program is to assist new entrants into the nuclear field as they build the collaborations necessary to accelerate the development and deployment of innovative nuclear technologies by granting them access to the extensive nuclear research capabilities available at DOE’s national laboratories and Nuclear Science User Facilities (NSUF) partners

June 13, 2016

The Casper (WY) Star-Tribune reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, at the annual gathering of the Western Governors’ Association, “pledged support Monday for clean coal research, saying fossil fuels would continue to play a role in the country’s energy mix.” He said, “Fossil fuel use, nuclear, along with renewables and efficiency, will all remain prominent in our portfolio.” Moniz also referenced “the DOE’s loan guarantee program, saying it is ‘open for business’ and would provide funding for major fossil-fuel-based projects.” However, coal supporters are skeptical, arguing “the administration has showered renewables with more money than fossil fuels.”

June 13, 2016

CNBC reports the Department of Energy plans to invest more than $10 million in nine research and development projects on “efficient lighting.” Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz said in a statement, “Solid-state lighting research and development has contributed to more than $2.8 billion in US energy cost savings over the past 15 years, and further improvements in the technology will increase those savings even more in the years to come.” He added, “By 2030, solid-state lighting could reduce national lighting electricity use by nearly half—which would equate to the total energy consumed by 24 million American homes today and could save American families and businesses $26 billion annually.”

June 14, 2016

The Department of Energy announces over $82 million in nuclear energy research, facility access, crosscutting technology development, and infrastructure awards in 28 states. In total, 93 projects were selected to receive funding that will help push innovative nuclear technologies toward commercialization and into the market. These awards provide funding for nuclear energy-related research through the Nuclear Energy University Program, Nuclear Science User Facilities, and Nuclear Energy Enabling Technology programs. In addition to financial support, a number of recipients will receive technical and regulatory assistance through the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) initiative.

June 15, 2016

The Hill reports Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz says the Department of Energy plans to offer its supercomputers to help the Cancer Moonshot initiative being led by Vice President Joe Biden. Moniz serves on the task force for the initiative and said, “These exceptionally high-powered machines have the potential to greatly accelerate the development of cancer therapies by finding patterns in massive data sets too large for human analysis.”

June 16, 2016

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz releases the following statement regarding the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) moving their secretariat to the International Energy Agency (IEA) from the Department of Energy: “Early this month, energy ministers and other high-level delegates from 23 countries and the European Union met at CEM7 in San Francisco. The commitments made there demonstrate how the United States and our global partners can expand clean energy deployment and cut global carbon emissions while driving economic growth.”

June 18, 2016

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports the DOE is exploring the use of drones to respond to nuclear emergencies, with a focus on the nimbler Sandstorm, which contains “radiation detection sensors and optical imagery gear.” According to the Review-Journal, these new drones, developed by Henderson-based Unmanned Systems Inc., “are more maneuverable” and have a “retractable nose gear and pneumatic brakes.” In order to protect pilots, the National Nuclear Security Administration is seeking to add the drones to its “fleet of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.”

June 19, 2016

Forbes reports the DOE this month quietly released a new report titled “Draft Vision and Strategy for the Development and Deployment of Advanced Reactors,” detailing their plan to “double American’s nuclear capacity, not only with the small modular reactors championed by Secretaries Ernest Moniz and Steven Chu,” but advanced reactors not reliant on water for cooling. The report details its vision as have advanced reactors generate a significant amount of the nuclear energy produced both at home and globally by the year 2050. Argonne National Laboratory Engineering Analysis Department manager Tanju Sofu said, “I don’t think you can come up with a viable, clean electricity scenario without nuclear playing a role in that.”

June 19, 2016

The AP reports, in continuing coverage, that the Department of Energy recently contributed $20 million toward the effort by the University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research, which includes the University of Wyoming, MIT, Princeton, and Texas A&M. Richard Horner, deputy director of emerging projects and technology at the UW School of Energy Resources, said, “The three originating areas to focus on all relate to carbon management, carbon storage and coal conversion.”

June 20, 2016

At the third-annual SelectUSA Summit in Washington, DC, before an audience of business leaders, economic development officials, and investors from around the world, President Obama announces that the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition (SMLC) will lead the new Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute, in partnership with the Department of Energy. The winning coalition, headquartered in Los Angeles, California brings together a consortium of nearly 200 partners from across academia, industry, and non-profits—hailing from more than thirty states—to spur advances in smart sensors and digital process controls that can radically improve the efficiency of U.S. advanced manufacturing.

June 20, 2016

The Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Energy Storage Systems Program, through the support of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) and in collaboration with many stakeholders and interested parties, announce they have developed and published a protocol (i.e., pre-standard) for measuring and expressing the performance characteristics for energy storage systems (ESS) in 2012. The protocol has served as the basis for formal standards being developed by U.S. standards development organizations (SDO) and international standards through the International Electrotechnical Commission. The access to such a protocol or pre standard by any SDO significantly reduces the time it can take to develop and process formal consensus standards. In addition, until formal standards are completed and published, such a protocol provides a ‘benchmark’ for addressing ESS performance. This fills a gap that, if left unfilled, presents a challenge to anyone interested in uniformly and accurately assessing ESS performance and comparing systems.

June 21, 2016

The Energy Department announces $23 million in funding for 23 new projects led by small businesses to further develop clean energy technologies with a strong potential for commercialization and job creation. These Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) awards for $1 million each over the next two years will help small businesses advance their promising concepts that improve manufacturing processes, boost the efficiency of buildings, increase transportation sustainability, and generate electricity from renewable sources.

Most of the projects that have advanced into Phase II were previously selected for Phase I funding in 2015. Twenty-three of those projects were selected based on scientific and technical merit, as well as the commercial potential of the project proposed to continue their research and development. The 23 small businesses receiving the awards are located in 13 states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington. See the full list of projects.

June 21, 2016

The Department of Energy announces nearly $16 million in funding to help businesses move promising energy technologies from DOE’s National Laboratories to the marketplace. This first Department-wide round of funding through the Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) will support 54 projects at 12 national labs involving 52 private-sector partners.

June 22, 2016

The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability announces it has released its Year-in-Review: 2015 Energy Infrastructure Events and Expansions report. This report, which provides a summary of significant energy disruptions and infrastructure changes that occurred in the United States in 2015, is based primarily on information reported in the Energy Assurance Daily. While the focus is on the United States, major international events that had an impact on global energy markets are also reported. The Year-in-Review: 2015 Energy Infrastructure Events and Expansions report is now available for downloading.

June 22, 2016

The Hill reports that on Wednesday almost “two dozen environmental groups” urged senators to not work “with the House on an energy policy reform bill this session.” The groups in a letter to senators said the bill passed in the House “undermines the progress our nation needs” on energy policy. The groups “said the Senate should not vote to go to conference with the House so long as policies they oppose are included in the bill.”

June 22, 2016

Dan Ton, Program Manager of Smart Grid R&D in the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, co-authors an article entitled “Grid Resilience to Natural Disasters: Challenges and Opportunities Lie Ahead”. The article, which appears in the June 2016 issue of IEEE SmartGrid Newsletter, discusses forecast models, hardening and resilience optimization, power system restoration issues, and interdependence among different infrastructure assets.  Other authors of the article are Yezhou Wang with Castleton Commodities International and Jianhui Wang, Section Lead for Advanced Power Grid Modeling at the Energy Systems Division at Argonne National Laboratory.  The article is now available HERE.

June 22, 2016

Materials from the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability peer review of its Reliability & Markets Program, held on June 9-10, 2016 in Arlington, VA, are now available for downloading. The Reliability and Markets activity of OE’s Transmission Reliability Program researches, develops, and implements infrastructure to ensure electric reliability while improving the efficiency and economics of market operations. 

June 23, 2016

The Department selects 10 research projects to empower small businesses to develop technologies that allow for the nation to more wisely and efficiently use our vast fossil energy resources and sustain economic growth. The projects are funded under the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs for the fiscal year 2016 SBIR/STTR Phase II Release 2 funding opportunity announcements through the DOE's Office of Science. The SBIR program increases private-sector commercialization of innovations derived from Federal research and development (R&D). STTR simulates and fosters scientific innovation and technology transfer through cooperative research and development carried out between small business concerns and research institutions.

June 23, 2016

The Energy Department announces it is requesting proposals for a new Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute focused on improving technologies and processes to achieve cost parity of recycled and waste materials with primary feedstocks, while improving material efficiency in manufacturing processes. Through our funding opportunity titled "Reducing EMbodied energy And Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) in Materials Manufacturing," the REMADE in America Institute will enable the development and widespread deployment of key industrial platform technologies that will dramatically reduce life-cycle energy consumption and carbon emissions associated with industrial-scale materials production and processing by creating new technologies for reuse, recycling, and remanufacturing of materials. Solving this enormous and currently unmet challenge could reduce energy usage in the U.S. manufacturing sector by up to 6%, saving billions in energy costs, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and improving U.S. manufacturing competiveness.

June 24, 2016

The Department announces $68.4 million for cost-shared research and development (R&D) projects that will help to secure the safe and permanent storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) during carbon capture and storage (CCS) operations. Funding is subject to the availability of appropriations. DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy, under two funding opportunity announcements (FOA), seeks cost-shared projects that will determine the feasibility of developing onshore and/or offshore geologic storage complexes capable of cumulatively accepting commercial-scale (50+ million metric tons) volumes of CO2.

June 27, 2016

The Energy Department announces the results of this year’s Better Buildings Alliance technology and market campaigns. Through partnerships with public and private sector organizations, the Department is working with interested landlords, tenants, and owners to adopt solutions that best meet the needs of their buildings for sustainable leasing and upgrades to indoor lighting. There are now over 160 participants and supporters in the Interior Lighting Campaign (ILC) and 40 Green Lease Leaders. Together these leading organizations continue to prove how novel thinking and innovative technologies can rapidly cut the energy wasted by the nation’s commercial buildings, including offices, hospitals, restaurants, retail stores, and even military bases.

June 27, 2016

The White House says that when the President, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto meet at the “Three Amigos” summit in Ottawa on Wednesday, they will “pledge to have their countries produce 50 percent of their power by 2025 from hydropower, wind, solar and nuclear plants, carbon capture and storage, as well as from energy efficiency measures,” Reuters reports. The Washington Post calls the commitment “an aggressive target given the reliance by the United States and Mexico on fossil fuels for much of their electricity supply.” Likewise, White House senior adviser Brian Deese called it “‘an aggressive goal’ but one that ‘is achievable continent-wide.’” NPR reports aides admit that the goal is a “stretch goal,” that requires “commitments over and above what the three countries agreed to as part of the Paris climate agreement.” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said, “We do ambitious well here at the White House.”

June 28, 2016

Scientists at the Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators report they have altered the lignin in aspen trees in a way that increases access to biofuel building blocks without inhibiting plant growth. Their research, described in Nature Communications, resulted in an almost 50 percent increase in ethanol yield from healthy aspen trees whose woody biomass released 62 percent more simple sugars than native plants.

June 29, 2016

The Department’s Carlsbad Field Office awards a $6.8 million, five-year cooperative agreement to the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department (NMEMNRD) for the coordination of activities with participating state agencies that ensure the safe transportation of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).

June 29, 2016

The Department ‘s Carlsbad Field Office renews the cooperative agreement with the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) by extending the project period five years to June 30, 2021. The five-year renewal is estimated at $9M. Through the cooperative agreement, the DOE and WGA work together to coordinate shipment routes and provide training to safety officials for transportation of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). The cooperative agreement supports the WIPP Transportation Safety Program.

June 30, 2016

The Department issues a Final Request for Proposal (RFP) for liquid waste services at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The Final RFP primarily includes cost-plus-award-fee contract line items for the purpose of providing liquid waste services at SRS. The Final RFP provides for full and open competition, and includes requirements for meaningful work to be performed by small business concerns. The total estimated value of the contract is approximately $4-6 billion over the prospective period of performance of up to ten years, including the option period.

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July 1, 2016

The Washington Post reports that despite holding two days of meetings in Beijing, energy ministers representing the Group of 20 major economies “failed to reach agreement on a deadline to phase out hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies for fossil fuels” despite efforts US and Chinese officials and 200 nongovernmental organizations, who “urged” G-20 members to phase out “all fossil fuel subsidies by 2020, starting with the elimination of all subsidies for fossil fuel exploration and coal production.” US Energy Secretary Moniz “said the G-20 had not agreed on a specific timeline to eliminate subsidies but said the United States believed that by 2025 or 2030, ‘we’d like to see very substantial progress.’” However, Moniz told reporters that “within the G-20 there are different views on how fast and how aggressive one can be on [subsidy reduction].”

July 1, 2016

The Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site (REAC/TS) celebrates its 40th anniversary on Thursday with a luncheon, panel discussion, and tours of its Oak Ridge facility, which originally opened its doors in July 1976. Director of NNSA’s Consequence Management Program, Dr. Dan Blumenthal, spoke at the event. As part of the luncheon, Roger Cloutier, Jack Beck, and Jim Berger, who were pivotal in the establishment of the facility, participated in a panel discussion. They addressed questions regarding how REAC/TS was conceived, how it has supported medical response for major radiation accidents and incidents through the years, such as Chernobyl (1986), Goiania, Brazil (1987), and Fukushima (2011), and how it continues to provide one-on-one consultation to calls from the general public.

July 1, 2016

The Department announces it has awarded a grant of approximately $3 million to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) to support ongoing oversight and monitoring of the environmental cleanup at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Site in south central Ohio.

July 4, 2016

The Wall Street Journal reports that on Monday oil prices rose as the fallout from Brexit began to subside normal factors returned to the market. September cargoes for Brent crude were up 0.47% at $50.58 a barrel while August deliveries of WTI rose 0.54% at $50.62. Global Risk Management analyst Michael Poulsen said that the sentiment is a positive one. He added that OPEC and Saudi Arabian officials said that the global oil market will soon return to a proper balance. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz expressed similar beliefs on Friday when he said that the markets would balance out by next year.

July 5, 2016

A microbial partnership thriving in an acidic hot spring in Yellowstone National Park surrenders some of its lifestyle secrets to researchers at the Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Mircea Podar of ORNL’s Biosciences Division has led a team that isolated the archaeon Nanopusillus acidilobi, cultured these tiny microbes – just 100 to 300 billionths of a meter in size – and can now study how they interact with their host, another archaeon (Acidilobus). The relationships between these two organisms, detailed in a paper published in Nature Communications, can serve as a valuable model to study the evolution and mechanisms of more complex systems.

July 6, 2016

The Energy Department's offices of Nuclear Energy (NE) and Environmental Management (EM) announce they are co-funding a new traineeship program in radiochemistry at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman. The five-year cooperative agreement will train graduate students in disciplines aligned with the Department's science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce needs in radiochemistry.

July 6, 2016

The Energy Department announces more than $13 million in funding for the advancement of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. These selected projects will leverage industry, university and laboratory expertise to accelerate American innovation in advanced hydrogen storage and fuel cell performance and durability. In 2016, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy established two collaborative research consortia, each comprising a core team of DOE national laboratories, with plans to add industry and university partners. Led by Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Fuel Cell Consortium for Performance and Durability (FC-PAD) focuses on improving fuel cell performance and durability. Projects selected through this consortium will work to decrease the amount of platinum required and increase the performance and durability of transportation fuel cells, thereby decreasing cost and improving the life of fuel cell electric vehicles

July 12, 2016

Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall announces new funding to strengthen and protect the nation’s electric grid from cyber and physical attacks. The Energy Department will provide up to $15 million, subject to congressional appropriations, to support efforts by the American Public Power Association (APPA) and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) to further enhance the culture of security within their utility members’ organizations.

July 12, 2016

The Department announces up to $14 million in funding for the advancement of hydrogen fuel technologies. Specifically, these selections include advanced high-temperature water splitting, advanced compression, and thermal insulation technologies. These projects will accelerate American innovation in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies by supporting research and development and domestic manufacturing.

July 12, 2016

At the 2016 Solar Conference in San Francisco, Office of Indian Energy Director Chris Deschene introduces the hundreds of solar industry enthusiasts, developers, and investors in attendance to an emerging opportunity that may not have been on their radars: renewable energy development on tribal lands. The opportunity he spoke of is also featured prominently in the Summer 2016 issue of SOLAR TODAY.

July 13, 2016

The Department of Energy issues a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to BWXT Conversion Services, LLC (BWCS) for violations of DOE worker safety and health requirements.  DOE’s enforcement program holds contractors accountable for meeting regulatory requirements and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace. The violations are associated with the inadvertent release of potassium hydroxide (KOH) that resulted in injuries to two workers at Portsmouth DUF6 Conversion Plant in Piketon, Ohio on March 25, 2015.  The PNOV cites four Severity Level I violations and three Severity Level II violations of requirements enforceable under Title 10 C.F.R. Part 851, Worker Safety and Health Program.  BWCS is cited for violations in the areas of: (1) management responsibilities, (2) hazard identification and assessment, (3) hazard prevention and abatement, (4) training and information, (5) recordkeeping and reporting, (6) lockout/tagout (LOTO), and (7) emergency response and occupational medicine.

July 14, 2016

A team of hundreds of physicists and astronomers announce results from the largest-ever, three-dimensional map of distant galaxies. The team constructed this map to make one of the most precise measurements yet of the dark energy currently driving the accelerated expansion of the universe. These new measurements were carried out by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) program of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III. Shaped by a continuous tug-of-war between dark matter and dark energy, the map revealed by BOSS allows scientists to measure the expansion rate of the Universe and thus determine the amount of matter and dark energy that make up the present-day Universe. A collection of papers describing these results was submitted this week to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. “We’ve made the largest map for studying the 95% of the universe that is dark,” noted David Schlegel, an astrophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and principal investigator for BOSS. “In this map, we can see galaxies being gravitationally pulled towards other galaxies by dark matter. And on much larger scales, we see the effect of dark energy ripping the universe apart.”

July 14, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz issues a statement on the anniversary of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which begins: "One year ago, the P5+1, the European Union and the Islamic Republic of Iran announced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a historic deal to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is – and will remain – a peaceful one, or that the international community will have more than enough time to respond if Iran’s program proves otherwise. After years of negotiations and months of preparations for the implementation of the JCPOA, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) certified that Iran completed all the necessary nuclear steps required to reach Implementation Day in January. Today, it is clear that the JCPOA has blocked Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon.”

July 14, 2016

The Energy Department announces up to $15 million for three projects aimed at reducing the production costs of algae-based biofuels and bioproducts through improvements in algal biomass yields. These projects will develop highly productive algal cultivation systems and couple those systems with effective, energy-efficient, and low-cost harvest and processing technologies. This funding will advance the research and development of advanced biofuel technologies to speed the commercialization of renewable, domestically produced, and affordable fossil-fuel replacements. The three projects selected, located in California and Florida, will include multi-disciplinary partners to coordinate improvements from algal strain advancements through pre-processing technologies (harvesting, dewatering, and downstream processing) to biofuel intermediate in order to reduce the production costs of algal biofuels and bioproducts.

July 15, 2016

The Energy Department announces it is investing $19 million to improve the efficiency of our nation’s homes, offices, schools, hospitals, restaurants and stores. These projects will develop advanced building technologies that will help American consumers and businesses save money on their utility bills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create jobs. Buildings are the largest energy consumer in the nation—accounting for more than 40 percent of the nation’s total energy demand and greenhouse emissions, and resulting in an annual energy bill totaling $430 billion. On average, nearly a third of this energy is wasted. It’s estimated that if the U.S. reduced energy use in buildings by 20 percent, the nation could save nearly $80 billion annually on energy bills.

July 18, 2016

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announces up to $40 million in awards for four new Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to support the Department of Energy’s environmental management and nuclear cleanup mission. The four centers will be led respectively by Florida State University, Ohio State University, the University of South Carolina and DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

July 19, 2016

The Obama Administration announces a new cross government partnership – the Clean Energy Savings For All Initiative – between the Departments of Energy , Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Agriculture (USDA), Health and Human Services (HHS), Veteran’s Affairs (VA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to increase access to solar energy and promote energy efficiency across the United States and, in particular in low- and moderate- income communities. Through the Clean Energy Savings for All Initiative, the Administration will work to ensure that every household has options to choose to go solar and put in place additional measures to promote energy efficiency. To continue along this track, the Administration, in collaboration with state agencies, is announcing a new catalytic goal to bring 1 gigawatt (GW) of solar to low- and moderate- income families by 2020. This goal is a 10 fold increase and an expansion of the initial target President Obama set in his Climate Action Plan to install 100 MW of renewable energy on federally-assisted affordable housing by 2020.  The Clean Energy Savings for All Initiative will help achieve the goal by promoting innovative financing mechanisms, bolstering technical assistance for states and communities, driving innovation, scaling up workforce training to make sure low- and moderate-income Americans can take advantage of the jobs that come with a transition to clean energy, convening stakeholders, and working with the private and philanthropic sectors.

July 19, 2016

The Department’s National Energy Technology Laboratory selects six Phase II projects, to further develop innovative technologies for advanced gas turbine components and supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycles. The projects were selected from eleven projects that participated in Phase I that was recently completed by private sector companies. The six Phase II projects will receive a total of approximately $30 million of research funding from the DOE over the next 3.5 years.

July 19, 2016

The Department releases best practice guidelines for Residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs. PACE is an innovative mechanism for financing energy efficiency, solar, and related improvements. DOE's updated best practices guidelines will enable more states and communities to adopt and implement residential PACE programs, unlocking access to affordable financing to reduce homeowners' energy bills, achieve more resilient homes and communities, and create jobs. DOE will also provide technical assistance to make it easier for states and communities to stand up effective PACE programs.

July 19, 2016

Indo-Asian News Service (IND) reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Indian Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan “have agreed to increase technical and institutional cooperation on hydrocarbons and energy, an official said here on Tuesday.” According to a statement from the petroleum ministry following their meeting in Washington on Monday, the two sides agreed to improve cooperation in “assessment of both onshore and offshore conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon reserves in India, new technologies in development of biofuel and development of petroleum storage.” The statement said, “Over the last decade, several areas of interest for cooperation like technology for production from marginal fields, shale structures, developing gas pipeline network, improving refinery efficiency had been identified.” In addition, the two ministers “agreed on the need for regular meetings of officials and experts from both sides.”

July 19, 2016

The Hill reports the Energy Department has proposed “new efficiency rules for general service lamps.” The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at DOE announced yesterday “a supplemental notice of proposed rule-making that would establish new test procedures for these lamps.” The new procedures would measure “initial lumen output, input power, lamp efficacy, power factor, and standby mode power” of general service lamps. The public will have a chance to comment for the next 30 days.

July 20, 2016

Scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory report they have collaborated with a local startup company to turn a novel tabletop laser – one that produces extreme ultraviolet light at unprecedented energies and pulse rates for studies of complex materials – into a commercial product. Now two of the laser systems are operating in labs run by SIMES, the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences at SLAC. The startup, Santa Cruz-based Lumeras LLC, is selling the systems to research labs around the world.

July 20, 2016

The Albany (NY) Business Review reports the US Department of Energy is investing $30 million over 3.5 years toward research project on gas turbines, including three projects with General Electric. “The money will go toward research to increase efficiency in gas turbines.” The story goes on to detail the GE projects receiving funding.

July 21, 2016

On the heels of the Department of Energy’s first-ever Sustainable Transportation Summit, the Obama Administration announces an unprecedented set of actions from the Federal government,  private sector, and states, as well as a new framework for collaboration for vehicle manufacturers, electric utilities, electric vehicle charging companies, and states, all geared towards accelerating the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and putting more electric vehicles on the road. The collaboration, forged by the White House in partnership with DOE and the Department of Transportation (DOT), the Airforce and the Army, and the Environmental Protection Agency, and is centered on a set of Guiding Principles to Promote Electric Vehicles and Charging Infrastructure that nearly 50 organizations are signing on to today. The AP reports that the White House says that up to $4.5 billion in DOE loan guarantees will be made available for commercial charging stations for electric vehicles. “Under the program, the federal government assures a private lender that it will step in to repay the outstanding balance on a loan if a company defaults.” Reuters reports that the Obama Administration “also unveiled a partnership with nearly 50 automakers, utilities, states and electric vehicle charging companies to get more EVs and charging stations.” In January, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said EV sales fell well below the President’s goal of reaching 1 million by 2015, but that figure may be reached in three to four years. Chris Mooney for the Washington Post quotes Brian Deese, a senior adviser to President Obama, saying that the array of initiatives “serves the goal of providing consumers with more comfort that they will be able to move across regions and across the country in their electric vehicles.”

July 21, 2016

The Hill reports that EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy “said negotiators are closing in on an international agreement to reduce the production and use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).” According to McCarthy, the US and its counterparts are “at the point in negotiations where they’re writing the actual text of the HFC amendment right now.” At a press conference on Thursday, the Christian Science Monitor reports that McCarthy said “all countries [are] coming into this meeting with an incredibly positive and collaborative energy level.” Although the delegation has yet to reach an agreement that satisfies “both science and commerce,” as well as developed and developing countries, McCarthy said she believes negotiators could reach an agreement by Saturday.

July 21, 2016

The San Antonio Express-News reports scientists at the Southwest Research Institute have won a $7.8 million grant from the US Department of Energy to build more energy efficient and environmentally friendly gas turbines.

July 22, 2016

Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy David Friedman signs a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Department of Energy and the American Public Power Association (APPA), ensuring collaborative efforts to electrify personal and fleet transportation in public power communities throughout the United States. This partnership builds on the President’s goal and the Energy Department’s EV Everywhere Grand Challenge to develop plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) by 2022 that are as affordable as a 2012 gasoline-powered vehicle. The MOU advances mutual interests to increase the economic, environmental, and national security benefits of using electricity as a transportation fuel and expanding the electric vehicle (EV) market by bringing utilities directly into the fold.

July 22, 2016

The Department of Energy selects Argonne National Laboratory to lead a consortium of university, private sector and national laboratory partners for a new, medium- and heavy-duty truck technical track under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) Truck Research Utilizing Collaborative Knowledge (TRUCK) program. The multidisciplinary consortium, includes Cummins Inc., Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation, Ohio State University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Purdue University, and the University of Michigan. The program will address cost-effective measures to improve on-road freight efficiency of medium- and heavy-duty trucks by greater than 50 percent compared to today’s vehicles. In the United States, freight hauling by truck accounts for more than 15 percent of our oil use, and nearly 60 percent in China. The U.S. consortium will work with counterparts in China to leverage the technological research capabilities of both countries.

July 22, 2016

Given that DOE Offices are encouraged to be inclusive in providing potentially interested parties with opportunities to review NEPA documents, the Directory of Potential Stakeholders for DOE Actions under NEPA is updated and released. The directory is primarily intended to supplement lists that Departmental Offices compile for individual projects or facilities.  It complements the EIS Distribution Guidance.

July 26, 2016

The Department of Energy releases a new report looking at the future of hydropower through 2050. The report, Hydropower Vision: A New Chapter for America’s First Renewable Electricity Source, finds that with continued technology advancements, innovative market mechanisms, and a focus on environmental sustainability, hydropower in the United States (U.S.) could grow from 101 gigawatts (GW) to nearly 150 GW of combined electricity generation and storage capacity by 2050. Achieving this growth would help advance America’s low-carbon economy and leverage renewable energy sources.

July 27, 2016

The Department announces the selection of eight new research and development projects to receive a total of $11.5 million in federal funding under DOE’s Subsurface Technology and Engineering Research, Development, and Demonstration Crosscut initiative. The new projects are focused on furthering geothermal energy and carbon storage technologies, and will be funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) and the Office of Fossil Energy’s (FE) Carbon Storage program.

July 28, 2016

A paper outlining the science behind the Emissions Quantification Tool (EQT) is featured as a best conference paper at this month’s IEEE Power & Engineering Society meeting in Boston. In the face of extreme weather events, states, utilities, and other companies are increasingly seeking ways to boost resiliency while reducing their carbon footprint.  The  EQT, which was conceived of and sponsored by the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability and implemented by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with active engagement from the utility and energy industry, quantifies the direct emissions impacts – positive and negative – of specific planned or installed smart grid projects.  The free, web-based calculator aims to estimate the impact of NOx, SO2 and CO2 emissions on smart grid infrastructure investments, taking into account specific context and project details with a broadly applicable methodology. The free Emissions Quantification Tool is available HERE. 

July 28, 2016

The Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announces a total of $11 million for 16 projects intended to develop innovative, early-stage solutions in both photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP). Ten of the projects are small-scale research and development (R&D) projects designed to push the limits of PV technologies, potentially advancing the state of the art in new cell and module architectures, efficiency, energy output, service lifetime, and manufacturability. These awardees will be funded under the Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS) program developed to support progress toward leveling the cost of solar electricity to approximately $0.02 to $0.03 per kilowatt-hour by 2030.

July 29, 2016

Newsweek reports that researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago “created a catalyst that uses the sun’s energy to convert carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into burnable hydrocarbon fuel.” Amin Salehi-Khojin, an assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at UIC, said, “Instead of producing energy in an unsustainable one-way route from fossil fuels to greenhouse gas, we can now reverse the process and recycle atmospheric carbon into fuel using sunlight.” The National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy funded the research.

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August 1, 2016

The Department announces up to $7 million in project funding to accelerate the introduction of affordable, scalable, and sustainable high-performance fuels for use in high-efficiency, low-emission engines as part of the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines (Co-Optima) initiative. This first-of-its-kind initiative is a collaboration between DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) and brings together DOE national laboratories and industry stakeholders to simultaneously conduct tandem fuel and engine research, development, and deployment assessments. This funding research will help maximize energy savings and on-road vehicle performance, while dramatically reducing transportation-related petroleum consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

August 1, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration announces that they recently formally authorized the production engineering phase of its B61-12 warhead life extension program (LEP). This important milestone comes after four years of work in the development-engineering phase of the program, and marks the final development phase prior to production. The first production unit (FPU) of this weapon is planned for Fiscal Year 2020, followed by full-scale production.

August 2, 2016

The Hill reports Federal agencies are being asked by the White House to consider the impacts of climate change in “any decision they make that requires an environmental review.” The White House’s Council on Environmental Quality, in a guidance document, “is setting specific standards for how to incorporate climate into evaluations under the National Environmental Policy Act.” The advice from the council “could have wide-ranging effects across the federal government; NEPA analyses must be completed for a large group of activities like oil and natural gas drilling, pipeline construction, highway construction and any other federal action that could affect the environment.”

August 2, 2016

Fuel Fix (TX) reports that the Department of Energy said in a report released Tuesday that if the Clean Power Plan takes effect in 2022, renewable and nuclear energy could provide 45 percent of US electricity production by 2025, up from 38 percent now. Canada, Mexico and the US agreed in June to grow clean energy sources to 50 percent of electricity generation by 2025. US coal-fired generation is expected to decline by 13 percent and natural gas-fired power should increase by 4 percent. Canada plans to boost wind, solar and hydroelectric capabilities and phase out the use of existing coal plants by 2025, while “Mexico has announced national energy goals and electricity market reform to help encourage low-carbon expansion.”

August 2, 2016

The Department announces up to $11.3 million for three projects that support the development of biomass-to-hydrocarbon biofuels conversion pathways that can produce variable amounts of fuels and/or products based on external factors, such as market demand. Producing high-value bioproducts alongside cost-competitive biofuels has the potential to support a positive return on investment for a biorefinery. This funding will develop new strategies for biorefineries to diversify revenue streams, including chemicals and products manufacturing, resulting in long-term economic benefits to the United States.

August 3, 2016

The Council on Environmental Quality releases its Final Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Consideration of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the Effects of Climate Change in National Environmental Policy Act Reviews. The guidance provides a framework for agencies to consider both the effects of a proposed action on climate change, as indicated by its estimated greenhouse gas emissions, and the effects of climate change on a proposed action.  

August 4, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration reports a new first-of-its-kind-worldwide research capability that will help unravel the mysteries of material behavior at extreme conditions and short time scales in support of the Department's vital national security missions. NNSA, DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory and Washington State University (WSU) will dedicate the new Dynamic Compression Sector (DCS) in a ceremony hosted by WSU this week. DCS is a new installation located at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility near Chicago, Ill.

August 5, 2016

The Hill reports that the Energy Department has unveiled two additional measures designed to curb whistleblower retaliation by contractors running national labs. One change targets companies attempting to receive reimbursement from the DOE for the costs incurred in “defending whistleblower retaliation claims.” New guidance says officials deciding on these reimbursements must “consider whether the company in fact retaliated against the whistleblower, regardless of who wins in court or arbitration.” The DOE has also proposed “a regulation that would allow it to penalize contractors that retaliate against employees for bringing up nuclear safety concerns.”

August 8, 2015

Scientists at the Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory report they have just developed a way to direct the self-assembly of multiple molecular patterns within a single material, producing new nanoscale architectures. The results were published in the journal Nature Communications.

August 9, 2016

The “Morning Energy” blog of Politico reported manufacturers that are critical of the Department of Energy’s “aggressive efficiency rulemaking posture under President Barack Obama suffered a big blow last night.” The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled “that not one of the pointy ends of the industry’s multi-pronged legal attack on DOE’s 2014 regulation for commercial refrigerators broke skin.” The court “gave DOE legal cover for considering environmental factors in its economic justifications for new efficiency rules, including a social cost of carbon, a dollar-figure estimate of damages associated with carbon emissions.” In an opinion, Circuit Judge Kenneth Ripple said, “Petitioners challenge both the decision-making process and the substance of the final rules. ... Upon review of those challenges, we conclude that DOE acted in a manner worthy of our deference.”

August 10, 2016

Building on our strong international partnerships to accelerate grid modernization, research and deployment, the Energy Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability announces a new Funding Opportunity Announcement for joint research on smart grid and energy storage under the U.S.–India Partnership to Advance Clean Energy Research (PACE-R). The Energy Department and the Indian Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) are each committing $1.5 million per year for five years to the expanded research effort, subject to congressional appropriations. The United States and Indian private sectors will match the respective government commitments, resulting in a combined $30 million public-private research investment over the next five years.

August 11, 2016

In support of cities' efforts to reduce energy waste and greenhouse gas emissions and increase the use of energy efficiency technologies, the Energy Department selects three projects to help cities integrate energy analysis and data into their strategic decision making across all clean energy sectors. As part of the Cities Leading through Energy Analysis and Planning  (Cities-LEAP) project, the awardees will play a key role in developing data-driven energy policies, programs, and projects that support local energy and climate goals.

August 11, 2016

The Detroit News reports the Energy Department has awarded $6 million to Los Alamos National Laboratory and Ford Motor Co. “to help pay for projects that will advance efforts to develop fuel cell and hydrogen technologies for cars.” The car company “will use the funding to develop a fuel-cell catalyst production process that will result in lower cost, higher purity and more active and durable catalysts, according to the office of Rep. Debbie Dingell.” The agency chose “Ford’s proposal because it focuses on an alternative path to reach 2020 targets for fuel-cell cost and durability.” The Detroit Free Press reports that in a statement Ford said, “We are pleased that the Department of Energy selected our project. ... The grant will help further our research efforts to develop next-generation technologies for our vehicles.” The AP also provides coverage of this story.

August 12, 2016

The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House is considering a proposal to declare a “No First Use” protocol for nuclear weapons, which would “reverse decades of US nuclear policy” by explicitly ruling out a US “first strike with a nuclear weapon in any conflict.” However, the proposal is opposed by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Asian and European allies, meaning President Obama has “few ambitious options to enhance his nuclear disarmament agenda before leaving office, unless he wants to override the dissent.”

August 15, 2016

In a piece about the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which was co-founded by Bill Gates, EnergyWire reports “months have elapsed since the Microsoft Corp. co-founder and 27 other billionaires rolled out” the BEC, which carried “a promise to invest billions of dollars with a very long payback horizon on groundbreaking new carbon-neutral technologies. And the group has barely been heard from since.” Coalition spokesman Jonah Goldman “said much of the work is happening behind the scenes.” The BEC “will make announcements about the kinds of investments...likely toward the end of this year.” EnergyWire notes that in the run-up to the Paris agreement, Gates “joined Energy and State department officials and White House personnel on calls with foreign governments to urge them to sign on to Mission Innovation, a commitment by countries to double their individual R&D budgets by 2020.” That initiative was “spearheaded” by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, and “was unveiled in Paris alongside BEC.”

August 15, 2016

The White House releases a report that includes recommendations from the 2015 Tribal Nations Conference and outlines the Administration’s progress on work in Indian Country in 2016. The report was announced in a blog by Karen Diver, the Special Assistant to the President for Native American Affairs in the White House Domestic Policy Council. Download the 2015 White House Tribal Nations Conference Progress Report. 

August 15, 2016

Researchers at the Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University report they have created a nanostructured device, about half the size of a postage stamp, that disinfects water much faster than the UV method by also making use of the visible part of the solar spectrum, which contains 50 percent of the sun’s energy. In experiments reported today in Nature Nanotechnology, sunlight falling on the little device triggered the formation of hydrogen peroxide and other disinfecting chemicals that killed more than 99.999 percent of bacteria in just 20 minutes. When their work was done the killer chemicals quickly dissipated, leaving pure water behind.

August 16, 2016

In his testimony before a field hearing held by Ranking Member Maria Cantwell and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Secretary Ernest Moniz calls for increased investments in U.S. energy emergency response. Secretary Moniz highlighted DOE’s expanded emergency response responsibilities, and the need for comprehensive and coordinated response capabilities in the face of increasingly integrated energy systems and an evolving threat environment. “The Department of Energy uses its expertise in transformative science and technology solutions to support and enhance our Nation’s emergency response capabilities. Through our private and public partnerships, we apply these solutions to prepare for emergencies, mitigate risks, and expedite restoration and recovery from incidents impacting the energy sector,” said Secretary Moniz in his testimony. “Looking ahead, Congress will be a key partner in ensuring that we strengthen our prevention and response capabilities.”

August 16, 2016

As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) jointly adopt a second round of standards for medium and heavy-duty vehicles, the Energy Department announces up to $137 million in investments for two programs, subject to appropriations, to develop next generation technologies that will support industry in going beyond those standards while also accelerating technology advances for passenger cars and light trucks.

August 16, 2016

The Energy Department announces up to $40 million in available funding, subject to congressional appropriations, to support the site selection, design, permitting, and construction of a national open-water, wave energy testing facility within U.S. federal or state waters. The Department anticipates the facility will contain at least three test berths to simultaneously and independently test wave energy devices. The testing facility will gather critical performance data to address technical risks, lower costs, and inform future designs to accelerate the commercialization and deployment of wave energy technologies in the United States.

August 17, 2016

The Office of Indian Energy announces the availability of up to $3 million to initiate the first steps toward developing and sustaining renewable energy and energy efficiency on tribal lands. Through this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the Office of Indian Energy will continue its efforts to maximize the development and deployment of energy solutions for the benefit of American Indians and Alaska Natives and help build the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to implement those energy solutions.

August 17, 2016

The 2015 Wind Technologies Market Report is released by the Energy Department and its Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The report shows the United States ranks second in the world for wind power capacity and remains first in the world for electricity generated from wind power. Total installed wind power capacity from turbines rated at more than 100 kilowatts in the United States grew at an impressive rate of 12% in 2015 and stands at nearly 74 gigawatts, meeting an estimated 5.6% of U.S. end-use electricity demand in an average year. The nearly 8.6 gigawatts of capacity installed during 2015—representing more new deployment than any other electricity source—is a 77% increase over total installations in 2014. More than 4,300 utility-scale wind turbines were installed across 64 projects in 20 states in 2015, bringing the total fleet to more than 48,500 operating utility-scale wind turbines in 40 states and Puerto Rico.

August 17, 2016

Transmission & Distribution World reports that earlier this week during a testimony before a field hearing, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz “called for increased investments in U.S. energy emergency response.” He highlighted the agency’s “expanded emergency response responsibilities, and the need for comprehensive and coordinated response capabilities in the face of increasingly integrated energy systems and an evolving threat environment.” Moniz said, “The Department of Energy uses its expertise in transformative science and technology solutions to support and enhance our Nation’s emergency response capabilities. Through our private and public partnerships, we apply these solutions to prepare for emergencies, mitigate risks, and expedite restoration and recovery from incidents impacting the energy sector.”

August 17, 2016

The Hill reports the Energy Department is waiting for congressional approval of $34 million in funding for “cybersecurity grants to 12 projects as part of its Cybersecurity of Energy Delivery Systems (CEDS) program.” In a fact sheet the agency wrote, “The twelve projects will enhance the reliability and resilience of the nation’s energy critical infrastructure through innovative, scalable, and cost-effective research, development and demonstration of cybersecurity solutions.” The 12 projects are a part of five different initiatives, “including detecting adversaries, integrating alternative energy sources into the national grid, reducing the opportunities for attacks, shoring up supply chains and a fifth catch-all category.”

August 17, 2016

The Hill reports the Justice Department has “signed off on new energy conservation standards for dehumidifiers.” The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the DOE “issued the efficiency rules in June, but was waiting on a review by the Justice Department to determine whether they would hurt competition in the market.” The DOJ wrote, “Based on this review, our conclusion is that the proposed energy conservation standards for residential dehumidifiers are unlikely to have a significant adverse impact on competition.”

August 17, 2016

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports Alcoa Inc. and PPG Industries Inc. will receive grants for research projects that “could increase the use of plastic composites and aluminum in cars and trucks and a silica material in tires, the Department of Energy said Wednesday.” The two companies were among four recipients of a total of $7.3 million in DOE research funding in Pennsylvania. Nationwide, DOE announced $137 million for fuel-efficiency research projects “as the government pushes auto companies to lower greenhouse gas emissions and meet tougher mileage standards.”

August 18, 2016

Researchers at the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Berkeley report they have created a sort of nanoscale display case that enables new atomic-scale views of hard-to-study chemical and biological samples. Their work, published online in the journal Science, could help to reveal new structural details for a range of challenging molecules—including complex chemical compounds and potentially new drugs—by stabilizing them inside sturdy structures known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs).

August 18, 2016

The Energy Department announces 43 small businesses will participate in the second round of the Small Business Vouchers (SBV) pilot. With vouchers in hand, these businesses can better leverage the world-class capabilities of the department's national laboratories and bring their next-generation clean energy technologies to the marketplace faster. The Department opened the first round of SBV, a Technology-to-Market Lab Impact pilot, in fall 2015. In SBV's first round, 33 small businesses were selected to receive vouchers totaling $6.7 million. Today's 43 awards total more than $8 million. To date, the Department's SBV pilot has connected 76 small businesses with the labs, totaling $15 million worth of vouchers. A full list of the SBV projects may be viewed on www.SBV.org.

August 22, 2016

The Department announces it will invest a total of $3 million in nine projects selected under its University Training and Research (UTR) program, which awards research-based educational grants to U.S. universities and colleges in areas that promote Office of Fossil Energy goals. UTR is the umbrella program under which the Department’s University Coal Research (UCR) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Other Minority Institutions (HBCU/OMI) initiatives operate. The two initiatives address pressing scientific and technical energy challenges while also building our nation’s capabilities in energy science and engineering by providing hands-on research experience to future generations of scientists and engineers.

August 22, 2016

The Energy Department awards $5 million to 16 states to advance innovative approaches for clean energy development that will reduce energy bills for American families and businesses, protect the environment by reducing carbon emissions, and increase our nation's energy security and resiliency. Through the department's State Energy Program (SEP), each state will substantively advance energy efficiency and/or renewable energy, addressing a broad range of areas for advancement. States will leverage existing energy resources and State Energy Program funding to deploy programs that support the permanent transformation of energy markets across all sectors of the economy. Several of the SEP projects are multi-state partnerships, expanding the impact of the selected proposals.

August 23, 2016

E&E Publishing reports the Energy Department has chosen “a veteran solar industry executive to lead its solar energy technologies office.” Charles Gay takes over the office “after decades in the solar industry where he was president of the applied solar division at Applied Materials Inc., president of Siemens Solar and president of ASE Americas, which was formerly known as Mobil Solar.” In addition, Gay “served as an adviser for a project at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and chaired the advisory board of the SunPower Corp.”

August 24, 2016

The Department announces the selection of 14 research and development projects to advance energy systems that will enable cost-competitive, fossil fuel–based power generation with near-zero emissions. The new projects, which span 11 states, will accelerate the scale-up of coal-based advanced combustion power systems, advance coal gasification processes, and improve the cost, reliability, and endurance of solid oxide fuel cells. The total award value of the projects exceeds $36 million, which includes a federal investment of more than $28 million and recipient cost-sharing of $8.4 million.

August 25, 2016

Oil Price reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz at a Seattle hearing “said that fracking has helped bring down CO2 emissions to their lowest in 24 years by enabling the displacement of coal with lower-emission natural gas.” The secretary’s “remarks come soon after the EPA published a study that claims fracking doesn’t pollute underground water, raising alarm among environmentalist groups and more notably, among EPA’s own science advisers, who lashed back at the authority with the argument that the researchers involved in the study did not have enough scientific evidence to support its claim.” This study is one of 75, reviewed by ICF International, which “focus on the methane emission issue, rather than on water pollution.” There is also “evidence that waste from frack wells does pollute water and represents a health hazard.” In “an ironic twist,” Democrat Moniz supports fracking, “while Donald Trump seems willing to alienate frackers in favor of state and local rights.”

August 25, 2016

The Department announces approximately $6.7 million in federal funding for cost-shared projects that will develop technologies that utilize carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants to produce useful products. DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy is seeking these projects as part of the Department’s Carbon Storage program, which has the goal of developing and advancing technologies to improve the effectiveness of carbon storage, reduce the cost of implementation, and be ready for widespread commercial deployment in the 2025–2035 timeframe.

August 29, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, Indonesian Nuclear Industry, LLC (PT INUKI), the National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN), and the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency (BAPETEN) of the Republic of Indonesia announce the completion of a collaborative effort to down-blend Indonesia's stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU).

August 30, 2016

The Energy Department announces 10 organizations selected to receive more than $20 million in funding for new research, development, and demonstration projects that advance and monitor marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) energy systems, which generate electricity from ocean waves and tidal currents. These projects will aim to improve the performance of MHK systems and advance environmental monitoring technologies that will help protect wildlife and reduce uncertainty regarding potential environmental impacts.

August 30, 2016

The Energy Department announces $3.8 million for 13 projects to use high performance computing resources at the Department's national laboratories to improve manufacturing. The collaborations will address key challenges in U.S. manufacturing by applying modeling, simulation, and data analysis to manufacturing, with the intent to aid in decision making, optimize processes and design, improve quality and efficiency, predict performance and failure, quicken or eliminate testing, and/or shorten the time for adoption of new energy-related technologies.

August 31, 2016

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports Nevada and Utah have been announced as the two finalists “to host a federal laboratory to develop the next generation of geothermal energy technology.” On Wednesday, the Energy Department announced “that its choice to host the new Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal, or FORGE, is down to a pair of candidate sites: one within the U.S. Naval Air Station in Fallon and the other near Milford, Utah.” The team in Nevada “is led by Sandia National Laboratories and includes the U.S. Navy; the U.S. Geological Survey; the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; the University of Nevada, Reno; Reno-based Ormat Technologies; California-based consulting firm GeothermEx; and the Minnesota-based Itasca Consulting Group.” The effort in Utah is being led by the University of Utah’s Energy & Geoscience Institute “with partners such as the USGS, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Temple University and others.”

August 31, 2016

The Energy Department announces $29 million in funding under the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) program for projects awarded to teams at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Utah. The funding will be for each team to fully instrument, characterize and permit candidate sites for an underground laboratory to conduct cutting-edge research on enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). The Sandia team will be working on a site in Fallon, Nevada, and the University of Utah team will be working at a site in Milford, Utah.

August 31, 2016

As part of the Obama Administration’s effort to cut energy waste in the nation’s restaurants and buildings, the Energy Department’s Better Buildings Challenge recognizes the Wendy’s Company and its franchisee, Wendco Group, for leadership in energy efficiency. This local restaurant achieved a 37 percent total energy reduction or more than 50 percent energy savings per sales transaction, and nearly $8,000 in savings annually.

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September 1, 2016

The 88th Lessons Learned Quarterly Report highlights the Council on Environmental Quality final guidance on climate change, Fish and Wildlife Service migratory bird training, an updated Environmental Protection Agency screening tool for environmental justice analysis, and contributions by our summer interns.

September 7, 2016

The Department announces the release of the Long-Term Strategic Review of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).  The congressionally-mandated study provides an overview of the SPR and addresses key challenges that will impact the Reserve’s ability to carry out its energy security mission. As expanding North American crude oil production has substantially reduced waterborne imports into the United States and changed the flow of petroleum, numerous questions have arisen about the future of the SPR.

September 1, 2016

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports the Energy Department has given a $2 million award to Picasolar Inc. “to move forward with a pilot manufacturing program for the company’s solar-cell technology, the company announced Wednesday.” Picasolar, along with its sister company Silicon Solar Solutions, “developed a hydrogen-selective emitter that improves the top layer of a solar cell, making it up to 15 percent more efficient as well as lowering manufacturing costs by reducing the need for silver.” The award is Picasolar’s “third round of grants” from DOE’s SunShot incubator program, “something Picasolar CEO and founder Douglas Hutchings said was a first for any of the companies participating.”

September 3, 2016

The AP reports the Department of Energy has awarded $5 million to Ocean Renewable Power Company of Portland, Maine for the “development of a tidal energy project.” The company will use the funds “to complete the commercial design of its TidGen Power System.”

September 5, 2016

The “Ballot Box” blog of The Hill reports Bernie Sanders blasted Fox News at a rally yesterday, “describing the TV network as the last place that still debates the science of climate change.” At a campaign event for Hillary Clinton, Sanders said, “You all know that the debate is over within the scientific community. ... Except on Fox television there is no more debate.” Sanders went on to call the modern Republican Party “scary.” He added, “You have a major political party which has turned its back on science regarding climate change. Climate change is real.”

September 6, 20116

The “Morning Energy” blog of Politico reports the Energy Department on Friday “quietly released new proposed efficiency standards for residential gas furnaces after more than a year of outcry from the industry and its allies on Capitol Hill.” The new proposal “includes a separate ‘small furnaces’ product class that the industry had asked for and promised sharper emissions reductions than a March 2015 version. But the changes apparently weren’t enough for gas utilities, which were seeking a more expansive definition for small furnaces.” In a statement American Gas Association President Dave McCurdy his group was “profoundly disappointed” that agency “ignored flaws in the proposal that would disadvantage low-income consumers, particularly in the South.” McCurdy stated, “If we do not see major changes to this proposed rule before it is finalized, AGA will absolutely look for recourse in the courts and we are fairly certain we will not be the only organization to do so.”

September 7, 2016

A group of researchers from Stony Brook University in collaboration with scientists at the Air Force Research Lab and the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory report they have just demonstrated that an ultra-high-vacuum chamber with temperatures approaching absolute zero may be the ideal environment for producing catalytically active gold nanoparticles. A paper describing the first catalyst ever produced using their new method, called Helium Nanodroplet Deposition (HND), was recently published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

September 8, 2016

The Department announces a total of $13 million to be awarded to twelve multi-year research projects intended to develop cost efficient and effective ways to mitigate methane emissions from natural gas pipeline and storage infrastructure. The research will also look to better quantify the sources, volumes and rates of methane emissions. This new initiative by the Office of Fossil Energy builds upon the President's Climate Action Plan Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions.

September 8, 2016

The Hill reports President Obama called the effects of climate change “terrifying” in an interview with The New York Times, adding “that his effort to fight global warming will be the most consequential piece of his legacy.” Obama said, “What makes climate change difficult is that it is not an instantaneous catastrophic event. ... It’s a slow-moving issue that, on a day-to-day basis, people don’t experience and don’t see.” Obama “explored his history on fighting climate change,” including battles “with Republicans early on and the failure to pass his cap-and-trade legislation” in the interview. The Huffington Post reports the President “has repeatedly warned against the harmful effects of climate change, saying it is a threat to the U.S. military and national security.” Last year, he said “we’re not moving fast enough” to fight climate change, cautioning that “we will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair.”

September 9, 2016

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announce the publication of a collaborative strategic plan to continue accelerating the development of offshore wind energy in the United States, the National Offshore Wind Strategy: Facilitating the Development of the Offshore Wind Industry in the United States, which could help enable 86 gigawatts of offshore wind in the United States by 2050. The strategy details the current state of offshore wind in the United States, presents the actions and innovations needed to reduce deployment costs and timelines, and provides a roadmap to support the growth and success of the industry. Bloomberg News reports the US “has laid out a plan to reach 86,000 megawatts” of offshore wind power by 2050, with the DOE and DOI issuing a statement on Friday that discussed “a joint effort to support offshore wind farms over the next five years, a move aimed at reducing cost and development risks and easing the regulatory constraints that have hindered construction to date.” A report issued by the agencies on Friday indicated that off-shore wind power potential, 2 terawatts, could “almost double the nation’s total installed capacity” and that “increasing the scale of the industry would help offshore wind become competitive in some areas by 2025, with a cost of less than $100 a megawatt-hour.” Secretary Ernest Moniz commented, “The first offshore wind farm has now finished construction, and we have gone from zero offshore wind areas leased before this administration to 11 areas that total the size of Rhode Island.”

September 9, 2016

Greenwire reports the Department of Energy awarded $13 million to “twelve multiyear research projects in Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas” who are “studying methane emissions from the natural gas supply chain and technology to reduce leaks.” Greenwire reports seven of the projects “will be mitigation-focused research efforts designed to develop new tools and evaluate technology, such as advanced distributed fiber optic sensing and airborne-based sensors for remote detection of leaks.” The other five projects, according to Greenwire, “are designed to help the Obama Administration measure and understand how much methane is emitted from natural gas pipelines.”

September 11, 2016

The Washington Examiner reports Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz “plans to open a joint U.S.-Israeli energy research center in the next year to focus” on cybersecurity and clean energy. In a letter sent by Moniz to Sen. Maria Cantwell, which was released on Friday, the Energy Secretary wrote, “Establishing a joint center for innovation in areas of mutual interest including clean energy, water efficiency and cybersecurity could not come at a better time, given the rapidly changing global energy landscape.” The “letter confirmed that the countries are working out the details of the center and plan to open it in fiscal 2017, which starts Oct. 1.” Greenwire (9/9, Koss, Subscription Publication) reports that Moniz wrote, “While the ultimate structure of such a center will depend on the outcome of those bilateral discussions, such a center could resemble similar bilateral technology collaborations that involve contributions from both partner countries, as well as a private sector matching requirement from within each country to maximize the center’s impact.”

September 12, 2016

The AP reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Monday at the Mid-Atlantic Region Energy Innovation Forum at West Virginia University that the Obama administration is not waging a “war on coal” and that it is working to keep coal in the energy mix in a low-carbon future. Moniz told the forum that Congress needs to approve “tax credits that could help power plants burn coal more cleanly” as the “credits would send a signal to utilities and investors about coal’s viability for future power plant investments.” He told forum attendees that the Administration is pumping money into coal communities to help jumpstart other economic opportunities. The Morgantown (WV) Dominion Post (9/12, 43K) reports Moniz signaled that among the priorities that the agency has is, “creat[ing] 10 regional clean energy innovation partnerships that will foster advances based on local needs and resources.” Another priority according to Moniz is “transitioning the workforce to a lower carbon economy.”

September 12, 2016

Researchers with the Department's Argonne National Laboratory announce that they may have discovered a little loophole in this famous maxim associated with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that entropy always increases.Their research, published in Nature Scientific Reports, lays out a possible avenue to a situation where the Second Law is violated on the microscopic level.

September 13, 2016

The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces $37 million in funding for 16 innovative new projects as part of a new ARPA-E program: Integration and Optimization of Novel Ion-Conducting Solids (IONICS). IONICS project teams are paving the way for technologies that overcome the limitations of current battery and fuel cell products. By creating high performance parts built with solid ion conductors – solids in which ions can be mobile and store energy – the IONICS program will focus on new ways to process and integrate these parts into devices with the goal of accelerating their commercial deployment. In particular, IONICS projects will work to improve energy storage and conversion technologies in three categories: transportation batteries, grid-level storage, and fuel cells.

September 14, 2016

The Energy Department announces up to $107 million in new projects and planned funding in order to support America's continued leadership in clean energy innovation through solar technology. Under the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's (EERE) SunShot Initiative, the Department will fund 40 projects with a total of $42 million to improve PV performance, reliability, and manufacturability, and to enable greater market penetration for solar technologies. In addition to the new projects announced today, the Department intends to make up to $65 million, subject to appropriation, in additional funding available for upcoming solar research and development projects to continue driving down the cost of solar energy and accelerating widespread national deployment.

September 14, 2016

Fuel Fix (TX) reports that at a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said that the development of nuclear energy needs to occur if the US is to meet its carbon reduction targets in the Paris climate pact. “Keeping existing nuclear plants operating and building new facilities that run north of $10 billion is becoming increasingly fraught” given the competition coming from more efficient renewable energy developments and cheap natural gas. Moniz testified, “Having a strong, robust nuclear sector will be an important part of achieving a highly decarbonized electricity sector by mid-century.”

September 14, 2016

ClimateWire reports, “Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told lawmakers yesterday that the United States is falling short in its research efforts for cleaning up after itself.” A Secretary of Energy Advisory Board report found that the US is “woefully underinvesting in the innovation space for environmental management,” Moniz said. Of the report, he said, “It was to good effect. ... It will be to even better effect when members of Congress respond to the budget level we have in mind for that.” He spoke at the Energy Department’s National Lab Science Day on Capitol Hill, “where scientists from 10 national laboratories exhibited projects to lawmakers and staffers centered on the theme of environmental management and remediation.” He stated, “We need to double down on innovation over the next five years. ... We have a lot of capacity to innovate that we are not using.”

September 15, 2016

E&E Daily reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told reporters on Wednesday that the hands of the Obama Administration “are tied when it comes to keeping the nation’s nuclear reactors afloat, even if the plants are critical climate-fighting tools.” Following a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Moniz said, “The Department of Energy, the federal government, frankly, we don’t have that many authorities, I’m not going to invoke the Federal Power Act ... to run nuclear plants. ... It’s a state issue, that’s where the [renewable portfolio standards] are.” He said the Administration has been concerned for quite a while about nuclear plant closures. The agency “is also addressing nuclear power in its Quadrennial Energy Review and later this week, an advisory panel the secretary assembled to look at the future of nuclear power is slated to release a draft report.” He stated, “This is not a new discussion, we’ve been looking at this issue, but we don’t have any direct authorities to determine ... in a deregulated part of the country, which plants are going to dispatch.”

September 15, 2016

The Washington Post reports the US Senate passed a broad water resources bill, which included provisions to help Flint repair and replace its water infrastructure. The House is currently “drafting a water bill of its own.” The New York Times (9/15, Davenport, Subscription Publication, 13.42M) reports that the Senate bill includes provisions that would provide $100 million to help states with drinking water emergencies, “$70 million to subsidize loans for water infrastructure projects,” $50 million “to help small and disadvantaged communities comply with drinking water standards,” $30 million to reduce the incidence of children being exposed to lead, “and $20 million to develop a national lead exposure registry.”

September 15, 2016

The Department announces a new Energy Materials Network (EMN) consortium, the Durable Module Materials (DuraMat) National Lab Consortium led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). DuraMat is designed to accelerate the development and deployment of new, high performance materials for photovoltaic (PV) modules to lower the cost of electricity generated by solar power, while increasing field lifetime.

September 15, 2016

The Department announces the selection of six multi-year research projects to receive $3.8 million in funding that will enhance the understanding of methane hydrate system behaviors when subjected to natural, environmental, or induced production-related changes, helping to determine both the production viability of a vast source of natural gas and to assess the role of gas hydrate in the larger global climate cycle.

September 16, 2016

A team led by Materials Scientist Anirudha Sumant with the Department’s Argonne National Laboratory’s Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) and Materials Science Division, along with collaborators at the University of California-Riverside, reports it has developed a method to grow graphene (the thinnest material known to mankind, which is also incredibly strong and conductive) that contains relatively few impurities and costs less to make, in a shorter time and at lower temperatures compared to the processes widely used to make graphene today. The new technology taps ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD), a synthetic type of diamond that Argonne researchers have pioneered through years of research. UNCD serves as a physical substrate, or surface on which the graphene grows, and the source for the carbon atoms that make up a rapidly produced graphene sheet.

September 18, 2016

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) reports it has performed its 400th experiment of fiscal year (FY) 2016, meeting the year's goal several weeks early. In comparison, the facility completed 356 experiments in FY 2015 and 191 experiments in FY 2014. NIF is on track to complete 415 experiments by the end of the fiscal year, more than doubling its FY 2014 accomplishments.

September 19, 2016

AFP reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz yesterday “predicted that the world’s largest economy would have legislation by the end of the decade to combat climate change.” At the opening of Climate Week NYC “on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly,” Moniz “said that US public opinion and state and local policymakers were moving toward reducing carbon responsible for the planet’s fast-rising temperatures.” He said, “I will state quite frankly, I have a bet riding on the fact that we will have economy-wide legislation in the Congress by the end of this decade. I really believe that this is coming.” Moniz is confident the US will “meet its goal submitted under the Paris accord of reducing emissions of carbon and other greenhouse gases by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, from 2005 levels.”

September 19, 2016

The Department selects eight projects to develop enabling technologies for advanced combustion systems, including oxy-combustion and chemical looping–based power systems. The total estimated federal investment in the eight projects exceeds $10 million.  Funding amounts may vary as negotiations progress.

September 19, 2016

The Orange County (CA) Register reports on the Department of Energy’s new push for consent-based siting of spent nuclear fuel, which “could mean removing spent fuel from the bluffs beside the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station a decade or so earlier than currently envisioned.” The article reports that while many of the 10,000 commenters “disagree vehemently on the particulars, they are largely united on one point: After decades of dithering, the federal government must finally take action on its long-broken promise to permanently dispose of highly radioactive spent fuel.” Energy Secretary Earnest J. Moniz told a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee last week that “the Department of Energy will publish details on how the consent-based siting process will actually work” by the end of December.

September 20, 2016

Reuters reports Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz suggests that private disposal of nuclear waste stockpiles in the US could be key to solving the issue. In an interview about the nuclear issues that will face the next administration, Moniz said, “We would like to have the authority for publicly owned and operated (storage) facilities. We are also very much interested in the possibility of pursuing private storage.” Democrats have some “reservations about moving ahead with nuclear, which faces competition from natural gas, until the waste problem is solved.” Moniz was told last week by Sen. Diane Feinstein at a congressional meeting that “she would not support new nuclear power projects unless the issue is dealt with.” In the interview Moniz also addressed the “thorny issue” of the MOX project and a deal the US has with Russia to covert leftover plutonium. He also signaled that he would not rule out staying on as Energy Secretary for the next administration.

September 20, 2016

The Department’s Carlsbad Field Office awards a $1.7 million, five-year cooperative agreement to the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA). The purpose of this agreement is to coordinate and implement activities to train Motor Vehicle Safety Officials and ensure the safe transportation of transuranic waste between generator sites and to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). This includes general management of the plan, inspector training, inspection program data for quality validation, and insure its overall relationship to highway safety.

September 20, 2016

Greenwire reports Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency at the Energy Department Kathleen Hogan has “earned a high-profile award for federal employees.” Hogan “has won the Career Achievement Medal for this year’s Samuel J. Heyman Service to America awards” which was “given out by the Partnership for Public Service, a good government research group.” She “won the award for her work developing federal government programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save billions of dollars in energy costs.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz gave praise to Hogan, telling the partnership Hogan is the “focal point for the government’s entire energy efficiency program.” He added, “Kathleen has achieved this by managing networks of labs, technology and testing, and working with industry and others.”

September 20, 2016

The Christian Science Monitor reports, in continuing coverage, on the new California law targeting short-lived pollutants such as methane, hydrofluorocarbons and black carbon. “In California, dairy farmers will be required to reduce methane emissions from manure to 40 percent below their 2013 levels by 2030. They will receive $50 million from the fees the state collects from polluters through its cap-and-trade program. The funding will go toward buying methane digesters, which generate energy from the methane in manure.”

September 21, 2016

The Wall Street Journal reports that 30 more countries ratified the UN climate agreement Wednesday, bringing the total to 60 countries representing 47.7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, satisfying one of the two conditions for the deal. A further 13 countries committed to ratify the deal by the end of the year. The Hill reports UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, President Obama and other world leaders “hope to get the agreement into force by the end of the year” so as to “make it more difficult for Republican Donald Trump to completely unravel the pact if he becomes president,” though emissions cuts are non-binding through international law.

September 21, 2016

The Washington Post) reports President Obama “signed a presidential memorandum Wednesday establishing that climate-change impacts must be factored into the development of all national security-related doctrine, policies and plans.” Under the directive, “20 federal agencies and offices that work on climate science, intelligence and national security must ‘collaborate to ensure the best information on climate impacts is available to strengthen our national security’ through the new Federal Climate and National Security Working Group.” The Post says the move “signals Obama’s determination to exercise his executive authority during his final months in office to elevate the issue of climate in federal decision-making.” USA Today reports the memorandum “puts climate change at the center of decision-making on national security, requiring agencies to consider current and future climate trends in all ‘relevant national security doctrine, policies, and plans.’”

September 21, 2016

E&E Daily reports Rep. Jared Huffman has introduced a bill “that aims to make available information about greenhouse gas emissions generated from the global oil industry.” In a statement Huffman said, “As the saying goes, you can’t change what you don’t measure. ... In terms of climate impacts, not all oil is created equal, but current law makes it impossible to know how specific oil choices affect greenhouse gas emissions.” The “Know Your Oil” legislation would direct the Energy Department “to measure and report emissions from different extraction and refining methods.”

September 22, 2016

The AP reports the US and other countries are increasing “pressure on world leaders to quickly phase out the use of a chemical contributing to global warming.” According to the White House, more than 100 countries are suggesting an “early freeze date” for hydrofluorocarbons. The AP notes that “the freeze date is when nations must cap their use of HFCs, refrigerants that are more potent heat-trapping gases than carbon dioxide.” ClimateWire “scores of refrigeration and cooling companies” support the effort.

September 23, 2016

Secretary Ernest Moniz announces that 12 partners in the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings, Better Plants program have met their energy or water savings goals this year, and 30 new partners have joined the program, representing significant growth for the program to accelerate progress in energy and water savings. Since President Obama launched the Better Buildings, Better Plants program five years ago, partners have saved more than $3 billion in cumulative energy costs. The Better Buildings, Better Plants Program is part of the broader Better Buildings Initiative, launched in 2011. The goal of the Better Buildings program is to make commercial, public, industrial, and residential buildings 20 percent more energy efficient over ten years from when partners join the program.

September 25, 2016

The “Morning Energy” blog of Politico reported the Energy Department on Thursday released a final rule “aimed at accelerating permitting for interstate power lines on federal lands.” The rule “comes as part of the Obama administration’s efforts to speed up federal reviews for large transmission projects that will be needed to accommodate coal plant retirements and new renewable generation.” It will provide developers with the option of a “simplified integrated interagency permitting process,” in which the department “and the developer would meet with other agencies and outside interest groups to identify issues that could trip up projects before the developer files an application.”

September 26, 2016

At the 60^th IAEA General Conference, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz announces that the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), in cooperation with Poland, the Russian Federation and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has successfully repatriated 61 kilograms of Russian-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) from the Maria Research Reactor located in Otwock-Swierk, Poland. The shipment removes the last known HEU from Poland, making Poland the 31^st country plus Taiwan to become HEU-free, and represents the completion of a ten year operation to remove more than 700 kilograms of HEU from Poland, effectively reducing a major proliferation threat. With the completion of this shipment, wide swaths of Central and Eastern Europe are completely free of HEU.

September 26, 2016

The White House brought together leaders from federally recognized Indian tribes to Washington, D.C., for the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference. The Tribal Nations Conference delivers on a promise the President made during a visit to the Crow Nation in Montana in May 2008, where he pledged to host an annual summit with tribal leaders to ensure that tribal nations have a seat at the table when facing important decisions about their communities, including key policies and programs related to energy policy. Today the White House shared highlights of the progress made in 2016 and announced new steps forward. Read more in this fact sheet on the 8th Annual White House Tribal Nations Conference. During the Conference, the Department’s Office of Indian Energy announces a Notice of Intent to issue a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) entitled “Deployment of Clean Energy and Energy Efficiency Projects on Indian Lands” later this year.

September 26, 2016

The Department announces it is launching the Better Communities Alliance (BCA), a new collaborative effort among 60 local governments, philanthropies, nonprofit organizations, and leading private companies to accelerate local clean energy progress across the country. The BCA was announced today by the White House during Smart Cities Week. Through the BCA, city and county leaders are making commitments to reduce the wasted energy in homes and buildings, expand renewable energy and sustainable transportation options for their residents and businesses, harness new energy-saving technologies, and invest in resilient power systems and community infrastructure.

September 27, 2016

The Department awards a grant to the University of Arkansas of Fayetteville, Arkansas for the “Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) Project”. The objective of the project is to decommission and dismantle the SEFOR Project site. Activities include: Planning and documentation activities, such as procurement of a technical support contractor; Review of existing data; Updating the decommissioning plan to reflect the current conditions at SEFOR; Preparation of procedures and plans; Engineering studies; Public information meetings; Transportation and disposition of wastes; Site restoration based on State requirements; Applications for licenses, permits, if required, to perform work; Approvals from the regulators for final closeout and completion; and, Project management, mobilization of a cleanup contractor, and actual D&D. The grant has a value of $10.5 million, with a period of performance of 1.5 years.

September 27, 2016

The Department announces the initial selections for the second cohort of the Technologist in Residence (TIR) Program. Three national laboratories will receive nearly $1.2 million to advance collaborative research and development focused on improving the manufacturing processes of industry partners. The TIR Program is designed to streamline engagement and increase collaborative research and development between national laboratories and private-sector companies. The program partners a senior technologist from a national laboratory with an industry professional from a clean energy manufacturing company or consortium of companies.

September 27, 2016

The Department announces it is launching the Better Buildings Smart Labs Accelerator to advance energy efficiency in laboratory buildings owned and operated by universities, corporations, national laboratories, hospitals, and federal agencies. Through the new Better Buildings Smart Labs Accelerator, partners will pursue ambitious energy-saving targets and strategies that will address key barriers to improving energy efficiency.

September 28, 2016

The Department of Energy releases a new report that highlights the accelerated deployment of five clean energy technologies: wind turbines, solar technologies for both utility-scale and distributed photovoltaic (PV), electric vehicles (EVs) and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The report, Revolution…Now, was announced by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz during a discussion at The Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Forum. Revolution…Now is annually updated and describes the decreasing cost and increasing deployment of clean-energy technologies in the United States. As the world continues to move toward a low-carbon economy, this 2016 update released today builds upon last year’s edition and details the economic and environmental benefits our nation is already starting to realize thanks to the increased deployment.

September 28, 2016

The Department awards a grant to the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML) for “National Research Institute: Collaborative Research: Cooperative Control of Humanoid Robots for Remote Operations in Nuclear Environments.” The cooperative agreement will focus on evaluating the technological readiness of the dexterous robot hands of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) humanoid robot Valkyrie to replace human hands for safe and risk averse operations in existing gloveboxes in nuclear facilities. The value of the grant is $1,532,850 with a 3 year project period.

September 28, 2016

The Department awards a cooperative agreement to the Pueblo de Cochiti (Cochiti Pueblo) of Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico for the “Los Alamos Pueblos’ Project (LAPP) Activities for Pueblo de Cochiti”. The objective of the project is to focus on development of strategies and protocols which would facilitate communications, including the exchange of documents, between DOE and Cochiti Pueblo and the development of strategies to enable Cochiti Pueblo to address issues related to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) activities. The cooperative agreement has a value of $1.55 million, with a period of performance of 5 years.

September 28, 2016

The Department recognizes 34 of the nation's leading builders at the 2016 Housing Innovation Awards during the Energy and Environmental Building Alliance's Excellence in Building Conference in Dallas, Texas. The winners were selected by a diverse panel of builders, architects, and industry professionals for their outstanding accomplishments in designing and building Zero Energy-Ready Homes.

September 29, 2016

The Department awards a cooperative agreement to the Santa Clara Pueblo of Espanola, New Mexico for the “Los Alamos Pueblos’ Project (LAPP) Activities and Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustee Council Participation for Santa Clara Pueblo”. The objective of the project is to conduct a broad assessment of environmental, ecological and human health conditions on the Santa Clara Indian Reservation (SCIR), in order to identify issues of concern, and then determine the extent that those issues will impact and compromise the manner by which the Pueblo community engages in its traditional use of the community natural resources. The cooperative agreement has a value of $2.785 million, with a period of performance of 5 years.

September 30, 2016

The Buffalo (NY) News reports Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand and Rep. Brian Higgins have written to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz as part of their effort to “prevent the shipment of nuclear waste over the Peace Bridge.” They requested “a new Environmental Impact Statement on the shipment of any nuclear waste” shipped over the border on its way to Savannah River, South Carolina.

September 30, 2016

The Hill reports the Department of Energy has proposed “a rule to streamline the process for guaranteeing loans for projects that employ new or significantly improved technologies” with the purposes of reducing air pollution. “Changes under the proposed rule” hope to “clarify the circumstances in which potential applicants may communicate with the agency prior to submitting an application.” DOE “said it’s trying to get more applications by increasing transparency.” The public will have a chance to comment on the proposed rule for the next 30 days.

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October 2, 2016

The Paducah (KY) Sun reports the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management this week “extended the contract for BMXT Conversion Services” at its Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmith, Ohio Gaseous Diffusion Plants “for up to four months, and awarded a new, five-year contract to Mid-America Conversion Services, to operate the facilities at the two plants when the current contract expires.”

October 4, 2016

As part of Smart Cities Week, the White House announces a new Energy Department-led Smart Energy Analytics Campaign to encourage the use of cost-effective, energy-saving building analytics platforms – also known as energy management information systems technologies (EMIS) – in commercial buildings nationwide, and refine best practices.

October 4, 2016

Representatives of the Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the U.S. Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian government this week celebrate the completion of Bulgaria’s nuclear detection architecture, which will enhance efforts to prevent smuggling of dangerous radioactive materials across its borders. National and foreign dignitaries, including U.S. Ambassador Eric Rubin and Deputy Prime Minister Rumiana Bachvarova, gathered in Sofia to highlight the successful implementation of 27 radiation detection systems at locations across Bulgaria.

October 5, 2016

The Department selects two projects to advance key technologies that will enable development of next-generation advanced energy systems. The projects will receive $6 million of Phase 2 research funding from DOE with a performance period of approximately 3 years. The projects were selected from among five DOE-funded Phase 1 projects, recently completed by private partners.

October 5, 2016

As of this day, 72 parties accounting for 56.75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions have joined the climate agreement negotiated at COP21 in Paris, meeting the requirements of 55 parties representing 55 percent of global emissions needed for the Paris Agreement to enter into force in 30 days, prior to the COP22 meeting in Morocco. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz releases the following statement: “Passing the threshold for the Paris Agreement’s entry into force is a historic moment, marking a new era of global consensus on climate change action. This agreement will further accelerate development of a multi-trillion dollar market for clean energy technology solutions that reduce heat-trapping emissions.”

October 5, 2016

In commemoration of National Hydrogen Day, the Energy Department releases a new report today showing continued momentum and growth in the fuel cell industry. The 2015 Fuel Cell Technologies Market Report shows that hydrogen and fuel cells continue to grow at an unprecedented rate, with more than 60,000 fuel cells, totaling roughly 300 megawatts (MW), shipped worldwide in 2015. The number of MW shipped grew by more than 65% compared to 2014. 2015 also saw the world’s first fuel cell vehicles for sale. To further expand on this emerging market, the Department today announced a notice of intent to invest $30 million, subject to appropriations, to advance fuel cell and hydrogen technologies. These projects will leverage national lab consortia launched under DOE’s Energy Materials Network (EMN) this past year, and will support the President’s Materials Genome Initiative and advanced manufacturing priorities. 

October 5, 2016

The Washington Examiner reports that during an appearance on Chelsea Handler’s late-night Netflix talk show, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz briefly discussed the hit Netflix show “Stranger Things” among other topics. The series is about “a 1980s Indiana town” that “gets besieged by a paranormal monster from a parallel universe.” When discussing climate change, Moniz said, “First of all, I have never seen [“Stranger Things”], but I’m aware of it. ... Secondly, I believe this fictional D.O.E. laboratory was operating in the 1980s. You can draw whatever inference you wish from that. Third, I will note that actually we do work in parallel universes.” He “described the various responsibilities” the agency has, “ranging from the Iran nuclear agreement to basic science, which ‘includes trying to understand the basic particles of nature and the structure of the universe.’” The “Morning Energy” blog of Politico reported Secretary Moniz called climate change denial “ridiculous” in the same appearance on Netflix’s “Chelsea.” He told Handler, “We as members of our society should not be amused when we hear these statements about climate change not being a concern. ... It’s ridiculous, frankly, and we need to have people, voters stand up and push back on this. It’s not the way we, as Americans, address problems.”

October 7, 2016

Researchers at Penn State, the Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company report they have developed methods to control defects in two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, that may lead to improved membranes for water desalination, energy storage, sensing or advanced protective coatings. For a two-dimensional, one-atom-thick material like graphene, defects such as small cracks or holes can make a big difference in performance. Usually, these defects are considered undesirable. But if the defects can be controlled, they can be used to engineer new, desirable properties into the material.

October 12, 2016

E&E Publishing reports the congressional delegation of Minnesota is pressuring the Energy Department to finish “its review of a transmission line extending from Grand Rapids, Minn., to the Manitoba, Canada, border, accessing Canadian hydroelectric power to help balance expanding U.S.-based wind power.” The Great Northern Transmission Line was cited by the agency “as an exemplar of how transmission line approvals should optimally work when it published on Sept. 21 its final rule on the coordination of federal reviews for electric transmission projects.” The sticking point is a “presidential permit” that the agency “would issue once its review is complete.” In a letter last month to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, the Democratic Minnesota lawmakers said, “Unfortunately, it appears DOE’s Presidential permit process did not run entirely in parallel with the state approval process, causing delays.”

October 12, 2016

The Department announces that a DOE-funded project on second-generation carbon dioxide (CO2) solvent technology will begin testing at the Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM) in western Norway.  The DOE and the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy have a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) covering fossil energy-related research to leverage each countries’ investments in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).

October 12, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration detonates an underground conventional explosive at its Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) as part of its on-going Source Physics Experiment (SPE) research efforts. This explosion was the sixth in a series of SPE experiments (SPE-6) designed to improve the Nation’s capability to detect and characterize underground nuclear explosions and to help develop an advanced capability for the United States to monitor low-yield nuclear testing.

October 13, 2016

USA Today reports that the President has signed an executive order “to prepare the federal government to deal with the effects of space weather events,” which “can have big effects on everyday technologies like global positioning systems, satellite communication and aviation.” According to the President, if the weather is extreme enough, it “has the potential to simultaneously affect and disrupt health and safety across entire continents.” Under the order, which “instructs executive branch agencies on their responsibilities in preparing and responding to space weather events,” the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy “will coordinate the efforts of agencies across the government, including Defense, Commerce, Energy and NASA, which will work together to improve their ability to forecast space weather events and protect critical infrastructure from their effects.”

October 13, 2016

The Department announces nine new energy performance contracting pilot projects that bring together U.S. and Chinese companies to boost the energy efficiency of buildings in China and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A combination of clean energy retrofits and upgrades will save the selected facilities on energy costs over the lifetime of the contracts by making them more energy efficient. The savings on utility bills created through the facility upgrades will be used to pay for the projects over the terms of the contracts, and the improved facilities will continue to save money and energy after the contract terms have ended. The new projects support the efforts of both countries to work together to address climate change as recently formalized under the Paris Agreement.

October 13, 2016

The Department’s Office of Fossil Energy and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) announce approximately $2 million in federally funded financial assistance for the first phase of cost-shared projects aimed to achieve small-scale production of salable rare earth elements (REEs) from domestic sources of pre-combustion coal and coal by-products.

October 14, 2016

The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) releases new numbers on how the Obama Administration's early support for solar photovoltaic (PV) projects led to a massive expansion of large-scale solar farms. According to today’s update to a 2015 report, the loans provided by DOE to the first five utility-scale solar PV projects larger than 100 megawatts (MW) in the United States helped demonstrate the technology’s success to the market and led to the private financing of an additional 45 utility-scale solar PV projects, a ten-fold increase.

October 17, 2016

DOE announces the release of guidance on EIS and EA Distribution. This Guidance contains recommendations for the efficient and effective distribution of a draft, final, or supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS), and includes recommendations for the distribution of environmental assessments. When he approved the Guidance, Steve Croley, DOE General Counsel, approved two variances to DOE NEPA Order 451.1B, NEPA Compliance Program that are indicated in the memo inside the front cover. The guidance is available at: /node/259135.

October 17, 2016

The Department announces that regulators have approved the completion of a cleanup project on the Hanford Site that began nearly 25 years ago that successfully removed nearly 90 tons of deep-soil contamination and reduced groundwater risk using a remediation technology known as soil vapor extraction. The Office of Environmental Management’s Richland Operations Office and contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CH2M) employed the technology to clear contamination by the chemical carbon tetrachloride, which was used in Cold War plutonium processing operations. It spread to an area approximately three-fourths of a square mile and approximately 200 feet in the ground in the 200 West Area.

October 17, 2016

Following several days of negotiations between the United States and nearly 200 nations in Kigali, Rwanda, an agreement is reached to amend the Montreal Protocol to phase down the production and use of potent heat-trapping chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). A statement from Secretary Ernest Moniz begins: “From the climate agreement forged in Paris to this new accord reached in Rwanda, the international community is continuing a year of positive action to cut the heat-trapping emissions that are warming our planet. These agreements will send signals to industry and innovators that countries are committed to developing and deploying a new generation of energy efficient and low-carbon solutions to meet the goals our nations have declared before the world, and encourage even greater ambition in the future.”

October 17, 2016

The Office of Environmental Management announces that more than 40 people from around the world met recently for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting to share lessons learned and address environmental aspects of uranium mining and remediation projects. EM’s Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project hosted the meeting and provided a tour of EM’s project sites in Moab, Utah to the environmental and project managers, operators, researchers and regulators from the U.S. and 13 other countries in attendance.

October 17, 2016

The Office of Environmental Management announces that thanks to new robotic gear, EM’s Idaho Site is better armed to safely and compliantly handle the cleanup complex’s transuranic radioactive waste. A safe, reliable and accessible tool for opening waste drums and boxes, the new robotic arm began operating this month at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project’s (AMWTP) Treatment Facility. It’s the first of two arms being installed, replacing the facility’s original robotic arms used to examine, sort and treat much of the legacy waste at AMWTP in the past 12 years. The new arms are intended to create a safer work environment, enhance productivity and reduce maintenance costs by an estimated 80 percent. In 2015, maintenance personnel entered the facility’s highly contaminated boxlines more than 500 times, each time at a cost of at least $3,600. Crews also report the new arm is easier on their hands and wrists. Updating AMWTP’s capabilities is timely as retrieval crews remove the last of the waste containers stored at the site for nearly a half century.

October 17, 2016

The Department announces it is awarding up to $80 million for a six-year project to design, build, and operate a 10-MWe (megawatts electrical) supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) pilot plant test facility in San Antonio, TX. The project will be managed by a team led by the Gas Technology Institute (GTI), Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®), and General Electric Global Research (GE-GR). The new facility will support the future commercialization of sCO2 Brayton cycle energy conversion systems by testing and demonstrating the potential energy efficiency and cost benefits of this technology.  Today the average efficiency of the U.S. fleet of steam Rankine cycle power plants is in the lower 30 percent range. This new facility has the potential to demonstrate greater than 50 percent cycle efficiency. If successfully developed, the supercritical CO2 power cycles could provide significant efficiency gains in geothermal, coal, nuclear, and solar thermal power production.

October 17, 2016

Greenwire reports the only Energy Department employee in Alaska “is betting that small-scale hydropower will reduce energy costs for rural residents in the remote state.” DOE Office of Indian Energy Alaska program manager Givey Kochanowski “is pressing for resources to build more micro-hydropower projects.” Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz “has committed to adding three employees to Kochanowski’s office, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is pushing Moniz to ramp up the hiring process.” E&E adds “Kochanowski notes thousands of streams, rivers and beaches that might provide an energy boom.” He stated, “This is a first step of bringing together tribal interests and hydropower up here.”

October 17, 2016

Following several days of negotiations between the United States and nearly 200 nations in Kigali, Rwanda, an agreement is reached to amend the Montreal Protocol to phase down the production and use of potent heat-trapping chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).

October 18, 2016

The Interagency Task Force on Natural Gas Storage Safety, established in the wake of last year’s massive natural gas leak at California’s Aliso Canyon site, issues a new report intended to help reduce the risk of future such incidents. The report chronicles lessons learned from the Aliso Canyon leak and analyzes the nation’s more than 400 underground natural gas storage wells. It provides 44 recommendations to industry, federal, state, and local regulators and governments to reduce the likelihood of future leaks and minimize the impacts of any that occur.

October 18, 2016

The Department of Energy and Canada’s Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) announce the opening of a new 1 Megawatt Thermal (MWth) facility to test an advanced process to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-fired power plants.  The announcement was made during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the facility in Ottawa. The new 1 MWth facility will test oxy-fired pressurized fluidized bed combustion (oxy-PFBC) as a means to more efficiently and economically capture CO2 and help advance the commercialization of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) in the U.S. as well as Canada.  CCUS is seen as a critical tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change.  Successful results from this project will help scale up the oxy-PFBC process to commercial scale.

October 19, 2016

At the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) meeting in Seattle, the Office of Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability announces over $5 million in fundamental research that will allow electric sector organizations in California, New York, and Tennessee to develop synchrophasor applications in two important areas: reliability management and asset management. Synchrophasors, which use systems of phasor measurement units (PMUs) to measure data and time-synchronize it using GPS satellites, provide system operators with a near real-time snapshot of the grid’s operating status.

October 20, 2016

Greenwire reports that according to emails hacked by WikiLeaks, “Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz bemoaned the loss of veteran Democratic operative John Podesta as an adviser and repeatedly asked for his help on high-profile energy projects.” In the emails Moniz “asked the former chairman of the Obama transition team to rejoin a Department of Energy advisory board, expressing frustration over the ‘painful process’ of converging the Quadrennial Energy Review and draining congressional patience.” DOE selected “Podesta in 2013 to serve as a member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, along with 18 other scientists, business executives, academics and former government officials.”

October 20, 2016

The Christian Science Monitor reports that climate change was “notable for its absence” in the presidential debates. “Climate change was vigorously debated by Democrats during the primary election, and many polls have showed voters consider climate a pressing issue, but most Americans still don’t rate its importance highly in comparison to other issues.” respondents to an August Pew poll asking what they wanted to hear about during the debates “allocated the most time to terrorism and economic growth, while global climate change ranked near the bottom.”

October 20, 2016

The Energy Department announces $21.4 million in funding for 17 new projects to help reduce the "soft costs" commonly found with solar energy, such as installation, permitting, and connecting to the grid. As more U.S. consumers turn toward renewable energy each year, nine of the awards will focus on how the solar industry can sustain and accelerate this growth by understanding the motivations and factors that influence the technology adoption process, particularly in low- and moderate-income communities. The other eight awards will focus on tackling solar market challenges at the state and regional levels through better strategic energy and economic planning.

October 21, 2016

University of Virginia Scientists and engineers, with colleagues at the NIST Center for Neutron Research, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Cornell University, announce they have made new inroads on understanding the fundamental physics of the solar cell material -hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites or HOIPS - extremely lightweight, flexible, and efficient materials. They detail their findings can be found in a paper published in the journal Science Advances, where they identify how organic molecules in the structures play a crucial role in how the phase transitions occur. 

October 24, 2016

The Energy Department announces $10 million, subject to appropriations, to support the launch of the HydroGEN Advanced Water Splitting Materials Consortium (HydroGEN). This consortium will utilize the expertise and capabilities of the national laboratories to accelerate the development of commercially viable pathways for hydrogen production from renewable energy sources. HydroGEN is being launched as part of the Energy Materials Network (EMN) that began in February of this year, crafted to give American entrepreneurs and manufacturers a competitive edge in the global race for clean energy in support of the President's Materials Genome Initiative and advanced manufacturing priorities. Currently, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) funds research and development of low-carbon hydrogen production pathways, and by establishing HydroGEN, the DOE intends to accelerate innovation with the assistance of the national laboratories.

October 25, 2016

ClimateWire reports that speaking to a nuclear energy conference at the Center of Strategic and International Studies on Monday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz signaled that “the next administration will play a major role in deciding the fate of the U.S. nuclear industry.” He stated, “We do have a set of deliberate choices we are going to have to make, and we are going to have to make them, in my view, over a roughly five-year period.” ClimateWire adds “the next president will have to make critical decisions about” nuclear energy’s role “in meeting climate change targets as several existing nuclear power plants face early retirement, while four new nuclear power plants will be coming online.” Moniz said, “What the system will look like is extremely unclear. ... We say [nuclear] is essential. That is by no means a universally held view.”

October 25, 2016

Washington State University researchers report they have found a way to more efficiently create hydrogen from water – an important key in making renewable energy production and storage viable. The researchers, led by professors Yuehe Lin and Scott Beckman in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, have developed a catalyst from low cost materials. It performs as well as or better than catalysts made from precious metals that are used for the process. The work is published in the journal Advanced Energy Materials. 

October 25, 2016

The Department’s Better Buildings Challenge program recognizes University of California, Berkeley for its leadership in energy efficiency. The University achieved 65 percent energy savings at its Jacobs Hall facility, the College of Engineering’s interdisciplinary hub where students and teachers from across the university work at the intersection of design and technology. Through its Energy Management Initiative (EMI)—an innovative approach to linking energy costs to building occupants—UC Berkeley has achieved campus-wide energy savings of $6.5 million and now has a practice in place to help benchmark energy performance in its buildings.

October 26, 2016

POWER reports that in his talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies conference, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz cited “eight pressing issues” facing nuclear power. He said existing nuclear plants must be considered to guard against more plant closures. He said new reactors will come online in coming years, but only in the Southeast, which will illustrate how different regulatory structures and cost recovery mechanisms are in the US. He said the problem of the aging fleet must be addressed, perhaps by more relicensing. He said the nuclear industry has to figure out how to operate in a “decarbonized electricity system,” where the need for baseload power may be lessened. He said spent fuel management systems needs to get moving, and the “gap in the nuclear-fuel cycle and the proliferation arena” must be dealt with. He also called for an assessment of the future for small modular reactors, and a push and funding boost for advanced nuclear technology.

October 26, 2016

The “Morning Energy” blog of Politico reported that on Air Force One White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that it isn’t clear if the “global deal to phase down use of hydrofluorocarbons would require the Senate’s stamp of approval, but said any vote would likely come after Obama leaves office.” Earnest stated, “There will be a very strong case to make to the Senate about why they should approve this agreement if their approval is necessary.” But according to Politico “precedent suggests the Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol will have to go before the upper chamber.”

October 26, 2016

Theoretical physicists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announce they recently used Titan, America’s most powerful supercomputer, to compute the nuclear structure of nickel-78, consisting of 28 protons and 50 neutrons, and found that this neutron-rich nucleus is “doubly magic”—meaning it has greater stability than its neighbors thanks to having shells that are fully occupied by both protons and neutrons.   The results, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, may improve understanding of the origin, organization and interactions of stable matter.

October 26, 2016

Researchers from the Department’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratories and collaborating institutions announce they presented results from research on the National Spherical Torus Experiment Upgrade (NSTX-U) at the 26^th International Atomic Energy Agency Conference (IAEA) in Kyoto, Japan. The four-year upgrade doubled the magnetic field strength, plasma current and heating power capability of the predecessor facility and made the NSTX-U the most powerful fusion facility of its kind.

October 26, 2016

A team of researchers, led by the University of Minnesota, announces it has invented a new soap molecule made from renewable sources that could dramatically reduce the number of chemicals in cleaning products and their impact on the environment. The soap molecules also worked better than some conventional soaps in challenging conditions such as cold water and hard water. The technology has been patented by the University of Minnesota and is licensed to the new Minnesota-based startup company Sironix Renewables. The new study is now online and will be published in the next issue of the American Chemical Society’s ACS Central Science, a leading journal in the chemical sciences. Authors of the study include researchers from the University of Minnesota, University of Delaware, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Sironix Renewables, and the Department of Energy’s Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation and Argonne National Laboratory.

October 27, 2016

Sally Dawson, a theoretical physicist at the Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory, is named a recipient of the 2017 J.J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics. The award, given by the American Physical Society, recognizes Dawson and her three co-authors of The Higgs Hunter's Guide, a seminal book first published in 1989 on the physics of Higgs bosons—fundamental particles predicted by the accepted theory of particle physics as essential to generating the mass of fundamental particles, and discovered in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012.

October 27, 2016

The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration this week hosts diplomats from ten countries and two international organizations at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and at the National Atomic Testing Museum (NATM) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The visit provides an up-close demonstration of NNSA’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), through which the U.S. is able to maintain the safety, security, and reliability of its nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear explosive testing. The tour also showcases NNSA expertise in applying world-class science, technology, and engineering to various nuclear security missions, including technical support for Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) methodologies. NNSS—a former nuclear explosive test site until a moratorium on nuclear explosive testing was established in 1992—now serves as an experimental test bed and training ground for broad nonproliferation and national security missions beneficial to both the U.S. and the international community. 

October 28, 2016

Fuel Fix (TX) reports the battle over whether to build a West Texas nuclear waste storage facility “has touched off again over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s decision to move ahead on the review process.” NRC earlier this month “wrote a letter” to developer Waste Control Specialists “informing them that the agency would be beginning its environmental review of the project even though the company’s initial application remained incomplete.” That news “prompted four environmental groups to write the NRC Wednesday, arguing it should dismiss the application because Congress never intended for a privately-owned facility to take possession of nuclear waste.” The NRC said in its letter, “This decision, however, does not presuppose the outcome of NRC’s ongoing acceptance review of the WCS application.” But when combined with comments made by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz “last month that the government was interested in exploring private storage facilities as an interim solution for nuclear waste, environmentalists in Texas fear that the Andrews County facility might very well come to pass.”

October 29, 2016

DOE hosts an event marking the 10th anniversary of the Fernald cleanup, drawing former site workers, neighbors, regulators, activist groups, contractors and others to celebrate the project’s successful completion a decade ago. The Office of Environmental Management and contractor Fluor Fernald finished the project in 2006 at a cost of $4.4 billion — saving more than $8 billion — and 12 years ahead of the original estimated completion date. It was one of the largest environmental cleanups in U.S. history at the time.

October 30, 2016

The “Morning Energy” blog of Politico reported negotiators in the Senate are “trying to work out an energy bill deal” and “sent their House counterparts a new proposal this week outlining what they would like to see in a conference report.” The proposal’s details “are being closely held, but we’re told the focus was on stripping out items from a House-passed bill that would not fly with Senate Democrats or the White House.”

October 30, 2016

On National Weatherization Day, the Energy Department joins 13 states – Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin – and several hundred local agencies in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the department’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). WAP has advanced energy efficiency in low-income households through grants to states, territories, and Native American tribes. The program has 59 grantees, including all 50 states, the District of Columbia, five U.S. territories, and three Native American tribes. The grantees contract to more than 700 community action agencies, nonprofits, and local governments to weatherize homes.

October 31, 2016

Office of Environmental Management Assistant Secretary Monica Regalbuto reviews progress in the open-air demolition of Building G2 during a recent visit to the Separations Process Research Unit (SPRU) nuclear facility. Regalbuto also observed demolition preparations for Building H2. The two primary SPRU buildings supported improvements in the chemical separation of plutonium for the nation’s Cold War defense. With her SPRU visit, Regalbuto has now toured all 16 active EM sites in 11 states since her confirmation by the U.S. Senate to lead the DOE cleanup program in August 2015. At SPRU, Regalbuto watched workers demolish the G2 superstructure and saw progress in removing steel-reinforced concrete process hot cell walls, several of which are 5 feet thick. She also observed the water spray and retention systems that ensure demolition dust remains within the project boundary.

October 31, 2016

The Office of Environmental Management announces the recently completed cleanup of a 1963 plutonium dispersion test site just north of the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), capping more than 20 years of hard work and cross-agency collaboration. It was the first time EM completed environmental characterization and remediation of a plutonium dispersion site on the Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) as outlined in the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order (FFACO). The cleanup at the site known as Double Tracks also meets U.S. Air Force (USAF) land-use requirements (not releasable to or accessible by the public) and allows for less restrictive management of the sites.

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November 1, 2016

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers announce they have identified a mechanism that causes low clouds -- and their influence on Earth's energy balance -- to respond differently to global warming, depending on their spatial pattern and location. The results imply that studies relying solely on recent observed trends underestimated how much Earth will warm due to increased carbon dioxide. The research appears in the Oct. 31 edition of the journal, Nature Geosciences.

November 1, 2016

The Augusta (GA) Chronicle reports a deal has been reached on how to treat over “36 million gallons of radioactive and toxic liquid waste” being stored in “aging” tanks at the Savannah River Site. The Energy Department and South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control yesterday announced the deal. SRS, under the deal, “will process the liquid waste starting this year through 2022 to mitigate the delay in startup of the Salt Waste Processing Facility.” DHEC Director Catherine Heigel said, “We appreciate the DOE working with us to make important progress toward ensuring the long-term safety and health of South Carolinians.” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said, “This agreement underscores our continued commitment to furthering the Department of Energy’s environmental cleanup mission at Savannah River Site and reaffirms our good working relationship with South Carolina.”

November 2, 2016

The Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces up to $32 million in funding for 10 innovative projects as part of its newest program: Next-Generation Energy Technologies for Connected and Autonomous On-Road Vehicles (NEXTCAR). With a goal of reducing individual vehicle energy usage by 20 percent, NEXTCAR projects will take advantage of the increasingly complex and connected systems in today’s—and tomorrow’s—cars and trucks to drastically improve their energy efficiency.

November 3, 2016

Reuters  reports the White House announced yesterday “it will establish 48 national electric-vehicle (EV) charging networks on nearly 25,000 miles of highways” in 35 states. A partnership of “28 states, utilities and vehicle manufactures...and EV charging firms” will “work together to jump-start the additional charging stations.” Reuters adds that electric vehicle sales “have fallen well below President Barack Obama’s goal of reaching 1 million by 2015.” Earlier this year, Secretary Ernest Moniz “told Reuters...the country may hit the figure in three to four years with continuing improvements in battery technology, but he acknowledged low gasoline prices have hurt EV sales.” The Washington Post reports drivers on the designated “highways will be able to expect charging stations every 50 miles or so.” The highways “will have signs pointing drivers to nearby charging points, just as drivers of traditional cars currently benefit from highway signs notifying them of gas stations ahead.”

November 3, 2016

Reuters reports that the Paris climate agreement officially entered into force Friday as greenhouse gas emissions are projected by 2030 to exceed “what is needed to keep global warming to the internationally agreed target” of 2°C. Technical meetings in Marrakesh begin Monday. UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa said, “The timetable is pressing because globally greenhouse gas emissions which drive climate change and its impacts are not yet falling.” In a second story, Reuters points out that the accord came into effect first in the time zones of “low-lying island states on the front lines of storm surges, disruptions to rainfall and a creeping rise in sea levels:” Kiribati, Tonga, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.

November 3, 2016

Department of Energy researchers win 32 of the 100 awards given out this year by R&D Magazine and receive a special recognition award for the most outstanding technology developments with promising commercial potential. The R&D 100 Awards, sometimes called the “Oscars of Innovation,” are given annually in recognition of exceptional new products or processes that were developed and introduced into the marketplace during the previous year.

November 5, 2016

The Christian Science Monitor reports legislators are considering abandoning daylight savings time. Critics say that the hour change causes a drop in productivity and an increase in accidents as reasons to abandon the practice. However, a “2008 study by the Department of Energy found annual energy usage declined about 0.03 percent because of the practice – enough to power some 100,000 homes for a year.”