July 30, 2014: “The Last of the Big Dogs” has a new home after Pantex workers recently delivered one of the few remaining B53 nuclear weapons cases to the Freedom Museum USA in Pampa, Texas. The final B53, which received its “Big Dog” nickname from dismantlement workers due to its massive size, was dismantled at Pantex on October 25, 2011, in a historic ceremony. The B53 was the oldest, largest and most destructive nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal at the time it was retired.
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January 2, 2014
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) releases a list of some of its most important accomplishments and improvements during 2013. NNSA reached “significant milestones in the areas of nonproliferation and counterterrorism, made a host of significant achievements through its work with the United States’ nuclear weapons stockpile, and saw improved operations throughout the complex.”
January 2, 2014
The Department’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer issues the Fiscal Year 2013 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) report. The LDRD program allows the labs to pursue innovative, self-selected projects in support of DOE’s mission. The total FY 2013 LDRD program cost at the national laboratories was $568.6 million in 1,742 projects.
January 2, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues a Special Report on NNSA’s Management of the $245 million Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Security Upgrades Project Phase II at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The IG finds that the project suffered from a number of project management weaknesses. These issues ultimately resulted in cost increases of as much as $41 million and delayed completion of the project by nearly a year. In addition, management information systems failed to provide accurate and complete information about the funds available to complete the remaining work scope. These project management issues created a series of problems that collectively resulted in significant unanticipated cost and schedule impacts.
January 6, 2014
President Barack Obama nominates Madelyn R. Creedon to be Principal Deputy Administrator of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Frank G. Klotz, of Virginia, to be DOE Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA Administrator, Steven Croley to be DOE General Counsel, Marc A. Kastner to be Director of the DOE Office of Science, Franklin M. Orr, Jr., to be DOE Under Secretary for Science, Elizabeth M. Robinson to be DOE Under Secretary of Energy, Christopher Smith to be DOE Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fossil Energy, Jonathan Elkind to be DOE Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs, and Ellen Dudley Williams to be DOE Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
January 6, 2014
The Department announces $3 million to support clean energy business incubators that provide critical services to entrepreneurs and small businesses and accelerate the commercialization of clean energy technologies. The National Incubator Initiative for Clean Energy will support incubators across the country to help unleash the creative potential of America's entrepreneurs. Through these incubators, small businesses and entrepreneurs can receive important services to help successfully develop and commercialize clean energy technologies, including mentorship, business development, capital access, and manufacturing support.
January 8, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that a team of researchers, in a collaboration known as the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), have mapped the locations of 1.2 million galaxies and thereby measured the scale of the universe to an unprecedented accuracy of 1 percent.
January 8, 2014
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel visits the Z Pulsed Power Facility at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While at Sandia, Secretary Hagel is provided with briefings and tours of several of the unique capabilities at the laboratory used to assist the Department of Defense in support of the national security mission.
January 9, 2014
President Obama signs a memorandum establishing the federal government’s first Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) process, to ensure that federal energy policies continue to meet the nation’s economic, environmental, and security goals. Over the next four years, the QER will provide a comprehensive review of these policies in the context of a changing energy landscape. The first installment of the QER review will focus on America’s infrastructure for transmitting, storing and delivering energy -- much of which was built decades ago. This includes the 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, 2.2 million miles of local distribution circuits that make up our nation’s electric grid, 300,000 miles of transmission pipelines and hundreds of processing plants and underground storage facilities that make up America’s natural gas infrastructure network. Secretary Moniz co-authors an article on the White House blog.
January 9, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces that the High Pressure Fire Loop (HPFL) project at its Pantex Plant, located near Amarillo, Texas, was completed in December 2013 on schedule and more than $5 million under budget. Completion of HPFL enhances the reliability of safety-class fire suppression systems to ensure that the Pantex Plant will be able to meet mission assignments in critical production areas. The project reduces the risk of unplanned facility system outages, reduces system maintenance requirements and represents NNSA’s broader efforts to improve project management.
January 9, 2014
The Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announces that a "hybrid" anode developed at the lab could quadruple the life of lithium-sulfur batteries. As a result, lithium-sulfur batteries could one day extend the range of electric cars and store renewable wind energy more cheaply.
January 12, 2014
Secretary of State John Kerry announces agreement on implementation of the Joint Plan of Action for the November 2013 First Steps Agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. “Because of the determined and focused work of our diplomats and technical experts,” Secretary Kerry says, “we now have a set of technical understandings for how the parties will fulfill the commitments made at the negotiating table. These understandings outline how the first step agreement will be implemented and verified, as well as the timing of implementation of its provisions.” Implementation is set to begin on January 20. President Obama issues a statement.
January 13, 2014
President Obama names Dr. Allen J. Bard of the University of Texas at Austin and Dr. Andrew Sessler of DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as recipients of the Enrico Fermi Award, one of the government’s oldest and most prestigious awards for scientific achievement. The award recognizes individuals for their distinguished leadership, accomplishments, and service related to science and research supported by DOE. The Presidential award carries an honorarium of $50,000, shared equally, and a medal. The award is administered on behalf of the White House by DOE.
January 13, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers from the lab and California State University, Long Beach, have launched “Kelp Watch 2014,” a scientific campaign designed to determine the extent of radioactive contamination of the state’s kelp forest from Japan’s damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant following the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami.
January 14, 2014
The Department launches a new #WomeninSTEM video series. The video series is designed to inspire the next generation of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) professionals, while raising the profile of women who are leading transformative change across the energy sector, from addressing the growing threat of climate change to advancing clean energy technologies, like wind and solar.
January 14, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces that an aerial radiation monitoring survey will be conducted over Baltimore, Maryland, on January 15 and 16. A helicopter will fly over low altitudes to measure naturally occurring background radiation. The background data will be used to improve aerial radiation measurement capabilities used by local, state, and federal entities.
January 14, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that researchers have used cobalt catalysts to duplicate the complicated steps of photosynthesis. Currently, the most efficient methods for making fuel – principally, hydrogen – from sunlight and water involve rare and expensive metal catalysts, such as platinum. The Argonne researchers have found a new, more efficient way to link a less expensive synthetic cobalt-containing catalyst to an organic light-sensitive molecule, called a chromophore. Although cobalt is significantly less efficient than platinum when it comes to light-induced hydrogen generation, the drastic price difference between the two metals makes cobalt the obvious choice as the foundation for a synthetic catalyst.
January 15, 2014
The Department announces the decision to provide financial assistance to the FutureGen Industrial Alliance for the FutureGen 2.0 Project. DOE will provide approximately $1 billion of cost-shared funding (the majority of which was appropriated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) through cooperative agreements with the Alliance, as described in DOE's Record of Decision. DOE's decision is to implement the proposed action in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the FutureGen 2.0 Project (DOE/EIS-0460). The EIS evaluates the potential environmental impacts associated with construction and operation of the FutureGen 2.0 Project, which is a public-private partnership formed for the purpose of developing the world’s first commercial-scale, oxy-combustion electric generation project integrated with carbon capture and geologic storage.
January 15, 2014
President Obama announces in a speech at North Carolina State University the selection of the university to lead a public-private manufacturing innovation institute for next generation power electronics. Supported by a $70 million DOE investment over five years as well as a matching $70 million in non-federal cost-share, the institute will bring together over 25 companies, universities and state and federal organizations to invent and manufacture wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor-based power electronics that are cost-competitive and 10 times more powerful than current silicon-based technology on the market.
January 16, 2014
Department announces the launching of a contest to promote the creation of new apps designed to address today’s energy challenges. The Apps for Energy II contest, which is the second contest in the year-long American Energy Data Challenge, will encourage contestants to leverage ideas developed during the American Energy Data Challenge’s first contest, and open data sources.
January 16, 2014
The White issues a summary of technical understandings related to the implementation of the six-month Joint Plan of Action on Iran’s Nuclear Program, which will be implemented beginning on January 20.
January 16, 2014
Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Dan Utech posts an article on the White House blog on the Administration’s progress on climate change.
January 16, 2014
Princeton University announces that a Princeton-led international team sponsored in part by DOE is pursuing a new experiment in a laboratory under a mountain 80 miles east of Rome aimed at finding particles of dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up a quarter of the universe but has never been seen.
January 16, 2014
The Department's Ames Laboratory announces that scientists at the lab have demonstrated broadband terahertz (THz) wave generation using metamaterials. The discovery may help develop noninvasive imaging and sensing, and make possible THz-speed information communication, processing and storage. Terahertz electromagnetic waves occupy a middle ground between electronics waves, like microwave and radio waves, and photonics waves, such as infrared and UV waves. Potentially, THz waves may accelerate telecom technologies and break new ground in understanding the fundamental properties of photonics. Challenges related to efficiently generating and detecting THz waves has primarily limited their use.
January 20, 2014
The International Atomic Energy Agency submits a report on Iran’s current nuclear activities and the steps it has taken to fulfill its initial commitments under the Joint Plan of Action. After reviewing this information, the U.S. and the European Union determine that Iran has taken the steps it committed to doing by or on the first day of implementation regarding its nuclear program. As a result of Iran’s actions, the U.S. and the European Union begin implementing the limited sanctions relief committed to under the Joint Plan of Action. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issues a statement.
January 22, 2014
Secretary Moniz, at the Washington Auto Show, announces nearly $50 million to accelerate research and development of new vehicle technologies that give drivers and businesses more transportation options and protect the environment in communities nationwide. The new funding includes support for DOE’s EV Everywhere Grand Challenge, a broader initiative launched in March 2012 to make plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) more affordable and convenient to own and drive.
January 22, 2014
The Department announces that Hanford’s River Corridor contractor, Washington Closure Hanford, has met a significant cleanup challenge on the Hanford Site by removing a 1,082-ton nuclear test reactor from the 300 Area. The River Corridor is a 220-square-mile section of land bordering the Columbia River and is DOE’s largest environmental cleanup closure project. The 300 Area is located about a mile north of Richland and a quarter-mile from the Columbia River. It was home to Hanford’s research, development and fuel fabrication activities for nearly 60 years. The Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor was the largest of Hanford’s experimental reactors used for developing and testing alternative fuels for the commercial nuclear power industry. The reactor operated from 1960 to 1969 and was housed underground beneath the 309 Building’s dome structure.
January 22, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers with the lab have developed a “process friendly” technique that would enable the cooling of microprocessor chips through carbon nanotubes. This could pave the way for faster, more efficient cooling of computer chips.
January 23, 2014
The Department announces the launch of a Funding & Financing portal -- a new online resource to help financiers and developers of energy technology and projects find the applicable program for funding and financing energy projects and businesses.
January 24, 2014
The U.S. announces plans for a new initiative with 13 other partner countries to eliminate tariffs on environmental goods in the World Trade Organization. The countries participating in the announcement account for 86 percent of global trade in environmental goods, such as such as solar water heaters, wind turbines, and catalytic converters.
January 27, 2014
Secretary Moniz issues a statement on the 2013 Solar Jobs Census. He notes that “there are more than 140,000 Americans employed up and down the U.S. solar supply chain and across every state. Since 2010, the solar industry has created nearly 50,000 new American jobs and employment has grown nearly 20 percent in the last year alone.”
January 27, 2014
The Department announces that Elliot Mainzer has been appointed Administrator for the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). Mainzer currently serves as BPA’s acting administrator.
January 27, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that a lab team’s research into the role of chemical dopants, which are essential to creating high-temperature superconductors, is providing insight that could lead to better superconductors.
January 28, 2014
President Obama delivers the State of the Union Address, with extended remarks on energy issues. “The all-of-the-above energy strategy I announced a few years ago is working,” the President says, “and today, America is closer to energy independence than we’ve been in decades. . . . One of the reasons why is natural gas – if extracted safely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change. . . . It’s not just oil and natural gas production that’s booming; we’re becoming a global leader in solar, too. Every four minutes, another American home or business goes solar; every panel pounded into place by a worker whose job can’t be outsourced. Let’s continue that progress with a smarter tax policy that stops giving $4 billion a year to fossil fuel industries that don’t need it, so that we can invest more in fuels of the future that do. And even as we’ve increased energy production, we’ve partnered with businesses, builders, and local communities to reduce the energy we consume. . . . Taken together, our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet. Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution more than any other nation on Earth. But we have to act with more urgency – because a changing climate is already harming western communities struggling with drought, and coastal cities dealing with floods.” The Department puts out a roundup of the energy highlights in the address.
January 29, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announces the signing of a new partnership with Local Motors, Inc., to develop and deliver technology to produce the world’s first production 3-D printed vehicle. The cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) will explore making vehicle construction more efficient, including lower production time, costs, and part count, coupled with higher standards of control, safety, aesthetics and mechanical flexibility. The partnership will make use of DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility located at ORNL.
January 30, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces that DOE has finalized new energy efficiency standards for metal halide lamp fixtures, which are used in lighting for big box stores and parking lots.
January 30, 2014
The Department announces $3 million to spur geothermal energy development using play fairway analysis. This technique identifies prospective geothermal resources in areas with no obvious surface expression by mapping the most favorable intersections of heat, permeability, and fluid. While commonly used in oil and gas exploration, play fairway analysis is not yet widely used in the geothermal industry. By improving success rates for exploration drilling, this data-mapping tool could help attract investment in geothermal energy projects and significantly lower the costs of geothermal energy.
January 30, 2014
The Department's Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases Liquid Fuels and Natural Gas in the Americas. The report examines the energy trends and developments in the Americas over the past decade and focuses on liquid fuels and natural gas—particularly reserves and resources, production, consumption, trade, and investment—given their scale and significance to the region. While the report considers the region as a whole and its relationships with the rest of the world, it also discusses the principal energy-producing and consuming countries individually, based on available energy statistics.
January 31, 2014
Secretary Moniz travels to Hampton Roads, VA, to highlight President Obama’s State of the Union address in remarks at Hampton University, one of the nation’s top historically black universities and a leader in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education.
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February 3, 2014
President Obama greets the 2013 Fermi Award winners, Allen J. Bard and Andrew Sessler, at the White House. Later in the day, Secretary Moniz presents the awards at a formal ceremony at DOE’s Forrestal building.
February 3, 2014
The Department announces new efficiency standards for external power supplies. External power supplies are used in hundreds of types of electronics and consumer products, including cell phones, tablets, laptops, video game consoles and power tools, to convert power from a wall outlet into lower voltages. More than 300 million external power supplies are shipped in the U.S. each year and the average American home has five to ten external power supplies.
February 3, 2014
The Department announces up to $12 million in funding to advance the production of cost-competitive, high-performance carbon fiber material from renewable non-food-based feedstocks such as agricultural residues and woody biomass. Carbon fiber derived from biomass may be less costly to manufacture and offer greater environmental benefits than traditional carbon fiber produced from natural gas or petroleum.
February 4, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces that Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories successfully completed the first full-system mechanical environment test of the B61‑12 as part of NNSA’s ongoing effort to refurbish the B61 nuclear bomb. The test is one of several critical milestones for the B61-12 Life Extension Program (LEP). The B61-12 LEP is an essential element of the U.S. strategic nuclear deterrent and of the U.S.’s commitments to extended deterrence.
February 4, 2014
The Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability releases the "Transmission Constraints and Congestion in the Western and Eastern Interconnections, 2009-2012" document, a compilation of publicly-available data on transmission constraints and congestion for the period 2009 through 2012.
February 4, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announces that it has awarded a major subcontract to FEMTOLASERS Produktions GmbH (based in Vienna, Austria) as part of the construction of a revolutionary high-power laser system for the European ELI-Beamlines science facility in the Czech Republic. LLNL is constructing the "High Repetition-Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System" (HAPLS) for the ELI-Beamlines facility. This facility will deliver peak powers greater than one petawatt (10 15 Watts, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 watts) at a repetition rate of 10 Hz, with each pulse lasting less than 30 femtoseconds, or 0.00000000000003 seconds. In order to achieve this, the HAPLS laser requires a state-of-the-art laser "front-end" source to generate the ultrafast pulse at high stability with ultra-low noise and robust operation.
February 5, 2014
In a meeting in Baghdad, Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman and Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs at the State Department Carlos Pascual co-chair the Energy Joint Coordination Committee with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Hussain Al Shahristani. The meeting aims to further cooperation to strengthen and secure energy infrastructure, develop natural gas resources and reduce gas flaring, support improvements in electricity generation, and examine the roles efficiency and renewable energy can play in meeting Iraqi energy needs. National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden issues a statement.
February 5, 2014
An underground vehicle used to transport salt catches fire in the underground at DOE’s Waste Isolation Project Plant (WIPP). Investigative and recovery actions begin to ensure a timely return to safe, compliant disposal of transuranic waste.
February 6, 2014
Secretary Moniz, at the University of Texas-Austin, announces $30 million in funding to 12 ARPA-E projects to develop transformational hybrid solar energy technologies. The awards are part of ARPA-E’s Full-Spectrum Optimized Conversion and Utilization of Sunlight (FOCUS) program, which is aimed at developing new hybrid solar energy converters and hybrid energy storage systems that can deliver low-cost, high-efficiency solar energy on demand. Later in the day, the Secretary Moniz travels to San Antonio where he meets with Mayor Julian Castro and discusses the Administration’s all-of-the-above energy strategy and the importance of science and innovation.
February 7, 2014
The Department announces the “Microgrid Research, Development, and System Design” funding opportunity, with up to $7 million to advance the design of technologies that will help communities become more adaptive and prepared for power outages caused by severe weather and other events. Microgrids are localized grids that are normally connected to the more traditional electric grid but can disconnect to operate autonomously and manage and control the flow of electricity and help mitigate grid disturbances.
February 11, 2014
The Department announces that it has conditionally authorized Cameron LNG, LLC, (Cameron) to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S. from the Cameron LNG Terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. Subject to environmental review and final regulatory approval, the facility is conditionally authorized to export at a rate of up to the equivalent of 1.7 billion standard cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, for a period of 20 years. For countries that do not have an FTA with the U.S., the Natural Gas Act directs DOE to grant export authorizations unless the Department finds that the proposed exports “will not be consistent with the public interest.”
February 11, 2014
The Department’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announces that NOvA, the world’s longest-distance neutrino experiment, has recorded its first neutrinos. The NOvA experiment consists of two huge particle detectors placed 500 miles apart, and its job is to explore the properties of an intense beam of ghostly particles called neutrinos. Neutrinos are abundant in nature, but they very rarely interact with other matter. Studying them could yield crucial information about the early moments of the universe. Scientists generate a beam of the particles for the NOvA experiment using one of the world’s largest accelerators, located at the Fermilab. They aim this beam in the direction of the two particle detectors, one near the source at Fermilab and the other in Ash River, Minnesota, near the Canadian border. The detector in Ash River is operated by the University of Minnesota under a cooperative agreement with DOE’s Office of Science.
February 11, 2014
The Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announces a new study that identifies the protein essential for relocating cytokinins, a major group of plant hormones that stimulate plant development, from roots to shoots. Regulating hormone distribution mechanisms in plants could lead to sustainable bioenergy crops with increased growth and reduced needs for fertilizer.
February 12, 2014
The Department announces $25 million in funding to strengthen U.S. solar manufacturing for photovoltaic and concentrating solar power technologies. The funding opportunity will support innovative projects that help solar manufacturers tackle key cost-contributors across the hardware supply chain and make improvements in a broad range of manufacturing processes that save time and money. Eligible projects may include developing advanced technology that lowers domestic solar manufacturing costs and developing and demonstrating components or new manufacturing processes that cut project construction and installation time. The Department also announces that the U.S. solar industry is more than 60 percent of the way to achieving cost-competitive utility-scale solar photovoltaic electricity – only three years into DOE’s decade-long SunShot Initiative.
February 12, 2014
Secretary Moniz addresses the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) on the Quadrennial Energy Review and the continued importance of the President’s all-of-the-above energy strategy in the fight against climate change. In an article on the Energy Blog, he amplifies his remarks on an adaptive, consent-based path to nuclear waste storage and disposal solutions.
February 12, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces the release of new tools to strengthen protection of the nation’s oil and natural gas infrastructure and the electric grid from cyber attack. The new versions of the Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model, which help organizations assess their own cybersecurity capabilities and identify steps to help strengthen their defenses, include a version that can be used by industries outside of the energy sector.
February 12, 2014
The Department awards a task order in support of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Legacy Waste Project to Waste Control Specialists (WCS) of Andrews, Texas. This is a fixed-price task order based on pre-established rates with a $2,287,193 value and has a one-year performance period. The work to be performed under this task order includes the receipt and disposal of 364.9 cubic yards of Class C Mixed Low-Level Waste generated at Los Alamos. The waste is from clean-up and remediation activities.
February 13, 2014
Secretary Moniz participates in the opening of the Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating System, the world’s largest concentrating solar power (CSP) plant. As the first commercial deployment of innovative power tower CSP technology in the U.S., the Ivanpah project was the recipient of a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from DOE’s Loan Programs Office. Ivanpah has the capacity to generate 392 megawatts (MW) of clean electricity -- enough to power 94,400 average American homes -- most of which will be sold under long-term power purchase agreements to Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison Company. The project is a joint effort by NRG, Google, and BrightSource Energy, and Bechtel served as the engineering, procurement, and construction contractor.
February 13, 2014
Deputy Secretary Poneman, at an event today in Irvine, California, announces the 20 collegiate teams selected to compete in the DOE Solar Decathlon 2015 and unveil the competition’s location – the Orange County Great Park. The 20 teams from colleges and universities across the country 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.
February 13, 2014
The Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that researchers have captured the distribution of multiple orbital electrons to help explain the emergence of superconductivity in iron-based materials. The research provides a breakthrough method for exploring and improving superconductivity in a wide range of new materials.
February 14, 2014
The Department announces $3 million for research and development to help grow U.S. low-to-moderate-temperature geothermal resources and support a domestic supply of critical materials, such as lithium carbonate and rare earth elements. Rare earths and other critical materials are essential for a range of technologies, including electric vehicles and wind turbines, as well as personal electronics such as cell phones and laptops.
February 14, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues an Audit Report on DOE’s management of its technology transfer and commercialization efforts. The IG review reveals opportunities to improve the effectiveness of DOE's management of its technology transfer and commercialization efforts. Specifically, the IG finds that DOE had not finalized quantitative performance metrics necessary for it to determine the success of its technology transfer and commercialization efforts, developed a forward-looking approach for investing the Energy Technology Commercialization Fund required by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and ensured the national laboratories were consistently treating their equity holdings in licensees received as part of their technology transfer efforts. Due to turnover in key staff, the IG was unable to definitively determine why DOE had failed to finalize and transmit its Execution Plan to Congress. In the absence of finalized performance metrics and forward looking budgets, DOE is at increased risk of failing to maximize its return on investment of limited technology transfer and commercialization funds.
February 14, 2014
The Department’s Richland Operations Office announces the removal of a massive concrete vault that once held two 15,000-gallon stainless steel tanks used to collect highly contaminated waste from Hanford’s 300 Area laboratories as part of the River Corridor Closure project.
February 14, 2014
A continuous air monitor detects airborne radiation in the underground at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). WIPP announces the following day that multiple perimeter monitors at the WIPP boundary have confirmed there is no danger to human health or the environment. No contamination has been found on any equipment, personnel, or facilities. Shipments to the site are suspended.
February 17-20, 2014
Negotiations between China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. (P5+1, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) and Iran on the comprehensive agreement focusing on Iran’s nuclear program begin in Vienna. The initial discussions create the framework and agenda for the negotiations going forward.
February 18, 2014
Barack Obama delivers remarks on improving the fuel efficiency of American trucks, at the Safeway Distribution Center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. The President directs the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to develop and issue the next phase of medium- and heavy-duty vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas standards by March 2016.
February 18, 2014
Department officials in Manaus, Brazil, join with scientific collaborators from the United States, Brazil, and Germany, to open a two-year field study in the Amazon Basin. Data obtained during the Green Ocean Amazon, or GOAmazon, field campaign will enable scientists to study the intricacies of the natural state of the Amazon rainforest atmosphere and land systems, and how these may be perturbed by human influences such as pollution and deforestation.
February 18-19, 2014
Representatives from government, industry, research institutions, and academia in the U.S. and Brazil meet at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to establish a "platform" for collaborative science and technology projects that have the potential to benefit public health and the environment, and stimulate economic development. The two-day forum, sponsored by the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, is the second U.S.-Brazil Bi-National Innovation Platform Steering Committee meeting to expand collaboration between the two countries.
February 19, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces at the National Press Club that he will be traveling to Waynesboro, Georgia, on February 20, to mark the issuance of approximately $6.5 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of two new nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant. The project represents the first new nuclear facilities in the U.S. to begin construction and receive Nuclear Regulatory Commission license in nearly three decades. In addition, the deployment of two new 1,100 megawatt Westinghouse AP1000® nuclear reactors is a first-mover for a new generation of advanced nuclear reactors.
February 19, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announces that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) -- the world's largest and most energetic laser -- is the first facility to ever reach the milestone of achieving fuel gains greater than 1, where the energy generated through fusion reactions exceeds the amount of energy deposited, with significant levels of alpha-heating. In December, Physics World, an international monthly magazine published by the Institute of Physics, names NIF's achievement of fuel gain one of its top 10 breakthroughs of the year.
February 19, 2014
President Obama meets in Toluca, Mexico, with President Peña Nieto of Mexico and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada for the North American Leaders Summit. On energy issues, the three leaders agree to work together to meet high fuel standards for heavy-duty trucks. They also agree to join with their Central American and Caribbean partners on a regional energy strategy.
February 19, 2014
The Department’s Joint Genome Institute announces that researchers have detailed the complete genome of duckweed, an often hard-to-control plant in ponds and small lakes. Among the fastest growing plants, duckweed is able to double its population in a couple of days under ideal conditions.This and other properties make it an ideal candidate as a biofuel feedstock – a raw source for biofuel production.
February 23, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announces that researchers have found that volcanic eruptions in the early part of the 21st century have cooled the planet. This cooling partly offset the warming produced by greenhouse gases.
February 24, 2014
The Department announces $10 million to improve subsurface characterization for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) by developing state-of-the-art methods that quantify critical underground reservoir properties as they change over time. New methods to access engineered reservoirs will speed the deployment of this next generation geothermal technology. To generate baseload, renewable power, EGS projects capture power from intensely hot rocks, buried thousands of feet below the surface, that lack the permeability or fluid saturation found in naturally occurring geothermal systems.
February 24, 2014
The Department’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announces that scientists on the CDF and DZero experiments have found the final predicted way of creating a top quark, completing a picture of this particle nearly 20 years in the making. Researchers observed one of the rarest methods of producing the elementary particle – creating a single top quark through the weak nuclear force, in what is called the “s-channel.” For this analysis, scientists sifted through data from more than 500 trillion proton-antiproton collisions produced by the Fermilab Tevatron from 2001 to 2011. They identified about 40 particle collisions in which the weak nuclear force produced single top quarks in conjunction with single bottom quarks.
February 24, 2014
The Department’s US ITER project announces completion of the final design review of the fusion reactor’s central solenoid, which will be the largest pulsed electromagnet ever built. The 1,000 metric ton solenoid located in the center of the ITER tokamak will have 5.5 gigajoules of stored energy and be about 18 meters, or 60 feet, tall.
February 24-26, 2014
The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) holds its fifth Energy Innovation Summit near Washington, D.C. The annual event brings together innovators, academia, government and industry to discuss pressing energy issues and collaborate on innovative energy technologies. The opening day focuses on the importance of knowledge and networks. Partnerships are key to bringing transformative energy innovations to market, and the ARPA-E Summit gives innovators the chance to build the relationships that are necessary to transition technologies into successful commercial products.
February 25, 2014
The main event of the second day of the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit is the Technology Showcase, featuring hundreds of breakthrough technologies. The Showcase gives Summit participants the opportunity to both highlight their work and identify opportunities to collaborate on new efforts. ARPA-E also announces that, to date, 22 ARPA-E projects have attracted more than $625 million in private-sector follow-on funding after ARPA-E’s investment of approximately $95 million. In addition, at least 24 ARPA-E project teams have formed new companies to advance their technologies, and more than 16 ARPA-E projects have partnered with other government agencies for further development.
February 25, 2014
President Obama announces two new public-private manufacturing innovation institutes and launches the first of four new manufacturing innovation institute competitions. The two new institutes led by the Department of Defense supported by a $140 million Federal commitment combined with more than $140 million in non-federal resources are located in the Detroit-area and will focus, respectively, on lightweight and modern metals manufacturing and on digital manufacturing and design technologies. The new competition, sponsored by DOE, will provide $70 million to launch a new Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation Institute focused on advanced fiber-reinforced polymer composites, which combine strong fibers with tough plastics to cost-effectively manufacture materials that are lighter and stronger than steel. These materials remain expensive, require large amounts of energy to manufacture, and are difficult to recycle. DOE’s institute for advanced composites will be aimed at overcoming these barriers to widespread use by developing low-cost, high-speed, and energy-efficient manufacturing and recycling processes.
February 25, 2014
The Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) launches an interactive, online Coal Data Browser that brings together in a single tool comprehensive government information, statistics, and visualizations about the U.S. coal sector. The Coal Data Browser gives users easy access to a vast array of coal information from EIA's electricity and coal surveys. The browser also allows users to dig through data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration and through coal trade information from the U.S. Census Bureau.
February 26, 2014
The three-day ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit closes with a keynote address by Secretary Moniz. The Secretary highlights the importance of clean energy technologies to the global transition to a low-carbon future. This transformation will rely on driving down the costs of technologies, and, as he tells those at the Summit, “it’s your responsibility to do it.”
February 26, 2014
Secretary Moniz, in a blog article, discusses how President Obama’s “all-of-the-above energy strategy” is making a difference across the nation. “I’ve been traveling across the country to highlight the Administration’s efforts to promote production of domestic energy, create jobs and opportunities for American families, and address the serious issues posed by climate change,” the Secretary says. “The President’s all-of-the-above energy strategy is a path to progress on all three points.”
February 26, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announces that it has joined forces with the Oak Ridge and Argonne national laboratories to deliver next generation supercomputers able to perform up to 200 peak petaflops (quadrillions of floating point operations per second), about 10 times faster than the current most powerful high performance computing (HPC) systems. The Collaboration of Oak Ridge, Argonne and Livermore (CORAL) national labs will produce systems in the 2017-2018 timeframe to support the research missions at their respective institutions. At LLNL, the system will serve NNSA's Advanced Simulation and Computing program in support of stockpile stewardship.
February 26, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces completion of major upgrades to a machine called the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System, or ATLAS, which generates high-intensity, high-energy beams from a variety of atomic nuclei that range from protons to uranium. The upgrades open new capabilities that in turn will lead to new types of experiments and new discoveries.
February 27, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the selection of five small-business-led teams for its new Management, Organizational, and Administrative Support Services Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPA). The BPAs are available for use throughout DOE, have an estimated value of $200 million over their five-year life, and will provide access to a total of 35 highly qualified small businesses.
February 27, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley and Argonne national laboratories announce a “big step” in the development of next-generation fuel cells and water-alkali electrolyzers with the discovery of a new class of bimetallic nanocatalysts that are an order of magnitude higher in activity than the target set by DOE for 2017.
February 28, 2014
The Department announces new efficiency standards for commercial refrigeration equipment. Over the next 30 years, these standards will help cut carbon pollution by about 142 million metric tons – equivalent to the annual electricity use of 14.3 million U.S. homes – and save businesses up to $11.7 billion on their energy bills.
February 28, 2014
The Department, in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, issues its final Environmental Assessment for the Resumption of Transient Testing of Nuclear Fuels and Materials (EA). Based on the analysis in the environmental assessment and after consideration of public comments received on the draft environmental assessment, DOE has determined that resuming transient testing of nuclear fuels and materials at the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) reactor at Idaho National Laboratory will not result in significant impacts to the environment. Transient testing involves placing fuel or material, either previously irradiated or un-irradiated, contained in a test assembly into the core of a nuclear test reactor and subjecting it to short bursts of intense, high-power radiation.
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March 3, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces the identification of key intermediate steps in artificial photosynthesis reaction. Artificial photosynthesis, which emulates the process used by nature to capture energy from the sun and convert it into electrochemical energy, is expected to be a major asset in any sustainable energy portfolio for the future. Artificial photosynthesis offers the promise of producing liquid fuels that are renewable and can be used without exacerbating global climate change.
March 3, 2014
The Environmental Protection Agency announces new “Tier 3” clean fuel and vehicle emission standards that will reduce harmful emissions and encourage innovation and technological improvements in cars and trucks.
March 4, 2014
President Obama releases his Fiscal Year 2015 budget request.
March 4, 2014
Secretary Moniz details President Obama’s $27.9 billion Fiscal Year 2015 budget request for DOE at a media briefing, emphasizing the President’s continued commitment to a low-carbon future, improved energy infrastructure resilience, U.S. science and technology leadership, and stronger national security. The budget request represents a 2.6 percent increase above the FY 2014 enacted level. Highlights in the budget include: $2.3 billion for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to continue a diverse suite of sustained investment in development of renewable generation technologies, sustainable transportation technologies, and advanced manufacturing technologies; $325 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy to continue research and development of transformational clean energy technologies; $863 million for Nuclear Energy for ongoing research and development in advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies as well as small modular reactor licensing technical support; $475 million for Fossil Energy Research and Development to advance carbon capture and storage and natural gas technologies; $180 million for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability grid modernization activities to support a smart, resilient electric grid for the 21st century and fund critical emergency response and grid security capabilities; $123 million for the Energy Information Administration to modernize its data infrastructure and meet evolving customer needs; $5.1 billion for the Office of Science including $1.8 billion for basic energy sciences activities to provide the foundations for new energy technologies; $8.3 billion for Weapons Activities to maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent; $1.6 billion for nuclear nonproliferation activities that will continue to reduce global stocks of weapons-useable nuclear materials; and $5.6 billion for Environmental Management to address the legal and moral obligations to clean up the legacy of the Cold War.
March 5, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) issues a press release on President Obama’s FY2015 Budget Request for NNSA. The total request of $11.7 billion includes $8.3 billion for the Weapons Activities appropriation, up $534 million from FY2014, including $2.7 billion to modernize the stockpile, particularly the B61 LEP; $1.7 billion to strengthen the science, technology, and engineering base in support of life extension activities; and $2.4 billion to keep the President’s commitment to modernize the NNSA’s nuclear security capabilities, including continued design activities for the Uranium Processing Facility. It includes $1.6 billion for NNSA nonproliferation efforts and reflects the decision to place the MOX project in cold standby to further study more efficient options for plutonium disposition. Finally, the budget request includes $1.4 billion for Naval Reactors, up $282 million from FY2014, to support naval nuclear propulsion systems, including three major initiatives: the Ohio-class Replacement submarine; refueling of the Land-Based Prototype reactor; and the Spent Fuel Handling Recapitalization Project.
March 5, 2014
The Department announces a $10 million funding opportunity to help demonstrate and deploy energy efficiency technologies for commercial buildings, including projects that will bring next generation building systems and components to a broader market faster. The funding opportunity supports the demonstration and deployment of technologies to reduce energy use and carbon emissions in commercial buildings: sub-metering, plug load strategies, open refrigerated display case retrofits, daylighting, shading, advanced compressor rack and refrigerant systems, and retro-commissioning strategies and technologies.
March 5, 2014
The Department’s Office of Health, Safety and Security issues the 2013 Former Worker Medical Screening Program (FWP) Annual Report highlighting the accomplishments of this program, which provides critical services to those who served and sacrificed through their work in DOE and its predecessor agencies. This year marked a significant milestone for the FWP – over 100,000 medical screening exams have been provided to former workers since the inception of the program.
March 5, 2014
The U.S. Embassy in Thailand, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Customs Department of the Kingdom of Thailand, the Port Authority of Thailand, and the Thai Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP) hold a transition ceremony to celebrate the official transfer of the radiation detection system installed at Laem Chabang Port, with Thailand now taking over full responsibility of maintaining the equipment and training the operators. Since 2005, NNSA’s Second Line Defense (SLD) Program has been strengthening the Kingdom of Thailand’s capability to deter, detect, and interdict illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials.
March 5-11, 2014
The U.S.-India Energy Dialogue meets in New Delhi. Secretary Moniz cohosts the government-to-government portion of the Dialogue meeting on March 11. The U.S. delegation includes, U.S. Trade and Development Agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development, Department of Commerce, and the State Department. The Energy Dialogue highlights ongoing engagement in the areas of civilian nuclear energy, electrical grid and power generation cooperation, energy efficiency, oil and gas exploration and investment, expanding markets for renewable energy technologies, and addressing barriers to clean energy deployment.
March 6, 2014
The Department and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association recognize Old Dominion Electric Cooperative of Virginia and the Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative of Illinois as the 2013 Wind Cooperatives of the Year. The awards are presented at the TechAdvantage 2014 Conference and Expo in Nashville, TN, to honor electric cooperatives that demonstrate outstanding leadership in advancing U.S. wind power. The two power providers were selected by a panel of judges from the wind industry, utilities, government, national laboratories and cooperatives, and were evaluated for their corporate leadership, project innovation, and benefits to customers.
March 10, 2014
President Obama nominates Monica C. Regalbuto to be DOE Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management.
March 10, 2014
The Department announces $2.2 million for three California projects to help lower the costs of solar electricity and increase deployment nationwide. The funding will help startup businesses and entrepreneurs develop technologies, innovative programs, and streamlined processes that will make solar more accessible.
March 10, 2014
The University of Washington announces that researchers supported by DOE have built the thinnest-known light-emitting diodes (LED) that can be used as a source of light energy in electronics. The LED is based off of two-dimensional, flexible semiconductors, making it possible to stack or use in much smaller and more diverse applications than current technology allows.
March 10, 2014
The Department’s Joint Genome Institute announces the publication of the largest soil DNA sequencing effort to date. Researchers compared the microbial populations of different soils sampled from Midwestern corn fields, under continuous cultivation for 100 years, with those sourced from pristine expanses of the Great Prairie. The research team generated nearly 400 billion letters of code, which amounts to more than 130 human genome equivalents, or 88,000 E. coli genomes.
March 11, 2014
Deputy Secretary Poneman and Colombian officials sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to collaborate in the development of a Solar Decathlon Latin America and Caribbean competition. Under the MOU, both countries will exchange information regarding rules, scoring, judging, safety, and site and team selection.
March 11, 2014
The Department announces $10 million to strengthen the U.S. marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) energy industry, including wave and tidal energy sources. Through the two funding opportunities, DOE is supporting design, manufacturing, demonstration, and testing of sustainable, environmentally responsible marine and hydrokinetic energy devices and components.
March 14, 2014
The Department’s Office of Environmental Management releases the accident investigation report for the February 5 underground mine fire involving a salt haul truck at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico. A formal corrective action plan is being developed to address all of the concerns raised by the report.
March 16, 2014
The Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announces that a new analysis of satellite data reveals a link between dust in North Africa and West Asia and stronger monsoons in India. The study shows that dust in the air absorbs sunlight west of India, warming the air and strengthening the winds carrying moisture eastward. This results in more monsoon rainfall about a week later in India. The results explain one way that dust can affect the climate, filling in previously unknown details about the Earth system.
March 17, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces the discovery of surprising new rules for creating ultra-bright light-emitting crystals that are less than 10 nanometers in diameter. These ultra-tiny but ultra-bright nanoprobes should be a big asset for biological imaging, especially deep-tissue optical imaging of neurons in the brain.
March 18, 2014
Deputy Secretary Poneman and South African Minister of Energy Ben Martins meet in Pretoria to follow up on the U.S.-South Africa Bilateral Energy Dialogue held in December 2013 in Washington, DC. They discussed continued bilateral cooperation on a wide range of energy issues, including collaboration to diversify U.S. and South African energy portfolios and provide reliable and affordable electricity to homes and businesses. In Pretoria, the Deputy Secretary also speaks at the Nuclear Africa Conference, where he highlights the U.S.’s and South Africa’s shared commitment to the safe and responsible development of civil nuclear power. As part of his African trip, the Deputy Secretary will also visit Mozambique.
March 19, 2014
The Department announces the winners of the third annual Better Buildings Case Competition, which challenges collegiate teams to present unique and innovative solutions for reducing energy waste and improving the efficiency of our nation’s homes and commercial buildings to industry leaders.
March 19, 2014
Secretary Moniz posts an article on the Energy blog on the close relationship between DOE and the White House Council on Women and Girls and the united effort to bring more women and girls into energy and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. “Our country cannot be at its full strength in advancing our energy future without the participation of every talented American,” notes the Secretary. “I am committed to engaging all of the Department’s resources to inspire, connect, and train women and girls in STEM.”
March 19, 2014
The Department’s Fermilab announces that scientists working on the world’s leading particle collider experiments have joined forces, combined their data, and produced the first joint result from Fermilab’s Tevatron and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, past and current holders of the record for most powerful particle collider on Earth. Scientists from the four experiments involved—ATLAS, CDF, CMS and DZero—released their joint findings on the mass of the top quark. Together the four experiments pooled their data analysis power to arrive at a new world’s best value for the mass of the top quark of 173.34 plus/minus 0.76 GeV/c2.
March 19, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that the Argonne-led Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) and NASA Glenn Research Center are collaborating to develop next-generation batteries for use in future space missions. The coordinated effort combines JCESR’s deep knowledge of the basic science in energy storage research with NASA Glenn’s expertise engineering battery technologies with aerospace applications. JCESR and NASA Glenn intend to perform the required research so that NASA can identify promising technologies to develop, test and build prototypes for use in NASA missions for planetary exploration.
March 19, 2014
The Obama Administration launches the Climate Data Initiative—a broad effort to leverage the Federal Government’s extensive, freely-available climate-relevant data resources to stimulate innovation and private-sector entrepreneurship in support of national climate-change preparedness. John Podesta, former Counselor to the President, and John P. Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, post an article on the White House blog.
March 20, 2014
Deputy Secretary Poneman, on a visit to Maputo, Mozambique, meets with government energy officials. The Deputy Secretary also meets with civil society leaders and industry partners in Mozambique’s electricity and oil and gas sectors.
March 20, 2014
The Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy awards $17 million in Small Business Innovation Research projects to help small businesses in 13 states develop prototype technologies that could improve manufacturing energy efficiency, reduce the cost of installing clean energy projects, and generate electricity from renewable energy sources. These projects will include technologies such as wind turbine blades that are easier to transport and use less energy, an electrochromic window technology that can achieve a 30% reduction in energy use, and a solar energy system that reduces installation costs and generates power in less time.
March 20, 2014
The Department announces the issuance of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the competitive selection of an approximately $3.25 billion, five-year, management-and-operations contract for Brookhaven National Laboratory.
March 20, 2014
The Department announces plans to ship transuranic waste currently located at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for temporary storage at Waste Control Specialists (WCS), located in western Andrews County, Texas. The Department has committed to the State of New Mexico to removing several thousand cubic meters of TRU waste from LANL by June 30, 2014. The waste will be moved to DOE’s Waste Isolation Project Plant (WIPP) for final disposal once the WIPP site reopens. Shipments to WIPP were suspended following February 14 radiation incident at the site.
March 20, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that SLAC and Stanford University reseachers have discovered a potential way to make graphene – a single layer of carbon atoms with great promise for future electronics – superconducting, a state in which it would carry electricity with 100 percent efficiency. Researchers used a beam of intense ultraviolet light to look deep into the electronic structure of a material made of alternating layers of graphene and calcium. While it's been known for nearly a decade that this combined material is superconducting, the new study offers the first compelling evidence that the graphene layers are instrumental in this process, a discovery that could transform the engineering of materials for nanoscale electronic devices.
March 20, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces the discovery of a unique new two-dimensional semiconductor, rhenium disulfide, which, unlike molybdenum disulfide and other dichalcogenides, behaves electronically as if it were a 2D monolayer even as a 3D bulk material. This not only opens the door to 2D electronic applications with a 3D material, it also makes it possible to study 2D physics with easy-to-make 3D crystals.
March 21, 2014
The Department announces that the Final Uranium Leasing Program Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) is available to the public. In the PEIS, DOE identifies the preferred alternative of continued management of the program with exploration, mine development and operations, and reclamation at 31 lease tracts for the next 10-year period or for another reasonable period of time. Under the Uranium Leasing Program, DOE’s Office of Legacy Management manages 31 tracts of land in Mesa, Montrose, and San Miguel counties in Colorado – approximately 25,000 acres – that are leased to private entities for uranium and vanadium mining.
March 21, 2014
The Moapa Band of Paiute in Nevada breaks ground on the 250-megawatt Moapa Southern Paiute Solar Project on the Moapa Indian Reservation -- making it the first utility-scale solar project on tribal land. Moapa tribal leaders were one of the first to meet with DOE’s Office of Indian Energy when it was established. With a clear vision in mind, the Tribe’s leadership requested technical assistance on this utility-scale project as well as smaller-scale solar projects that could offset the tribe’s high energy costs.
March 24, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the recent completion of the Test Capabilities Revitalization Phase 2 (TCR 2) project located at Sandia National Laboratories. The project ensures NNSA’s continued ability to conduct its nuclear weapons mission with respect to the different capabilities and environmental testing that TCR 2 revitalized. The revitalization of approximately 26 facilities included four full-scale nonnuclear environmental mechanical testing facilities and one bench-scale testing facility.
March 24, 2014
The Department announces that it has conditionally authorized Jordan Cove Energy Project, L.P. (Jordan Cove) to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, from the Jordan Cove LNG Terminal in Coos Bay, Oregon. Subject to environmental review and final regulatory approval, the facility is conditionally authorized to export at a rate of up to the equivalent of 0.8 billion standard cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, for a period of 20 years.
March 24-25, 2014
The third Nuclear Security Summit is hosted by the Netherlands in The Hague, with President Obama leading the U.S. delegation. At the Summit, nations work together to strengthen the global nuclear security architecture -- using treaties, institutions, and norms to prevent the building blocks of nuclear weapons from falling into the wrong hands. Belgium and Italy announce the completion of significant removals of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, and Japan makes a major new commitment to remove highly enriched uranium and plutonium from its territory. HEU-free countries join together in urging others to join them. Participants discuss what more can be done to prevent nuclear smuggling. And leaders participate in a tabletop exercise on responding to radiological incidents. In addition, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission issue a joint statement regarding the reduction of excess nuclear material. On the closing day of the summit, President Obama meets with President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, and they issue a joint statement on their shared commitment to nonproliferation. Belgium, France, Germany, the Republic of Korea, and the U.S. issue a joint statement on working together to develop and qualify new high-density low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuels as part of an effort to convert research reactors from highly-enriched uranium (HEU) fuel to LEU fuel. President Obama gives remarks at the closing session.
March 25, 2014
Adam Sieminski, Administrator of DOE's Energy Information Administration (EIA), testifies before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on “Importing Energy, Exporting Jobs. Can it be Reversed?”
March 25, 2014
Patricia Dehmer, Acting Director of DOE’s Office of Science, testifies before the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy & Water Development on the Office of Science budget.
March 25, 2014
Peter B. Littlewood is appointed Director of DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory.
March 25-27, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hold an Aerial Measuring System (AMS) WINGS exercise at the Nevada National Security Site located outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. WINGS is a series of tabletop exercises and field deployments designed to exercise collaboration of multiple aerial radiation detection assets. Local, state, and federal agencies conduct the field emergency exercise using aerial radiation detection and measuring systems in a real-life, controlled radiological contaminated environment.
March 26, 2014
Leaders of the European Union and the U.S. meet in Brussels. They issue a Joint Statement that includes affirmation of energy as “a key component in the transition to a competitive low-carbon economy and achieving long-term sustainable economic development,” the need to “tackle climate change,” and the liberalization of “trade in environmental goods.” President Obama joins European Council President Herman Van Rompu, and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in a joint press conference.
March 26, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues an Audit Report in response to multiple allegations regarding the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) management of configuration management (CM) information. The allegations related to incomplete product definitions for NNSA nuclear weapons, and ineffective management of classified nuclear weapons drawings, a situation that could lead to unauthorized changes to the drawings. The IG review substantiates the allegations and identifies instances in which NNSA had not maintained accurate and complete CM information for its nuclear weapons and components. The IG identifies additional concerns with the use of nuclear weapons parts and components that did not conform to specifications.
March 26, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announces that new research done in conjunction with DOE’s Joint BioEnergy Institute suggests that a type of bacterial resistance may provide more efficient production of biofuels.
March 26, 2014
The Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that scientists have made the first 3D observations of how the structure of a lithium-ion battery anode evolves at the nanoscale in a real battery cell as it discharges and recharges. The details of this research could point to new ways to engineer battery materials to increase the capacity and lifetime of rechargeable batteries.
March 27, 2014
Secretary Moniz issues a statement welcoming two new directors at DOE’s National Laboratories -- Peter Littlewood to Argonne National Laboratory and Bill Goldstein to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
March 27, 2014
Secretary Moniz issues a statement on the passing of the first Secretary of Energy James Schlesinger. “The passing of Dr. James R. Schlesinger is a great loss for the academic, scientific and intelligence communities. It is a loss for the Department of Energy and for me personally,” the Secretary says. “Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Schlesinger served this nation with integrity and earned the respect of his colleagues.”
March 27, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers at the lab, the University of Cape Town, and the United Nations Development Programme have analyzed how human-induced climate change has reduced chances of flooding in an ecologically and geographically unique river basin in southern Africa—the Okavango River.
March 28, 2014
The Obama Administration, as part of the President’s Climate Action Plan, releases a Strategy to Reduce Methane Emissions. Secretary Moniz issues a statement on the strategy. He says “the Department will continue to conduct research and analysis to help improve our ability to measure methane emissions and advance technologies and practices that will enable cost-effective emissions reductions. We will also continue our work with National Labs and other federal agencies to help advance sound policy solutions, including through technical assistance to state governments, many of which are actively working to reduce emissions and encourage broader adoption of mitigation strategies.”
March 28-29, 2014
President Obama travels to Saudi Arabia and meets with King Abdullah in Riyadh. The White House issues a Fact Sheet on the bilateral relationship.
March 31, 2014
The Department releases information on the first six public meetings to collect stakeholder input into the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER). As the Secretariat for the QER Task Force, DOE will hold a series of meetings to discuss and receive comments on issues related to the development of a comprehensive strategy for the infrastructure needed to transport, transmit, and deliver energy to consumers. Other federal agencies will also join these meetings.
March 31, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the award of a $25 million grant to a University of Michigan-led consortium for research and development (R&D) in nuclear arms control verification technologies, including nuclear safeguards effectiveness. The sizeable, long-term investment will support the consortium at $5 million per year for five years.
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April 1, 2014
The Los Alamos National Laboratory resumes shipments offsite of transuranic waste. The shipments are part of an accelerated shipping campaign to remove 3,706 cubic meters of transuranic waste stored aboveground. The waste is received at Waste Control Specialists (WCS) in Andrews, Texas, where it will be temporarily staged until it can be shipped to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for final disposal. Shipments to WIPP ceased following a February 5 underground truck fire and a February 14 radiological event.
April 1, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory releases its annual energy flow charts that illustrate the nation's consumption and use of energy. Overall, Americans used 2.3 quadrillion thermal units more in 2013 than the previous year. The lab also has released a companion chart illustrating the nation's energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. Americans' carbon dioxide emissions increased to 5,390 million metric tons, the first annual increase since 2010.
April 2, 2014
The fifth EU-U.S. Energy Council meets in Brussels, chaired by EU High Representative/Vice President Catherine Ashton, EU Commissioner for Energy Günther Oettinger, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Deputy Secretary of Energy Poneman.
April 2, 2014
Secretary Moniz highlights key improvements to DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program at the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) Legislative Summit. The ATVM Program, administered DOE’s Loan Programs Office, has more than $16 billion in remaining loan authority to support the production of fuel-efficient, advanced technology vehicles and components in the U.S. The Department also sends a letter to MEMA outlining the steps it is taking to improve the ATVM Loan Program.
April 2, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces that it has been presented with the Secretary of Energy’s Award for Project Management Excellence for delivering the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Building Replacement (CMRR) Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building (RLUOB) Equipment Installation (REI) Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory $2 million under budget and ahead of schedule.
April 2, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces the results of research into high-tech "smart windows," which darken to filter out sunlight in response to electric current, functioning much like batteries, and how these windows behave in a working battery – information that could benefit next-generation rechargeable batteries.
April 3, 2014
The Department announces that in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency it is honoring 127 organizations with 2014 Energy Star Partner of the Year Awards for their commitment to protecting the environment through superior energy efficiency.
April 3, 2014
The Department’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center announces that researchers have genetically engineered trees that will be easier to break down to produce paper and biofuel, a breakthrough that will mean using fewer chemicals and less energy and creating fewer environmental pollutants.
April 3, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces that the Nuclear Materials Safeguards and Security Upgrade Project (NMSSUP) was recently completed approximately $1 million under its original budget of $245 million. NMSSUP upgrades security at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Technical Area-55, a facility that houses high-security plutonium assets and operations.
April 4, 2014
The Department’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer issues Fiscal Year 2015 Budget Justification documents to support DOE’s Budget Request to Congress.
April 7, 2014
Government representatives and scientists open a five-day meeting on Monday of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to finalize a report assessing the options for mitigating climate change, and the underlying technical, economic, and institutional requirements. The meeting is the culmination of four years’ work by hundreds of experts.
April 7, 2014
The Department releases its 2014 Strategic Plan, a comprehensive blueprint to guide the agency's core mission of ensuring America's security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. The plan is organized into 12 strategic objectives aimed at three distinct goals – Science and Energy, Nuclear Security and Management and Performance. These objectives represent the broad cross-cutting and collaborative efforts taking place across DOE's headquarters, site offices, and national laboratories.
April 7, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) announces that the Security Improvements Project (SIP) was recently completed ahead of schedule and approximately $20 million under its original budget of $72 million. SIP upgraded security at Y-12 by replacing existing alarm stations and access control systems with Argus, a comprehensive security system developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
April 7, 2014
The Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) begins the staged release of the complete Annual Energy Outlook 2014 (AEO2014), expanding on the AEO2014 Reference case tables and highlights that were issued in December 2013. The April 7 release includes the first of eight Issues in Focus articles.
April 8, 2014
The Department awards more than $3 million to Connecticut-based FuelCell Energy for a project that could increase U.S. competitiveness in the fuel cell market and give businesses more affordable, cleaner power options. The project will enhance the performance, increase the lifespan, and decrease the cost of stationary fuel cells being used for distributed generation and combined heat and power applications.
April 8, 2014
Lieutenant General Frank G. Klotz, United States Air Force (Ret), is confirmed by the Senate as DOE’s Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). As Under Secretary for Nuclear Security, Lt. Gen. Klotz is responsible for the management and operation of the NNSA, as well as policy matters across the DOE and NNSA enterprise in support of President Obama’s nuclear security agenda.
April 9, 2014
The Department joins RTI International and Tampa Electric Company to celebrate the successful startup of a pilot project to demonstrate a warm gas cleanup carbon capture technology in a coal gasification unit at the Polk Power Plant Unit-1 in Tampa, Florida. The project, which is approximately $3 million under budget, included $168 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.
April 10, 2014
The Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory releases a report analyzing the effects the production tax credit (PTC) could have on the continued growth of wind power and, in turn, on the domestic wind energy manufacturing industry. The report notes that the PTC has been critical to the development of the wind power industry and the deployment of wind generation in the U.S. The PTC works by providing a tax credit for every unit of energy produced by a qualifying facility for the first 10 years of commercial operation. The PTC expired on December 31, 2013.
April 10, 2014
The Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases the U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves, 2012 report. Despite notable gains in the Marcellus and Eagle Ford shale gas plays, low natural gas prices drove down natural gas proved reserves in 2012, ending a 14-year run of consecutive increases in gas reserves. Proved reserves are estimated quantities of energy sources that analysis of geological and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions. Significant year-to-year price changes can directly affect the "existing economic" metric.
April 11, 2014
The Department announces a $4 million funding opportunity to engage America’s research universities in the effort to accelerate the development of the emerging marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) energy industry. The funding will support high-impact research projects designed to enable the capture of renewable wave and tidal energy, while supporting the growth of a globally competitive MHK workforce. A consortium of universities will receive funding to optimize operations, reduce maintenance costs, and improve the components and performance of MHK systems over three years.
April 11, 2014
The Department’s The Bonneville Power Administration announces that it will begin construction of the Central Ferry-Lower Monumental Transmission Line Project in May. The new 38-mile, 500-kilovolt line in Washington will connect the new Central Ferry Substation in Garfield County to the existing Lower Monumental Substation in Walla Walla County. The line is expected to carry over 800 additional megawatts of renewable wind energy, enough to power about half a million Northwest homes when the wind is blowing. It is expected to be energized in December 2015.
April 13, 2014
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases the Working Group III contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, entitled Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. The report shows that global emissions of greenhouse gases have risen to unprecedented levels despite a growing number of policies to reduce climate change. Emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades. According to the report, it would be possible, using a wide array of technological measures and changes in behavior, to limit the increase in global mean temperature to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. However, only major institutional and technological change will give a better than even chance that global warming will not exceed this threshold.
April 13, 2014
Secretary Moniz issues a statement on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Working Group report on climate change mitigation. The report, he says, “makes it clear that the next ten to twenty years are critical if we are to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. The IPCC report notes that it will be substantially more difficult to maintain low GHG concentrations in the long term if we do not act aggressively now. The report also points out that there are many low-carbon energy pathways to a prosperous future while mitigating climate change risks to a significant degree. Recognizing this imperative to act, the United States has been doing our part.”
April 14, 2014
The Department's Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration issue a request for proposals, under what is being called FastForward 2, to further develop "extreme scale" supercomputer technology. Contracts will total about $100 million, and the funding period will be from July 2014 to November 2016. FastForward seeks proposals from any company interested in working on extreme scale node architectures or memory technologies.
April 14, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the Sandia National Laboratories successfully completed the first full-scale wind tunnel test of the B61‑12 as part of the NNSA’s ongoing effort to refurbish the B61 nuclear bomb. The purpose of this test was to characterize counter torque, the interaction between the spin rocket motor plumes and tail fins, across the B61-12 flight envelope.
April 14, 2014
The Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility announces that the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF), following a $338 million upgrade, delivered the highest-energy electron beams it has ever produced into a target in an experimental hall, recording the first data of the 12 GeV, or 12 billion electron-volts, era. The CEBAF accelerator is a superconducting accelerator that had been designed to circulate electrons through one to five passes through the machine to deliver electron beams with maximum energies of 4 GeV, or 4 billion electron-volts.
April 15, 2014
Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability Patricia Hoffman joins with public and private sector partners in New York to dedicate a new grid operations control center and recognize the completion of New York Independent System Operator’s (NYISO) smart grid and control center project in Rensselaer, New York. With support from the Recovery Act, DOE partnered with utilities across the U.S. to deploy sophisticated grid sensors – known as synchrophasors – that monitor the flow of electricity with unprecedented precision and provide continuous and near-real-time information on the grid’s health and security. Leveraging a $38 million Recovery Act investment, NYISO and eight transmission owners deployed new synchrophasors and smart grid technologies across the state.
April 15, 2014
The Department's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability announces that the National Energy Technology Laboratory is seeking applications to conduct research, development and demonstrations leading to next generation tools and technologies that will become widely adopted to enhance and accelerate deployment of cybersecurity capabilities for the U.S energy infrastructure, including cyber secure integration of smart grid technologies.
April 15, 2014
The Department announces up to $10 million in funding to advance the production of advanced biofuels, substitutes for petroleum-based feedstocks, and bioproducts made from renewable, non-food-based biomass, such as agricultural residues and woody biomass. This supports DOE’s efforts to make drop-in biofuels more accessible and affordable, as well as meet the cost target equivalent of $3.00 per gallon of gasoline by 2022.
April 16, 2014
The Department issues a draft loan guarantee solicitation for innovative renewable energy and energy efficiency projects located in the U.S. that avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gases. When finalized, the solicitation is expected to make as much as $4 billion in loan guarantees available to help commercialize technologies that may be unable to obtain full commercial financing. The solicitation is intended to support technologies that are catalytic, replicable, and market ready.
April 16, 2014
The Department joins the Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign co-organizers to recognize 12 organizations for leading the way in efficient lighting. Combined, these 12 winners are saving nearly 45 million kilowatt-hours and $4 million per year by upgrading to high efficiency lighting in 500,000 parking spaces nationwide.
April 16, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces six exceptional U.S. scientists and engineers as recipients of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for their contributions in research and development that supports DOE’s science, energy, and national security missions. Since 1959, the Lawrence Award has recognized mid-career scientists and engineers in the U.S. who have advanced new research and scientific discovery in the chemical, biological, environmental, and computer sciences; condensed matter and materials; fusion and plasma sciences; high energy and nuclear physics; and national security and nonproliferation.
April 16, 2014
The DOE National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development announces the award of a $25 million grant to a North Carolina State University-led consortium for research and development (R&D) in enabling capabilities for nonproliferation. The grant will provide the U.S. government with cutting edge research and development to identify and address multi-disciplinary and cross-functional technology and research needs that are critical to detecting foreign nuclear weapon proliferation activities.
April 17, 2014
The Department announces $15 million to help communities develop multi-year solar plans to install affordable solar electricity for homes and businesses. As part of DOE’s SunShot Initiative, the Solar Market Pathways funding opportunity aims to help communities develop solar deployment plans that focus on cutting red tape, building strong public-private partnerships to deploy commercial-scale solar.
April 17, 2014
The White House hosts a Solar Summit to honor cross-sector leadership on solar and announce new steps to expand the use of solar in homes, businesses, and schools. The White House also announces new initiatives calls for new commitments from the private sector and non-profits to support solar deployment and jobs.
April 17, 2014
Secretary Moniz issues a statement welcoming Dr. Adam Schwartz as the new director of Ames National Laboratory.
April 17, 2014
Secretary Moniz swears in Frank G. Klotz as the DOE’s Undersecretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in a private ceremony. Following his confirmation, General Klotz met with senior NNSA staff, a variety of interagency partners, and the directors of NNSA’s three national laboratories and the Nevada National Security Site. He will visit all NNSA sites during the coming weeks.
April 17, 2014
The Department’s Sandia National Laboratories announces that a credit-card-sized anthrax detection cartridge developed at the lab and recently licensed to a small business makes testing safer, easier, faster, and cheaper.
April 22, 2014
Secretary Moniz and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, as part of the Administration’s Earth Day activities are at the New England Aquarium talking about what climate change will mean for Boston Harbor. Later, the two are at Fenway Park to throw out the first pitch at the Boston Red Sox Earth Day game. He practiced the day before.
April 23, 2014
The Department recognizes the Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT) for boosting its use of clean energy at the first campus in America to be heated by geothermal energy, achieving a major milestone toward its goal of making all seven campuses in the university system carbon-neutral by 2020. Partially through DOE support, the Klamath Falls campus will utilize 1.5 megawatts (MW) of newly installed geothermal capacity combined with a 2 MW solar array, making OIT the first university in North America to generate most—if not all—electrical power from renewable sources.
April 23, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that a research team used electron microscopy and computational simulations to explore the physical origins of treating cadmium-tellluride (CdTe) solar cell materials with cadmium-chloride to improve their efficiency. The research team’s finding, in addition to providing a long-awaited explanation, could be used to guide engineering of higher-efficiency CdTe solar cells.
April 24, 2014
The Department releases the initial accident investigation report related to the February 14 radiological release at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
April 24, 2014
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit accepts a settlement agreement to resolve a lawsuit by the American Public Gas Association (APGA) challenging DOE’s stricter 90% Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency standard applying to non-weatherized gas furnaces in the northern region of the U.S. A number of other entities intervened in that suit, challenging DOE’s standards for air conditioners and heat pumps in addition to furnaces. Under the settlement, the portion of the rule relating to energy conservation standards for non-weatherized gas furnaces is vacated and remanded to DOE for a new notice and comment rulemaking proceeding. The remaining portions of the challenged rule, i.e., the conservation standards for other furnaces, central air conditioners, and heat pumps remain in place.
April 24, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announces that researchers have developed a new and unconventional battery chemistry aimed at producing batteries that last longer than previously thought possible. ORNL researchers challenged a long-held assumption that a battery’s three main components -- the positive cathode, negative anode and ion-conducting electrolyte -- can play only one role in the device. The electrolyte in the team’s new battery design has dual functions: it serves not only as an ion conductor but also as a cathode supplement. This cooperative chemistry, enabled by the use of an ORNL-developed solid electrolyte, delivers an extra boost to the battery’s capacity and extends the lifespan of the device.
April 24, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that scientists have shown for the first time how high-temperature superconductivity emerges out of magnetism in an iron pnictide, a class of materials with great potential for making devices that conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency. In experiments at SLAC’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, the team “doped” the material – one of two known types of high-temperature superconductor – by adding or subtracting electrons to enhance its superconducting abilities. Then they used a beam of ultraviolet light to measure changes in the material’s electronic behavior as it was chilled to a temperature where superconductivity becomes possible.
April 25, 2014
The DOE General Counsel's enforcement office settles an enforcement action against Whirlpool Corporation for $5,329,800. Whirlpool agreed to the settlement after manufacturing and distributing refrigerator-freezers that consumed about 8 percent more energy than permitted under the appliance energy conservation standards.
April 28, 2014
The Department releases new guidance to help U.S. industry strengthen energy delivery system cybersecurity. Developed through a public-private working group including federal agencies and private industry leaders, DOE’s Cybersecurity Procurement Language for Energy Delivery Systems guidance provides strategies and suggested language to help the U.S. energy sector and technology suppliers build in cybersecurity protections during product design and manufacturing.
April 28, 2014
The Department announces $10 million to test prototypes designed to generate clean, renewable electricity from ocean. The DOE-supported demonstrations at the U.S. Navy’s wave energy test site off Hawaii’s island of Oahu will help develop reliable wave energy options and collect important performance and cost data for wave energy conversion (WEC) devices. DOE plans to test two WEC devices at depths of 60 and 80 meters at the open-water site offshore from Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay. The projects will evaluate technology performance, reliability, and cost of energy to achieve cost-competitive wave energy deployments in the future.
April 28, 2014
Students from Mira Loma High School from Sacramento, California, win the 2014 U.S. Department of Energy National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. The championship team in the middle school competition is the Greater Boston Science & Math Team from Andover, Massachusetts. More than 9,300 high school students and 5,200 middle school students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico participated in this year’s regional competitions.
April 28, 2014
The Department’s Advanced Research Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) celebrates its fifth anniversary.
April 29, 2014
Secretary Moniz testifies before the Senate Committee on Appropriations on the value of Federal investments in research and development.
April 29, 2014
The Department and its Oak Ridge National Laboratory release a renewable energy resource assessment detailing the potential to develop new electric power generation in waterways across the U.S. The report estimates over 65 gigawatts (GW) of potential new hydropower development across more than three million U.S. rivers and streams – nearly equivalent to the current U.S. hydropower capacity.
April 29, 2014
The Department announces up to $10 million to demonstrate and deploy innovative alternate transportation technologies for cargo vehicles, designed to help reduce U.S. reliance on gasoline, diesel, and oil imports. Electrifying cargo transportation vehicles and infrastructure will reduce petroleum use, carbon emissions, and air pollution at transportation hubs, such as ports.
April 29, 2014
Acting Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Director Cheryl Martin, at the Advanced Energy Conference in Albany, New York, announces up to $60 million for two new programs to detect and measure methane emissions and develop innovative localized thermal management systems that cut the energy needed to heat and cool buildings. ARPA-E’s new MONITOR program will help the oil and gas sector reduce methane emissions and build a more sustainable energy future. ARPA-E’s DELTA program will help develop innovative localized heating and cooling devices to expand temperature ranges within buildings – enhancing personal comfort while saving energy.
April 29, 2014
The Agua Caliente solar project, owned by NRG Energy, goes online and is now the world’s largest photovoltaic (PV) power plant. This facility has the capacity to generate 290 megawatts (MW) of solar electricity in Yuma County, Arizona. The Department provided a $967 million loan guarantee to the project.
April 29, 2014
The Supreme Court upholds the Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which implements the “good neighbor provision” of the Clean Air Act requiring power plants to cut pollution that is causing smog and soot problems in downwind states.
April 30, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that it is forming a new research center to enhance resiliency for major disruptive events, such as natural disasters and climate change, called the Center for Integrated Resiliency Analyses (CIRA). Resiliency refers to the ability of a community or region to anticipate, respond to and recover from either natural or man-made events. The new center will draw together expertise from across the lab to develop planning tools for local and federal decision makers to reduce vulnerabilities in physical and social infrastructures, as well as develop mitigation and recovery plans that can speed recovery times after events.
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May 1, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the release of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) “Red Team” report outlining options for NNSA to replace the uranium capabilities at Building 9212 at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, by 2025 for not more than $6.5 billion.
May 1, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that a study published in Science may dramatically shift the understanding of the complex dance of microbes and minerals that takes place in aquifers deep underground. This dance affects groundwater quality, the fate of contaminants in the ground and the emerging science of carbon sequestration. Deep underground, microbes do not have much access to oxygen. So they have evolved ways to breathe other elements, including solid minerals like iron and sulfur. The part that interests scientists is that when the microbes breathe solid iron and sulfur, they transform them into highly reactive dissolved ions that are then much more likely to interact with other minerals and dissolved materials in the aquifer. This process can slowly but steadily make dramatic changes to the makeup of the rock, soil, and water.
May 2, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces the creation of the first federal regional refined petroleum product reserve containing gasoline. Based on DOE’s lessons learned from the major fuel supply disruption in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the Department will establish two Northeast reserve locations near New York Harbor and in New England. Each location will store 500,000 barrels of gasoline, enough to provide some short-term relief in the event of significant disruptions. The new reserve complements the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve, a one million barrel supply of diesel for the Northeast. Emergency withdrawals from NEHHOR were used for the first time in response to Sandy to supply first responders and emergency generators in the region.
May 5, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that scientists, for the first time, have a clearer understanding of how to control the appearance of a superconducting phase in a material, adding crucial fundamental knowledge and perhaps setting the stage for advances in the field of superconductivity.
May 5-6, 2014
Secretary Moniz and his fellow G-7 energy ministers (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the EU Commissioner for Energy) convene in Rome at the request of G-7 leaders to chart a coordinated strategy to strengthen energy security across the G-7 in light of the ongoing Ukraine crisis. The ministers discuss ways to strengthen their collective energy security and address various steps that could be taken to improve energy security at both national and regional levels. The ministers issue a Joint Statement for leaders’ consideration, in view of the G7 Summit to be held in Brussels on June 4-5.
May 6, 2014
The U.S. Global Change Research Program releases the Third National Climate Assessment, the most comprehensive scientific report on U.S. climate change impacts ever generated. The report confirms that climate change is affecting every region of the country and key sectors of the U.S. economy and society. The assessment was developed over four years by hundreds of the Nation’s top climate scientists and technical experts, guided by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee. The White House issues a Fact Sheet and an article on the White House blog on what climate change means for regions across the country.
May 6, 2014
Secretary Moniz issues a statement on the release of the 3rd U.S. National Climate Assessment. “The scientific community has been sounding the alarm over climate change for decades,” the Secretary says, “and the 3rd U.S. National Climate Assessment released today offers the most comprehensive scientific report to date on U.S. climate change impacts. Developed by our nation’s top climate and technical experts – including many from the Energy Department’s national labs – this report makes clear that climate change is affecting every region of the United States and key sectors across our economy. If our emissions of greenhouse gases remain unabated, we will face increasingly significant damages, including rising sea levels and an increase in droughts, heat waves, wildfires and intense storms.”
May 6, 2014
The Department honors 14 organizations, naming them as 2014 Green Lease Leaders for their commitment to reducing energy waste and increasing efficiency in commercial buildings. These companies have demonstrated their commitment to energy efficiency, incorporating lease clauses that reinforce energy-efficiency choices, facilitating access to the energy bill data necessary for building benchmarking and encouraging cooperation on environmental initiatives.
May 6, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announces that Catalyst, a first-of-a-kind supercomputer, is available to industry collaborators to test big data technologies, architectures, and applications.
May 7, 2014
The Department announces the selection of three pioneering offshore wind demonstrations to receive up to $47 million each over the next four years to deploy innovative, grid-connected systems in federal and state waters by 2017. These projects – located off the coast of New Jersey, Oregon, and Virginia – will help speed the deployment of more efficient offshore wind power technologies.
May 7, 2014
Pennsylvania State University wins DOE’s inaugural Collegiate Wind Competition. The clean energy and STEM-focused competition challenged more than 150 students at 10 universities across the country to design, test, and build a small wind turbine. Over the course of three intense days at the American Wind Energy Association’s annual conference, the teams put their wind turbines through rigorous performance testing, developed carefully-crafted business plans, and pitched wind industry leaders on the market opportunities for their turbine designs.
May 7, 2014
The Department’s Office of Science announces the selection of 35 scientists from across the nation – including 17 from DOE’s national laboratories and 18 from U.S. universities – to receive significant funding for research as part of DOE’s Early Career Research Program. The effort, now in its fifth year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work.
May 7, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers have developed nanoscope using a broadband imaging technique that can identify molecules at the so-called mesoscale, a region of matter that ranges from 10 to 1000 nanometers in size, with unprecedented sensitivity and range. The new technique, called Synchrotron Infrared Nano-Spectroscopy or SINS, will enable in-depth study of complex molecular systems, including liquid batteries, living cells, novel electronic materials, and stardust.
May 8, 2014
Administrator of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Gen. Frank G. Klotz, and the directors of Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories meet in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and tour the recently-completed Test Capabilities Revitalization Phase 2 (TCR 2) facilities at Sandia designed to ensure the continued stewardship of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without underground testing. TCR 2 conducts environmental testing on nuclear weapons components, including the B61 life extension program effort.
May 9, 2014
President Obama, in remarks at a Walmart in Mountain View, California, announces commitments and executive actions to advance solar deployment and energy efficiency. The President says that he is ordering $2 billion in energy upgrades to federal buildings over the next three years, in addition to the $2 billion he ordered in 2012.
May 9, 2014
The White House issues a solar progress report on advancing toward a clean energy future.
May 9, 2014
The Department announces that Better Buildings Challenge partners are on track to meet their energy performance goals in their second year, saving approximately $100 million a year. The Department also announces that 26 new partners and 7 financial allies – including Wal-Mart, General Mills, City of San Diego, Jonathan Rose Companies, Hannon Armstrong, and Enterprise Community Partners – have committed to improving energy efficiency across more than 1 billion square feet of building space.
May 9, 2014
The Department announces awards of over $5 million to undergraduate and graduate students pursuing nuclear science and engineering degrees. The awards include 42 undergraduate scholarships and 33 graduate-level fellowships for students studying at U.S. colleges and universities.
May 9, 2014
The Department announces two new energy efficiency standards for electric motors and walk-in coolers and freezers. These standards combined will help reduce harmful carbon pollution by up to 158 million metric tons – equivalent to the annual electricity use of more than 21 million homes – and save businesses $26 billion on utility bills through 2030. The efficiency standards for electric motors cover more than 30 household and commercial products, including dishwashers, refrigerators, and water heaters.
May 9, 2014
The Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that plant scientists have found that certain enzymes responsible for desaturating fatty acids, the building blocks of oils, can link up to efficiently pass intermediate products from one enzyme to another. This raises the possibility of linking up enzymes to tailor pathways for increased production of useful plant products. Getting plants to accumulate high levels of more healthful polyunsaturated fatty acids, or unusual fatty acids that could be used as raw materials in place of petroleum-derived chemicals in industrial processes, are a few possible outcomes.
May 9, 2014
The Department’s Joint Genome Institute announces that a study of a salt-tolerant fungus could lead to significant improvements in agriculture, such as the biotechnological improvement of salt tolerance in crops.
May 12, 2014
Steven Croley is confirmed by the Senate as DOE’s General Counsel.
May 12, 2014
The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability releases the Year-in-Review: 2013 Energy Infrastructure Events and Expansions, providing a summary of significant energy disruptions and infrastructure changes that occurred in the U.S. throughout 2013. International events that impacted the U.S. also are reported.
May 12, 2014
The Department releases its Record of Decision for the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), announcing that it will continue managing the Uranium Leasing Program for another 10 years. DOE will manage the program according to its preferred alternative of exploration, reclamation, mine development, and operations with final required reclamation at 31 lease tracts for the next 10-year period. DOE’s Office of Legacy Management manages these tracts in Mesa, Montrose, and San Miguel counties in Colorado, which amounts to approximately 25,000 acres leased to private entities for uranium and vanadium mining. No mining operations are active on these lands at this time.
May 12, 2014
The Department's Ames Laboratory announces the creation of a faster, cleaner biofuel refining technology that not only combines processes, it uses widely available materials to reduce costs. Scientists at the lab have developed a nanoparticle that is able to perform two processing functions at once for the production of green diesel, an alternative fuel created from the hydrogenation of oils from renewable feedstocks like algae. The method is a departure from the established process of producing biodiesel, which is accomplished by reacting fats and oils with alcohols.
May 13, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces a simple new technique to form interlocking beads of water in ambient conditions that could prove valuable for applications in biological sensing, membrane research and harvesting water from fog.
May 14, 2014
The Obama Administration releases a comprehensive plan to accelerate and expand Federal infrastructure permitting reform government-wide. The Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability is actively engaged in this process for transmission development.
May 14, 2014
The Department's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility announces that the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) has achieved the final two accelerator commissioning milestones needed for approval to start experimental operations following its first major upgrade. In the early hours of May 7, the machine delivered its highest-energy beams ever, 10.5 billion electron-volts (10.5 GeV) through the entire accelerator and up to the start of the beamline for its newest experimental complex, Hall D. Then, in the last minutes of the day on May 7, the machine delivered beam, for the first time, into Hall D.
May 15, 2014
Secretary Moniz issues a determination permitting DOE to make uranium transfers to fund accelerated cleanup activities at the Portsmouth or Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Sites and the down blending of highly enriched uranium into low-enriched uranium to support national security objectives. The Determination finds that the proposed transfers of uranium will not have an adverse material impact on the domestic uranium industries.
May 15, 2014
The Department and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) announce the national champions of the America’s Home Energy Education Challenge (AHEEC), a student competition created to help families save money by saving energy. The sixth grade class from South Ripley Elementary School in Versailles, Indiana, and sixth and seventh grade students from Villa Maria School in Stamford, Connecticut, were together declared the national champions for their efforts.
May 16, 2014
A U.S. Air Force Delta IV rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral with a GPS IIF navigation satellite and a Global Burst Detector (GBD) payload designed to detect, identify, and precisely locate nuclear explosions. The 300-pound GBD payload, supported by National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development Program and built by Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, is the latest space-based sensor addition to the U.S. Nuclear Detonation Detection System, which monitors compliance with the international Limited Test Ban Treaty.
May 19, 2014
Secretary Moniz and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy join for a live White House Google+ Hangout on climate change and the steps being taken to reduce carbon pollution, prepare for climate change impacts, and lead international efforts to combat it.
May 19, 2014
The Department announces $7 million for six projects to develop lightweight, compact, and inexpensive advanced hydrogen storage systems that will enable longer driving ranges and help make fuel cell systems competitive for different platforms and sizes of vehicles. Advances in hydrogen storage will be critical to the widespread commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.
May 19, 2014
The Department’s Sandia National Laboratories announces that a decades-long partnership with the Norwegian research organization SINTEF will be expanded to focusing on energy challenges such as renewable energy integration, electric grid modernization, gas technologies, and algae-based biofuels. SINTEF is the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia, with expertise in the natural sciences and technology, the environment, health and social sciences.
May 19, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Government of Argentina announce the transition of full responsibility for the radiation detection systems located at the Port of Buenos Aires and Port of Dock Sud at an official signing in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires.
May 19-22, 2014
The 2014 SunShot Grand Challenge Summit, attended by more than 800 solar industry leaders, is held in Anaheim, California. Launched by DOE’s SunShot Initiative, the Summit brings together the solar community to network, share ideas, and develop strategies to make solar more affordable. To kick off the summit, DOE announces SunShot Catalyst, a new prize competition to spur the rapid creation and development of products and solutions that address near-term challenges in the U.S. solar marketplace. Intended to tackle market barriers and address technical problems that can be solved through automation, algorithms, data, and software, SunShot Catalyst will leverage the reach and power of online crowdsourcing to generate ideas, spur business innovations, and develop prototypes.
May 20, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories, a congressionally-mandated committee that will evaluate the effectiveness of DOE’s 17 national laboratories. The Commission is being established pursuant to the 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act. The Commission will be co-chaired by Jared Cohon, President Emeritus and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and T.J. Glauthier, President, TJG Energy Associates, LLC. This independent Commission will examine if the priorities of the labs are in line with the broader strategic priorities of DOE. The Commission will conduct a two-part study and present the first phase of its study by February 1, 2015.
May 21, 2014
The Department announces $10 million for six new research and development projects that will advance innovative concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies. The projects will develop thermochemical energy storage systems to enable more efficient storage of solar energy while using less storage material, cutting the cost for utility-scale CSP electricity generation as a result. The Department also releases a new report highlighting the progress of five major CSP deployment projects that are already producing clean, renewable energy.
May 21, 2014
The Department announces up to $2 million to develop the domestic supply chain for hydrogen and fuel cell technologies and study the competitiveness of U.S. hydrogen and fuel cell system and component manufacturing. As a part of the Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative, this funding opportunity supports DOE’s broader effort to boost U.S. competitiveness in the manufacturing sector.
May 21, 2014
The Department announces that its Better Buildings Neighborhood Program has helped more than 40 state and local governments upgrade more than 100,000 buildings and save families and businesses over $730 million on utility bills. Supported by the Recovery Act, DOE’s Better Buildings Neighborhood Program worked with 41 competitively selected state and local governments and their partners to upgrade the energy efficiency of homes and local buildings and leverage early federal funds to launch sustainable community-based programs.
May 21, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that scientists have discovered a previously unknown phase in a class of superconductors called iron arsenides, which sheds light on a debate over the interactions between atoms and electrons that are responsible for their unusual superconductivity.
May 22, 2014
Deputy Secretary Poneman, at the close of a visit to Argentina, meets with Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to review the results of his trip. He began his visit by signing an energy cooperation joint statement during a meeting with Argentina's Minister of Federal Planning, Public Investment, and Services Julio De Vido. He co-chaired a meeting of the Binational Energy Working Group with Argentine Energy Secretary Daniel Cameron, with the parties reaffirming their cooperation in the group’s four priority areas: unconventional oil and gas resources, smart grid technologies, civilian nuclear energy, and energy efficiency and renewable energy. The Deputy Secretary also visited the Patagonian province of Neuquén, home of the promising Vaca Muerta shale formation.
May 22, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues an Audit Report on the cost and schedule of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site. The IG finds that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the contractor, MOX Services, have been largely unsuccessful in controlling the cost and schedule for the MOX Facility. A March 2012 construction project review conducted by NNSA concluded that the MOX Facility had a very low probability of being completed according to the approved baseline. NNSA directed MOX Services to develop a baseline change proposal with updated project completion, cost and schedule projections. Under the revised baseline, it was estimated that total project costs would grow to about $7.7 billion and that completion would slip to November 2019. This represents cost growth of about $2.9 billion and project schedule slippage of over 3 years. The anticipated cost and time required to complete the MOX Facility were significantly underestimated due to a number of factors. This included, most prominently, DOE’s 2007 approval of a project baseline that was developed from an immature design, understating the level of effort to install various construction commodity items, and high personnel turnover rates. Prior to approval, DOE’s own independent review of the project baseline found that the design review of the MOX Facility was incomplete. Additional work scope added at NNSA’s direction caused some of the cost growth in the baseline change proposal developed by MOX Services.
May 22, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues an Audit Report on the Department’s dissemination of DOE-sponsored research results. The IG finds that DOE-funded science and energy research results were not always properly disseminated to the public. Financial assistance recipients had not always submitted final technical reports to the responsible office; unrestricted reports submitted to Energy Link—DOE’s system for collecting, reviewing and releasing technical reports and other forms of scientific and technical information—were not always reviewed and subsequently released publicly; and reports were not released after the expiration of associated data protection periods. These issues occurred due to weaknesses in DOE's processes for monitoring receipt of final reports from recipients, reviewing and releasing reports that have been received, addressing processing errors that prevent receipt or release of reports, and identifying and releasing reports upon expiration of data protection periods.
May 27, 2014
President Obama hosts the 2014 White House Science Fair and celebrates the student winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions from across the country. This year’s Fair includes a specific focus on girls and women who are excelling in STEM and inspiring the next generation with their work.
May 28, 2014
The White House and DOE host an Energy Datapalooza to highlight how state, local, private, and federal entities are using energy data in new and exciting ways. A series of "lightning talks" followed by a showcase that included 40 technology innovators gave hundreds of participants a glimpse of how open energy data is moving the country forward. The White House releases a Fact Sheet on harnessing the power of data for a clean, secure, and reliable energy future.
May 28, 2014
The Department announces the official launch of the National Geothermal Data System (NGDS), an online open-source platform that facilitates the discovery and use of geothermal data, enabling researchers to speed geothermal energy development. This innovative online tool allows academia and industry to access quantifiable, technical data in digital format, breaking down one of the geothermal energy industry’s greatest barriers to development and deployment of this promising clean energy source. The goal of the NGDS is to accelerate research and development in order to drive down the cost and improve the accuracy of subsurface exploration while also encouraging investment in geothermal energy production.
May 28, 2014
The Department's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability hosts Clear Path II, a pre-hurricane season energy sector emergency response forum and exercise, at DOE headquarters in Washington, D.C. The purpose of Clear Path II is to assess plans, policies, and procedures across all levels of the energy sector in order to identify strengths and weaknesses needed to improve the DOE community's response effort.
May 29, 2014
The White House releases a report, “An All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy as a Path to Sustainable Economic Growth,” detailing President Obama’s all-of-the-above energy strategy and the transformation in the domestic energy sector since the President took office. The White House posts a synopsis of the report on White House blog.
May 29, 2014
The Department announces proposed changes to its procedures for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export decisions. With the new procedures, DOE will act on applications to export liquefied natural gas from the lower-48 states to non-FTA countries only after the review required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has been completed, suspending its practice of issuing conditional decisions prior to final authorization decisions. These procedures will not affect the continued validity of the conditional orders DOE has already issued.
May 29, 2014
The Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announces two breakthrough studies tracking the nanoscale structural changes that degrade lithium-ion battery performance during cycles of charge and discharge.
May 29, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) marks the 10th anniversary of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). GTRI, an NNSA nuclear nonproliferation program, works with partners around the world to reduce and consolidate global stockpiles of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, and to secure dangerous radiological sources both at home and abroad. GTRI and its predecessor programs have removed and secured more than enough material for 980 nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of radiological dirty bombs by converting HEU research reactors and isotope production facilities to the use of low enriched uranium (LEU), removing or confirming disposition of HEU and plutonium, and securing nuclear and radiological sites around the world.
May 30, 2014
President Obama convenes a meeting at FEMA headquarters with members of his response team to receive an update on efforts to prepare communities for extreme weather events and other climate change impacts ahead of the 2014 hurricane season. Deputy Secretary Poneman participates for DOE, which showcases the new “Lantern Live” app for helping people in areas affected by severe storms identify electrical outages and locate open gas stations. The White House posts a blog article on the meeting and what the public needs to know.
May 30, 2014
The Department notifies the State of New Mexico that it will not be able to meet the June 30th deadline to remove 3706 cubic meters of transuranic waste from the mesa at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Shipments of LANL transuranic waste, which consists of clothing, tools, rags, debris, soil and other items contaminated with radioactive material generated during decades of nuclear research and weapons development, to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) were suspended following the February 14 radiological event at the site. The Department, as a result, began sending the waste to a Waste Control Specialist (WCS) facility in Andrews, Texas, for temporary storage until WIPP resumed operations. Shipments to WCS were halted when the investigation into the WIPP event identified a LANL drum as the possible cause. The Department also establishes a Technical Assistance Team of experts from across its national laboratories to perform a review of scientific and technical issues surrounding the incident at WIPP.
May 30, 2014
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signs a geothermal bond bill, providing $1.98 million in state funding and matching DOE’s investment in geothermal energy exploration at Pagosa Springs. The project leverages a $3.8 million award from DOE for evaluating and exploring the geothermal resource potential at Pagosa Springs.
May 31, 2014
President Obama, in his weekly address, discusses new actions by the Environmental Protection Agency to cut dangerous carbon pollution at power plants.
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June 2, 2014
The Environmental Protection Agency releases its Clean Power Plan proposal, with proposed rules that for the first time cut carbon pollution from existing power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution in the U.S. The plan will be implemented through a state-federal partnership under which states identify a path forward using either current or new electricity production and pollution control policies to meet the goals of the proposed program. The proposal provides guidelines for states to develop plans to meet state-specific goals to reduce carbon pollution and gives them the flexibility to design a program that makes the most sense for their unique situation. States can choose the right mix of generation using diverse fuels, energy efficiency and demand-side management to meet the goals and their own needs. It allows them to work alone to develop individual plans or to work together with other states to develop multi-state plans. Secretary Moniz says in a statement that the rules “are a critical step toward addressing climate change.” The Department posts a blog article on the plan. The White House also posts three separate blog articles and a video of President Obama at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., visiting with children whose asthma is aggravated by air pollution.
June 3-4, 2014
Secretary Moniz heads the U.S. delegation at the two-day U.S.-Africa Energy Ministerial (USAEM) held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the African Union Conference Center. The Ministerial explores strategies across the U.S. and Africa for accelerating the development of clean energy sources and the adoption of energy efficient technologies. It also reviews best practices in oil and gas resource development, policy and regulatory issues, investment opportunities, and financing. Building on President Obama’s trip to Africa in June 2013, the Ministerial also highlights progress on the Administration’s Power Africa initiative. Power Africa aims to increase access to power in sub-Saharan Africa – where more than two-thirds of the population is without electricity – building on the continent’s significant power potential across energy sectors. As part of the initiative, the Department announces the launching of Beyond the Grid, which will leverage partnerships with 27 investors and practitioners committing to invest over $1 billion into off-grid and small scale solutions for the underserved populations across sub-Saharan Africa. U.S.-Africa Energy Ministerial Co-Chairs’ Secretary Moniz and Ethiopian Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy Alemayehu Tegenu issue a summary of the ministerial. Former Counselor to the President John Podesta posts an article on the White House blog.
June 3, 2014
Melanie Kenderdine, director of DOE’s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis, posts a blog article on the Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed rules for cutting carbon pollution from existing power plants.
June 3, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers have created the world’s first fully two-dimensional field-effect transistor (FET), promising faster electronic device architectures in the future. FETs are one of the pillars of the electronics industry, ubiquitous to computers, cell phones, tablets, pads, and virtually every other widely used electronic device. Unlike conventional FETs made from silicon, these 2D FETs suffer no performance drop-off under high voltages and provide high electron mobility, even when scaled to a monolayer in thickness.
June 4-5, 2014
The leaders of the G-7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the U.S.) meet in Brussels after the previously scheduled G-8 Summit in Sochi, Russia, was cancelled when G-7 leaders suspended Russia’s participation in response to its violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The G-7 leaders agree on new commitments to enhanced energy security, following up on the Joint Statement issued by the G-7 energy ministers at their May 5-6 meeting in Rome. The G-7 leaders denounce the use of energy supplies as a tool of political coercion, affirm core principles to guide energy policy, and identify steps to enhance their shared energy security. This incorporates continued commitment to promote low carbon technologies and development of a more integrated and secure global natural gas market. The leaders G-7 direct their energy ministers to undertake concrete steps to advance these goals in the coming year, including conducting energy security assessments, developing contingency plans for winter, and accelerating help for Ukraine and other European countries. The White House issues a Fact Sheet. President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom hold a Joint Press Conference.
June 6, 2014
The Department's Ames Laboratory breaks ground on a Sensitive Instrument Facility designed to isolate increasingly fine-tuned scientific equipment from environmental disturbances. Located at the Applied Sciences Complex northwest of the Ames Lab and its contractor, Iowa State University, in Ames, Iowa, the 13,300 square foot facility will house six bays that eliminate the vibration and electromagnetic interference that might affect the accuracy of the microscopes scientists use to conduct research at the atomic level. These tools, such as electron and scanning probe microscopes, aid in the discovery and design of new materials.
June 8, 2014
The Department’s Joint Genome Institute announces that researchers have sequenced and analyzed the genome of the common bean, which may improve both food security and the sustainability of bioenergy crops.
June 9, 2014
The Department's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory announces that it has received $4.3 million of DOE funding, over three years, to develop an increased understanding of the role of plasma in the synthesis of nanoparticles. Such particles, which are measured in billionths of a meter, are prized for their use in everything from golf clubs and swimwear to microchips, paints and pharmaceutical products. The new funds will expand research in a nanotechnology laboratory that the lab launched in 2012.
June 10, 2014
The Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) announces that it is making it possible for the public to track from all types of mobile devices and tablets the power plants, oil refineries, major electric transmission lines, and other critical energy infrastructure that are in the path of upcoming storms and significant weather events. From any touchscreen anywhere and at any time, users can now easily access the latest information from two important EIA tools: the U.S. Energy Mapping System and the Energy Disruptions web page.
June 11, 2014
The Department announces more than $10 million for projects that will improve the reliability and resiliency of the U.S. electric grid and facilitate quick and effective response to grid conditions. This investment that includes six projects across five states – California, Hawaii, Missouri, North Carolina, and Washington – will help further the deployment of advanced software that works with synchrophasor technology to better detect quickly-changing grid conditions and improve day-to-day grid reliability.
June 11, 2014
The Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that researchers have achieved a new first—the formation of a single layer of nanoparticles on a liquid surface where the properties of the layer can be easily switched. Understanding the assembly of such nanostructured thin films could lead to the design of new kinds of filters or membranes with a variable mechanical response for a wide range of applications.
June 11, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers have demonstrated a technique for producing, detecting, and controlling ultrahigh frequency sound waves at the nanometer scale. This advances next generation ultrasonic imaging with potentially 1,000 times higher resolution than today’s medical ultrasounds.
June 11, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announces that it has received $5.6 million from the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an implantable neural interface with the ability to record and stimulate neurons within the brain for treating neuropsychiatric disorders. The technology will help doctors to better understand and treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), chronic pain, and other conditions.
June 11, 2014
Vice President Joe Biden speaks with investors, business executives, and senior government officials from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico at the North American Energy Summit in New York City about the continent’s emerging status as the global epicenter of energy. “I’m no investment banker,” the Vice President concludes, “but I wouldn’t go long on investments that lead to carbon pollution.”
June 12, 2014
The third meeting of the U.S.-Japan Bilateral Commission on Civil Nuclear Cooperation is held in Tokyo, with Japan’s Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Shinsuke Sugiyama and Deputy Secretary Poneman leading the discussions as Co-Chairs. The delegations included participants representing a wide range of governmental agencies. Established at the U.S.-Japan summit held in Washington, D.C. in April 2012, the Bilateral Commission serves as a standing senior-level forum to foster a comprehensive strategic dialogue and joint activities related to the safe and secure use of civil nuclear energy and the response to the accident at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station.
June 12, 2014
The Department announces a new regional approach to wind energy information, launching the collaborative partnership between its new WINDExchange initiative and six supporting Regional Resource Centers. The new WINDExchange initiative and website will serve as a digital portal providing fact-based informational resources about the costs and benefits of wind power, technical assistance and guidance for simplifying the deployment process, and public access to educational resources. Six new Regional Resource Centers will serve their regions as wind energy information centers, supporting WINDExchange's efforts and working collaboratively with local organizations to engage diverse stakeholder groups.
June 12, 2014
The Department announces the signing of a new 5-year cooperative agreement with Southern Company to evaluate advanced carbon-capture and gasification technologies at the National Carbon Capture Center (NCCC) in Wilsonville, Alabama. Under the agreement, which will be managed by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, Southern Company (Atlanta, Ga.) will test both pre- and post-combustion carbon-capture technologies, as well as materials and processes that support advanced fossil-fuel conversion systems, primarily coal gasification. The total award value is $187 million. DOE will contribute $150 million, with Southern Company adding $37 million in cost-sharing.
June 13, 2014
The Department announces $10 million in funding for nine research and development projects to support solid-state lighting core technology research and product development. The projects will help accelerate the development of high-quality light-emitting diode (LED) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) products. LEDs are intense sources of light consisting of inorganic materials, where OLEDs are diffuse light sources that consist of organic materials.
June 16, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) under which Norway will continue its partnership with DOE/NNSA’s global nonproliferation efforts. The MOU was signed by Secretary Moniz and Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Børge Brende. Norway will provide funding to DOE/NNSA’s various counter nuclear smuggling and threat reduction initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe. Specifically, Norway will continue to fund work under DOE/NNSA’s Second Line of Defense (SLD) program to strengthen partner countries’ capabilities to combat the illicit trafficking of special nuclear and other radiological materials at border crossings and checkpoints. Funding will also go to DOE/NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), which works to prevent terrorist acquisition of nuclear and radiological materials.
June 16, 2014
The Department announces $20 million for ten new research and development projects that will advance hydrogen production and delivery technologies. Advancing these technologies will be critical to the widespread commercialization of fuel cell electric vehicles and other fuel cell technologies.
June 16, 2014
The Department’s Sandia National Laboratories announces that an Albuquerque startup company, Eden Radioisotopes LLC, has licensed a technology that offers a way to make molybdenum-99, a key radioactive isotope needed for diagnostic imaging in nuclear medicine, in the U.S. Known as moly 99, it is made in aging nuclear reactors outside the country, and concerns about future shortages have been in the news for years. The company hopes to build the first U.S. reactor for making the isotope and become a global supplier.
June 16-17, 2014
The Department’s Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC) meets. The EAC provides advice to DOE in implementing the Energy Policy Act of 2005, executing the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, and modernizing the nation's electricity delivery infrastructure. Meeting summaries and transcripts are made available.
June 17, 2014
President Obama announces new actions to spur innovation and entrepreneurship to revitalize U.S. manufacturing. These include streamlining access to over $5 billion worth of advanced equipment, including at DOE national laboratories, and expanding investment in the Materials Genome Initiative to ensure U.S. leadership in inventing and manufacturing advanced materials. Five Federal agencies, including DOE, will invest more than $150 million in ground-breaking research to support the Materials Genome Initiative.
June 17, 2014
The Department and the American Public Power Association (APPA), recognize the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority and Silicon Valley Power of Santa Clara, California, as the winners of the 2014 Public Power Wind Awards. The awards, presented at the APPA National Conference in Denver, Colorado, recognize publicly owned utilities that demonstrate outstanding leadership in advancing wind power in the U.S.
June 17, 2014
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Frank G. Klotz, DOE Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator for DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), dedicates the nation’s largest federally owned wind farm at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. The Pantex Renewable Energy Project (PREP), an 11.5 megawatt, five-turbine wind farm, has been under construction since August 2013 on 1,500 acres of DOE-owned land adjacent to the Pantex Plant.
June 17, 2014
The Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory announces the installation of a new high-performance computer system, called Wolf, which will be used for unclassified research. Initial science research projects to utilize Wolf will include climate, materials and astrophysics modeling.
June 17, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that research performed at its Advanced Photon Source suggests that the makeup of the Earth's lower mantle, which makes up the largest part of the Earth by volume, is significantly different than previously thought.
June 17, 2014
The Department’s Sandia National Laboratories announces that it has developed an inexpensive way to synthesize titanium-dioxide nanoparticles and is seeking partners who can demonstrate the process at industrial scale for everything from solar cells to light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Titanium-dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles show great promise as fillers to tune the refractive index of anti-reflective coatings on signs and optical encapsulants for LEDs, solar cells, and other optical devices. Optical encapsulants are coverings or coatings, usually made of silicone, that protect a device.
June 18, 2014
The Department releases a new report that analyzes the water-energy nexus for DOE and its partners and lays the foundation for future efforts. Present day water and energy systems are tightly intertwined. Water is used in all phases of energy production and electricity generation. Energy is required to extract, convey, and deliver water of appropriate quality for diverse human uses. The Water-Energy Nexus: Challenge and Opportunities lays out an array of technical and operational challenges across the water-energy nexus at local, regional, and national scales. The report notes that water scarcity, variability, and uncertainty are becoming more prominent, potentially leading to vulnerabilities of the U.S. energy system. System evolution brought on by climate change, population growth, technological advances, and policy developments are increasing the urgency for informed action. Secretary Moniz posts a blog article on the report that includes an inforgraphic.
June 18, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces the awarding of $100 million for Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to build the 21st-century energy economy. The awards are the second round of funding for EFRCs and the research supported by this initiative will enable fundamental advances in energy production, storage, and use.
June 18, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that researchers have made the first structural observations of liquid water at temperatures down to minus 51 degrees Fahrenheit, within an elusive “no man’s land” where water’s strange properties are super-amplified. The research, made possible by SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, opens a new window for exploring liquid water in these exotic conditions, and promises to improve our understanding of its unique properties at the more natural temperatures and states that are relevant to global ocean currents, climate, and biology.
June 18, 2014
The Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory announces an impending partnership with Toshiba Corporation to use a Los Alamos technique called muon tomography to safely peer inside the cores of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors and create high-resolution images of the damaged nuclear material inside without ever breaching the cores themselves. The initiative could reduce the time required to clean up the disabled complex by at least a decade and greatly reduce radiation exposure to personnel working at the plant.
June 18, 2014
The Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory announces that researchers have demonstrated an almost four-fold boost of the carrier multiplication yield with nanoengineered quantum dots. Carrier multiplication is when a single photon can excite multiple electrons. Quantum dots are novel nanostructures that can become the basis of the next generation of solar cells, capable of squeezing additional electricity out of the extra energy of blue and ultraviolet photons.
June 19, 2014
Vice President Biden, on a visit to the Maritima Solar facility in the Dominican Republic, announces a new initiative to support the Caribbean on energy security. Recognizing that there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution for Caribbean nations and that individual islands may choose to pursue different pathways towards achieving energy security, the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative consists of a portfolio of activities designed to provide different options for assisting in the transformation of the Caribbean’s electricity sector.
June 19, 2014
The Department hosts a public meeting in San Francisco on the Quadrennial Energy Review, a four-year process to identify key threats, risks, and opportunities for U.S. energy and climate security. John Holdren -- Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy -- leads a discussion with regional stakeholders about the water-energy nexus.
June 19, 2014
ARPA-E Acting Director Cheryl Martin announces $33 million in funding for 13 new projects aimed at developing transformational fuel cell technologies for low-cost distributed power generation. The projects, which are funded through ARPA-E’s new Reliable Electricity Based on ELectrochemical Systems (REBELS) program, are focused on improving grid stability, balancing intermittent renewable technologies, and reducing CO2 emissions using electrochemical distributed power generation systems.
June 20, 2014
The Department issues a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), for five violations of DOE’s worker safety and health regulations. The violations are associated with a February 11, 2013, test incident that resulted in a BEA researcher sustaining second- and third-degree burns at the Idaho National Laboratory Engineering Demonstration Facility.
June 20, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces $3.2 million to launch the National Incubator Initiative for Clean Energy, which will create a national support network to serve the clean energy small business and entrepreneur community, providing critical technical assistance and training services in order to bring these businesses and entrepreneurs closer to market readiness. The Initiative will establish a suite of technological and training resources, connect critical industry and energy sector partners, enhance incubator best practices, and increase access to information about industry resources to advance innovative clean energy technologies emerging from universities and federal laboratories.
June 23, 2014
Deputy Secretary Poneman travels to Abu Dhabi, UAE, to join Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei in launching the U.S.-UAE Strategic Energy Dialogue. They addressed a wide array of subjects, including oil and gas production and related market developments, clean energy deployment and energy efficiency, carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration, and civil nuclear cooperation. The parties discuss the importance of keeping oil markets well supplied at prices that are consistent with global economic growth. They also discuss climate change.
June 23, 2014
The MicroBooNE detector – a 30-ton, 40-foot-long cylindrical metal tank designed to detect ghostly particles called neutrinos – is carefully transported by truck across the Department’s Fermilab site, from the warehouse building it was constructed in to the experimental hall three miles away. The massive detector is then hoisted up with a crane, lowered through the open roof of the building and placed into its permanent home, directly in the path of Fermilab’s beam of neutrinos. There it will become the centerpiece of the MicroBooNE experiment, which will study the elusive particles.
June 23, 2014
In the annual Top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers, the Department’s national laboratories have four out of the top 10.
June 24, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) transfers the mission assignment of several product families from Sandia National Laboratories to the Kansas City Plant. The mission reassignment better aligns responsibilities with each site’s core competencies and will leverage Kansas City’s Supply Chain Management systems and tools. The Production Agency mission transfer includes Frequency Devices, Power Assemblies, Magnetics and certain Custom Pulse Discharge Capacitors. There will be no change in production agency mission assignment for all other Sandia External Production (SEP) product families: Switch Tubes, Electronics Packaging, Power Sources and Explosive Devices.
June 24-27, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory hosts the National Nuclear Security Administration’s 2014 Mo-99 Topical Meeting in Washington D.C. from June 24-27. This meeting serves as a workshop where international and domestic policy and technical experts can gather to present and discuss progress toward achieving the production of the life-saving medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) without using highly enriched uranium (HEU) in support of nonproliferation objectives and global reliability of supply.
June 25, 2014
The Department announces a new energy efficiency standard for furnace fans. The new standard will help reduce harmful carbon pollution by up to 34 million metric tons – equivalent to the annual electricity use of 4.7 million homes – and save Americans over $9 billion in home electricity bills through 2030.
June 25, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers have observed Skyrmions, subatomic quasiparticles that could play a key role in future spintronic technologies, for the first time using x-rays. An international collaboration of researchers working at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) observed skyrmions in copper selenite (Cu2SeO3), an insulator with multiferroic properties. The results not only hold promise for ultracompact data storage and processing, but may also open up entire new areas of study in the emerging field of quantum topology.
June 25, 2014
One year after President Obama laid out his comprehensive Climate Action Plan, the White House releases a one-year Progress Report on President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. “The Administration has made real progress in advancing the goals in the President’s Climate Action Plan,” notes Dan Utech, Special Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. “The policies President Obama has put forward in just one year -- when implemented -- are expected to cut nearly 3 billion tons of carbon pollution between 2020 and 2025. That’s an amount equivalent to taking more than 600 million cars off the road for a year.” The President delivers remarks at the League of Conservation Voters Capital Dinner.
June 26, 2014
The Department - in partnership with Air Products and Chemicals Inc. – announces a major milestone, successfully capturing in the past year more than one million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) at the hydrogen-production facility in Port Arthur, Texas. Using an innovative technology called vacuum swing adsorption, the project captures more than 90 percent of the CO2 from the product stream of two commercial-scale steam methane reformers that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere. In addition to the secure storage, captured carbon from the project will be used to help produce additional, hard-to-access resources from existing nearby oil fields. In total, DOE projects have captured and securely stored nearly 7.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to date, equivalent to taking more than 1.5 million cars off the road for a year.
June 26, 2013
The Department launches the Microgrid 2014 MVP Challenge, a competition to support resiliency and adaptation in communities across America. The Challenge will recognize local organizations that have adopted successful grid strategies which can continue providing vital public services during power disruptions caused by severe weather and other events.
June 26, 2014
The Department awards a competitive $25.7 million task order for cleanup activities at the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) to North Wind of Idaho Falls, Idaho. ETEC is located at the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory (SSFL) in Canoga Park, California. North Wind will be responsible for environmental monitoring, surveillance and maintenance, facility maintenance and infrastructure support, project support and deactivation and decommissioning activities. ETEC’s historic mission involved nuclear research and development for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor to DOE. In the mid-1950s, a part of SSFL was set aside for nuclear reactor development and testing, related to the development of nuclear power and space power systems.
June 26, 2014
The Department’s Sandia National Laboratories announces the technology transfer to the Army of a highly modified miniature synthetic aperture radar (MiniSAR) system mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles that has been uncovering improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2009.
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July 1, 2014
The Department announces the first step toward issuing a $150 million loan guarantee to support the construction of the Cape Wind offshore wind project with a conditional commitment to Cape Wind Associates, LLC. If constructed, the project would be the first commercial-scale offshore wind facility in the U.S., with a capacity of more than 360 megawatts of clean energy off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
July 1, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration announces that the NNSA Production Office and Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) have completed one of the largest and most complex contract transitions in the history of DOE. CNS assumes the responsibility for the management and operation of the Pantex Plant, Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. CNS replaces B&W Y-12, which had operated Y-12 since 2000, and B&W Pantex, which also had operated Pantex since 2000. The contract includes a total annual operating budget of $1.5 billion and employment of about 8,000 in Tennessee and Texas.
July 3, 2014
The Department issues a loan guarantee solicitation, making as much as $4 billion in loan guarantees available for innovative renewable energy and energy efficiency projects located in the U.S. The solicitation is intended to support technologies that are catalytic, replicable, and market-ready. The Department identifies five key technology areas of interest: advanced grid integration and storage, drop-in biofuels, waste-to-energy, enhancement of existing facilities including micro-hydro or hydro updates to existing non-powered dams, and efficiency improvements.
July 7, 2014
Adam Sieminski, Administrator of DOE's Energy Information Administration (EIA), testifies before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources at a field hearing on “Outer Continental Shelf Production.”
July 8, 2014
Department issues a Preliminary Notice of Violation to Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, for three violations of worker safety and health regulations associated with an incident at DOE’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The incident took place on October 9, 2012, in which a 60-ton mobile hydraulic crane tipped over onto its front end. The crane operator was not injured and was able to climb down from the crane cab onto the ground.
July 8, 2014
Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and National Nuclear Security Administrator Frank Klotz visits the Kansas City Plant and marks the final day of an 18-month move from the Bannister Federal Complex to the National Security Campus eight miles south of the old facility. General Klotz packs the last crate to be moved. His crate is one of 30,000 packed since January 2013. In all, more than 3,000 truckloads transported thousands of pieces of equipment, some weighing as little as six ounces to a milling machine weighing 87,000 pounds.
July 8-11, 2014
Secretary Moniz travels to Beijing to participate in the sixth U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. The S&ED, which is chaired on the U.S. side by the Secretaries of State and Treasury, is the pre-eminent channel for government-to-government discussion between the two nations on issues relating to global, regional, and national security and economic issues. In addition to participating in the S&ED, which included meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, Secretary Moniz meets with several counterparts in the Chinese government, as well as U.S. and Chinese companies, researchers, and non-governmental organizations. The Secretary focuses on opportunities to expand and deepen U.S.-China collaborations on clean energy and climate change.
July 9, 2014
President Obama nominates Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall to be Deputy Secretary of Energy.
July 9, 2014
The Department’s Loan Programs Office announces two administrative updates to its Section 1703 loan guarantee program. This program was authorized by Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and issues loan guarantees to eligible innovative energy projects.
July 10, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces that it has entered into a contract agreement with Cray, Inc., for a next generation supercomputer, called Trinity, to advance the mission for the Stockpile Stewardship Program. Managed by NNSA, Trinity is a joint effort of the New Mexico Alliance for Computing at Extreme Scale (ACES) between Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories as part of the NNSA Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program. Trinity will be used by Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia national laboratories and will be housed at Los Alamos’ Metropolis Computing Center. Trinity will be sized to run the largest and most demanding simulations of stockpile stewardship, assuring the safety, security, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without the use of underground testing.
July 10, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues an Audit Report on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s drawdown readiness. The IG determines that the Department generally maintained the Reserve in a manner to ensure drawdown readiness. The IG nonetheless notes that it was not fully successful in meeting all of its operational performance criteria. The IG finds that due to the suspension and deferral of various maintenance and remediation activities, the Reserve was unable to achieve the maximum drawdown rate specified in its performance criteria, could not store oil at its full capacity, and had not ensured that its full inventory was available for drawdown. These conditions occurred, in part, because DOE had not performed a current, extensive assessment and therefore were not fully cognizant of the Reserve’s long-term sustainability. Budget cuts also contributed to the suspension of maintenance activities and resulted in the failure to maintain established drawdown rates and capacity.
July 10, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that scientists have found a way to estimate uncertainties in computer calculations that are widely used to speed the search for new materials for industry, electronics, energy, drug design and a host of other applications.
July 11, 2014
Department researchers win 31 of the 100 awards given out annually by R&D Magazine for the most outstanding technology developments with promising commercial potential. The awards are in recognition of exceptional new products or processes that were developed and introduced into the marketplace during the previous year. To be eligible, the technology or process has to be in working and marketable condition.
July 11, 2014
The Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project releases its Project Strategy and Initial Implementation Plan. ACME, comprised fourteen institutions working together to develop the most accurate climate change predictions yet, is designed to accelerate the development and application of fully coupled, state-of-the-science Earth system models for scientific and energy applications. The partners include eight national laboratories — Sandia, Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest — along with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, four academic institutions, and one private sector company.
July 11, 2014
The Department of Energy and National Science Foundation announce which experiments they will support in the next generation of the search for dark matter: the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search-SNOLAB, or SuperCDMS; the LUX-Zeplin experiment, or LZ; and the next iteration of the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment, ADMX-Gen2. Second-generation dark matter experiments are defined as experiments that will be at least 10 times as sensitive as the current crop of dark matter detectors.
July 11, 2014
Acting Director of the Office of Science Patricia Dehmer testifies before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Subcommittee on Energy on DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences program.
July 14-15, 2014
The Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) holds the 2014 EIA Energy Conference. The conference has become a premier forum for addressing energy issues in the U.S. and around the world, bringing together thought leaders from industry, government, and academia to discuss current and future challenges facing domestic and international energy markets and policymakers.
July 15, 2014
The Department–in partnership with NRG Energy Inc. and JX Nippon–announces that construction has begun on the first commercial-scale post-combustion carbon capture retrofit project in the U.S., the largest such project in the world. The Petra Nova Project will use this cutting edge technology to help decrease the power plant’s greenhouse gas emissions. Once completed, the energy technology project will capture about 1.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually from an existing coal-fired power plant in Texas. The captured CO2 will then be used to extract additional, hard-to-access oil from a previously depleted field 80 miles away, safely storing the carbon underground in the process. The project will capture 90 percent of the CO2 using a process previously deployed in a DOE-sponsored 3-year pilot-scale test in Alabama where it successfully captured more than 150,000 metric tons of CO2 per year from a coal power plant.
July 15, 2014
The Department announces $6 million for two projects to develop next generation biofuels. The projects, located in California and North Carolina, will focus on lowering production costs by maximizing the renewable carbon and hydrogen from biomass that can be converted to fuels and improving the separation processes in bio-oil production to remove non-fuel components.
July 15, 2014
The Department announces up to $14 million in funding for 15 research and development projects to support technologies that will contribute to advancing early-stage, breakthrough energy-efficient solutions for buildings and homes. Seven incubator projects will be funded with nearly $6 million to improve heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), water heating, sensors and controls, and building energy modeling. Additionally, eight frontier projects will receive $8 million to address energy efficiency in advanced clothes dryers, windows, and building thermal insulation. Frontier projects seek to improve the efficiency of existing technologies by incorporating new, innovative materials or components.
July 15, 2014
The Department's Ames Laboratory announces the acquisition of a dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer that helps scientists understand how individual atoms are arranged in materials. The DNP-NMR is the first to be used for materials science and chemistry in the U.S. To obtain this detailed information about materials' structure and dynamics, solid-state NMR monitors the response of atomic nuclei to excitation with radio frequency waves.
July 15, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that joint collaboration with Intel has outlined the chemistry of photoresist, enabling smaller features for future generations of microprocessors. Similar to film used in photography, photoresist is used to lay down the patterns of ever-shrinking lines and features on a chip.
July 15-16, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) provides a demonstrations of radiological emergency assets – emergency vehicles and other resources available for emergency response – during the Health Physics Society’s annual meeting at the Baltimore Convention Center.
July 16, 2014
The Department announces up to $4.5 million in funding to expand the use of alternative fuels through the Clean Cities program, which works with nearly 100 local coalitions and thousands of stakeholders across the country to decrease the use of petroleum in transportation. The funding will support seven to fifteen deployment projects in three major areas: on-the-road demonstrations, safety-related training, and emergency preparedness.
July 16, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that neutron scattering research at the lab has revealed clear structural differences in the normal and pathological forms of a protein involved in Huntington’s disease.
July 17, 2014
The Departments of Energy and Agriculture (USDA) announce the selection of 10 projects that will receive funding aimed at accelerating genetic breeding programs to improve plant feedstocks for the production of biofuels, biopower, and bio-based products. The $12.6 million in research grants are awarded under a joint DOE-USDA program that began in 2006 focused on fundamental investigations of biomass genomics, with the aim of harnessing nonfood plant biomass for the production of fuels such as ethanol or renewable chemical feedstocks.
July 17, 2014
The Department announces up to $7 million to deploy clean energy and energy efficiency projects in tribal communities. The Tribal Energy Program, in cooperation with DOE's Office of Indian Energy, will help Native American tribes, tribal energy resource development organizations, and tribal consortia to install community- or facility-scale clean energy and energy efficiency projects.
July 17, 2014
The Department announces $3.5 million for an algae project aimed at accelerating the development of sustainable, affordable algal biofuels. This research project supports DOE’s goal of producing 2,500 gallons of algal biofuel feedstock per acre per year by 2018, an important milestone toward reducing the cost of algal biofuels to cost-competitive levels of 5,000 gallons per acre per year by 2022.
July 17, 2014
The Department announces up to $31 million to establish the initial phases of the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), a field laboratory dedicated to cutting-edge research on enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). EGS are engineered reservoirs, created beneath the surface of the Earth, where there is hot rock but limited pathways through which fluid can flow. During EGS development, underground fluid pathways are safely created and their size and connectivity increased. These enhanced pathways allow fluid to circulate throughout the hot rock and carry heat to the surface to generate electricity. In the long term, EGS may enable domestic access to a geographically diverse baseload, and carbon-free energy resource on the order of 100 gigawatts, or enough to power about 100 million homes.
July 18, 2014
The P5+1 and Iran, negotiating in Vienna on Iran’s nuclear program, agree to extend the Joint Plan of Action to November 24. “This will give us a short amount of additional time to continue working to conclude a comprehensive agreement, which we believe is warranted by the progress we’ve made and the path forward we can envision,” says Secretary of State John Kerry. “Under this short extension, all parties have committed to upholding their obligations in the Joint Plan of Action. For the next four months, we will continue to halt the progress of Iran’s nuclear program in key areas. In addition, Iran has committed to take further nuclear-related steps in the next four months that are consistent with the types of steps that they committed to in the JPOA.”
July 21, 2014
Construction begins on an innovative $19.5 million carbon-capture pilot, funded in part by DOE, at Kentucky Utilities’ E.W. Brown Generating Station near Harrodsburg, Kentucky. The 2 megawatt thermal system will be the first megawatt-scale carbon-capture pilot unit in Kentucky. When completed later this year, the unit will test a system conceived by the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research at slipstream-scale to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the flue gas of an operating coal-fired power plant.
July 21, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that scientists have developed a new platinum alloy that shows promise as a fuel cell catalyst. Current platinum catalysts are so expensive that they cannot be economically scaled up for widespread use. The new catalyst is a mixture of platinum and a second, cheaper element, yttrium, formed into nanoparticles whose size can be precisely controlled. It uses just one-fifth as much platinum.
July 21-25, 2014
Consequence Management teams from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Emergency Response participate in the Vibrant Response 14 exercise at Camp Atterbury in Muscatatuck, Indiana, and surrounding areas. Taking advantage of a U. S. Army North exercise, NNSA, alongside FEMA, Indiana Department of Homeland Security, and numerous other local, state, and federal agencies with civilian personnel from across the country respond to a simulated terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon. NNSA deploys personnel to federal and state operating facilities to coordinate the response to the radiological aspects of this scenario. Additionally, a Consequence Management Home Team provides support from Las Vegas, Nevada, Livermore, California, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. This team provides models of fallout deposition and analysis of environmental monitoring data.
July 22, 2014
The Department awards a Task Order under the Nationwide Environmental Management ID/IQ Unrestricted Contract to Fluor Federal Services, Inc. for deactivation activities at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah, Kentucky, which is currently leased to the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC). The award is anticipated to support transitioning and preparing the site for Deactivation and Decommissioning of the former uranium enrichment facilities. The estimated award value is approximately $420 million over three years.
July 22, 2013
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that lab scientists have invented a customizable chemical etching process that can be used to manufacture high-performance focusing devices for the brightest X-ray sources on the planet, as well as to make other nanoscale structures such as biosensors and battery electrodes.
July 23, 2014
Madelyn Creedon is confirmed by the Senate DOE’s Principal Deputy Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
July 24, 2014
The Department and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory announce funding for projects led by Pika Energy, Northern Power Systems, Endurance Wind Power, and Urban Green Energy aimed at driving down the cost of small and medium-sized wind energy systems. Through the second round of the Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP), the teams will receive a total of $1.27 million between them. In support of DOE’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative, the funding aims to help U.S. manufacturers improve their turbine designs and manufacturing processes to reduce hardware costs, improve efficiency, and eventually earn certification from accredited third-party certification bodies, which issue easy-to-understand labels showing a turbine has met performance and safety testing requirements set by the wind industry.
July 24, 2014
The Department announces up to $6 million in funding to deploy and demonstrate four emerging energy-saving technologies in commercial buildings across the country. The projects will generate data, case studies, and information intended to help commercial building owners adopt new energy efficient technologies, including advanced ventilation, building energy use optimization software, more efficient commercial refrigeration fan motors, and advanced lighting controls.
July 28, 2014
The Department’s Office of Science releases a Statement on Digital Data Management. The statement was developed with input from a variety of stakeholders and focuses on sharing and preservation of digital research data.
July 29, 2014
The White House and DOE host a Capstone Methane Stakeholder Roundtable. The Capstone event is the culmination of four previous in-depth Roundtables at which leaders from industry, environmental organizations, state regulators, consumer groups, academia, and manufacturing and labor unions were asked to provide Administration and other representatives with their individual perspectives on opportunities to modernize natural gas infrastructure and reduce mid- and downstream methane emissions. After the meeting, Secretary Moniz announces a series of actions, partnerships, and stakeholder commitments to help modernize the nation’s natural gas transmission and distribution systems and reduce methane emissions. The Secretary posts a blog article.
July 29, 2014
The White House releases a new report from the Council of Economic Advisers that examines the economic consequences of delaying action to stem climate change. The report finds that delaying policy actions by a decade increases total mitigation costs by approximately 40 percent, and failing to take any action would risk substantial economic damage. These findings emphasize the need for policy action today. The White House posts a blog article summarizing the key points of the report.
July 30, 2014
The Department announces up to $11.3 million for two projects that aim to advance the production of cost-competitive, high-performance carbon fiber material from renewable, non-food-based feedstocks, such as agricultural residues and woody biomass. Carbon fiber – a strong, lightweight material that can replace steel and other heavier metals – can lower the cost and improve performance of fuel-efficient vehicles and renewable energy components such as wind turbine blades. The two projects seek to demonstrate new biomass conversion technologies that enable the manufacturing of acrylonitrile – an essential feedstock for high performance carbon fiber – for less than $1 per pound.
July 30, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reports that the Pantex site has delivered one of the few remaining B53 nuclear weapons cases to the Freedom Museum USA in Pampa, Texas. The final B53, which received its “Big Dog” nickname from dismantlement workers due to its massive size, was dismantled at Pantex on October 25, 2011, in a historic ceremony. The B53 was the oldest, largest and most destructive nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal at the time it was retired.
July 31, 2014
The Department announces that it has conditionally authorized LNG Development Co., LLC, (Oregon LNG) to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S., from the Oregon LNG Terminal in Warrenton, Oregon. Subject to environmental review and final regulatory approval, the facility is conditionally authorized to export at a rate of up to the equivalent of 1.25 billion standard cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, for a period of 20 years.
July 31, 2014
The Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that scientists have discovered a new catalytic system for converting carbon dioxide (CO2) to methanol – a key commodity used to create a wide range of industrial chemicals and fuels. Development of an effective catalyst for synthesizing methanol from CO2 could greatly expand the use of this abundant gas as an economical feedstock and possibly help mitigate the accumulation of this greenhouse gas, by capturing CO2 emitted from methanol-powered combustion engines and fuel cells, and recycling it to synthesize new fuel.
July 31, 2014
The Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory announces that Supercam, laser technology originally developed at the lab, has been selected by NASA for its new Mars mission in 2020. SuperCam builds upon the successful capabilities demonstrated aboard the Curiosity Rover during NASA’s current Mars Mission. SuperCam will allow researchers to sample rocks and other targets from a distance using a laser. In addition to harnessing Los-Alamos developed Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy technology—which can determine the elemental composition of the target from more than 20 feet away—SuperCam adds another spectrum to its laser for Raman and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy: A technique that provides the molecular makeup of a target, therefore allowing geologists to determine mineralogy and search for organic materials.
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August 1, 2014
The Obama Administration releases the Biogas Opportunities Roadmap. The multi-agency roadmap builds on progress made to date to address some of the barriers that currently limit biogas development and supports voluntary efforts to reduce methane emissions already underway across the country. It also reflects a commitment to continue working with industry stakeholders on identifying steps to expand the biogas industry, including through the development of new technologies.
August 4, 2014
The Department launches the Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science – PAGES – a web-based portal that will provide free public access to accepted peer-reviewed manuscripts or published scientific journal articles within 12 months of publication. PAGES will include access to DOE-funded authors’ accepted manuscripts hosted primarily by DOE’s National Labs and grantee institutions, in addition to the public access offerings of publishers.
August 4, 2014
Secretary Moniz releases a statement regarding Dr. Grace M. Bochenek becoming the new director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory.
August 4, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers have developed a technique for generating acoustic bottles in open air that can bend the paths of sound waves along prescribed convex trajectories. Potential applications, include advanced ultrasonic imaging and therapy, and acoustic cloaking, levitation, and particle manipulation.
August 4-6, 2014
President Obama welcomes more than 40 heads of state and government from across the African continent to Washington, D.C., for a three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. The President announces a renewed commitment Power Africa, an innovative private sector-led initiative aimed at doubling electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa launched on June 30, 2013. The President pledges a new level of $300 million in assistance per year to expand the reach of Power Africa across the continent in pursuit of a new, aggregate goal of 30,000 MW of additional capacity to Africa and increasing electricity access by at least 60 million household and business connections. The President also announces $6 billion in new private sector commitments, bringing the total private sector commitments under Power Africa to date to more than $20 billion. This includes additional commitments under Beyond the Grid, a new sub-initiative, announced at the June 2014 U.S-Africa Energy Ministerial, for fostering private investment in off-grid and small-scale energy solutions that seek to expand access to remote areas across sub-Saharan Africa.
August 6, 2014
The Department announces up to $18 million for 32 projects that will advance geothermal energy development in the U.S. The selected projects target research and development in three technology areas: advancing subsurface analysis and engineering techniques for enhanced geothermal systems, applying a mapping approach called play fairway analysis to discover new geothermal resources, and accelerating extraction technologies to unlock domestic supplies of high-value materials like lithium from low- to moderate-temperature geothermal resources. These projects aim to lower the cost and risk of geothermal development.
August 6, 2014
The Department announces the selection of 13 projects to develop technologies and methodologies for geologic storage of carbon dioxide (CO2). The projects selected by DOE will develop technologies, methodologies, and characterization tools to improve our ability to predict geologic storage capacity, understand geomechanical processes, and add to the safety of geologic storage. The total value of the projects is approximately $17.6 million over three years, with $13.8 million of DOE funding and $3.8 million of non-federal cost sharing.
August 6, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues an Audit Report on whether selected Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) projects were effectively and efficiently managed. The IG finds that ARPA-E had generally established and implemented project management controls. Through significant involvement with project recipients, ARPA-E established project milestones, monitored progress, and reviewed progress reports and requests for project expense reimbursements. While such controls appeared to be generally effective, the IG’s testing revealed that two recipients had failed to obtain required audits and one of them had incurred questionable project costs.
August 6, 2014
The Department's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that researchers have developed a laser-timing system that could allow scientists to take snapshots of electrons zipping around atoms and molecules. Taking timing to this new extreme of speed and accuracy at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser will make it possible to see the formative stages of chemical reactions.
August 6, 2014
The Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) announces a new online tool to help inform the public about energy facilities' exposure to flooding caused by hurricanes, overflowing rivers, flash floods, and other wet-weather events. The Flood Vulnerability Assessment Map shows which power plants, oil refineries, crude oil rail terminals, and other critical energy infrastructure are in areas vulnerable to coastal and inland flooding.
August 7, 2014
Madelyn Creedon is sworn in by Secretary Moniz as the DOE’s Principal Deputy Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
August 8, 2014
The Department announces the release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to issue a Presidential permit to the Applicant, Champlain Hudson Power Express, Inc., that would allow construction, operation, maintenance, and connection of a 336-mile, 1,000 megawatt, high-voltage direct current, electric transmission system that would cross the international border with Canada in Lake Champlain and provide electricity to the New York City metropolitan area market. DOE has prepared this Final EIS to evaluate the potential environmental impacts in the U.S. of the proposed action and the range of reasonable alternatives.
August 11, 2014
The Department’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, announces the launch of the NERSC Exascale Science Applications Program (NESAP), a robust application readiness effort to support Cori NERSC’s next-generation supercomputer. A Cray XC system slated to be deployed at NERSC in 2016, Cori is intended to meet the growing computational needs of DOE’s science community and serve as a platform for transitioning users to energy-efficient, manycore architectures. NESAP—which will include partnerships with 20 application code teams and technical support from NERSC, Cray, and Intel—is created to make this transition run smoothly.
August 12, 2014
Los Alamos National Laboratory conducts a hydrodynamic experiment at the Nevada National Security Site. The experiment consists of a plutonium surrogate material and high explosives to implode a "weapon-relevant geometry." Hydrodynamic experiments enhances confidence in the ability to predictively model and assess weapon performance in the absence of full-scale underground nuclear testing.
August 12, 2014
The Department's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility receives formal approval from DOE to begin initial operations of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) as part of its ongoing $338 million upgrade.
August 14, 2014
The Department announces more than $55 million for 31 new projects to accelerate research and development of critical vehicle technologies that will improve fuel efficiency and reduce costs. These new projects are aimed at meeting the goals and objectives of President Obama’s EV Everywhere Grand Challenge, as well as improvements in other vehicle technologies such as powertrains, fuel, tires, and auxiliary systems.
August 14, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that the first analysis of space dust collected by a special collector onboard NASA’s Stardust mission and sent back to Earth for study in 2006 suggests the tiny specks, which likely originated from beyond our solar system, are more complex in composition and structure than previously imagined.
August 15, 2014
The Department issues an update on its proposed procedural change to its liquified natural gas (LNG) export decision-making process.
August 15, 2014
Deputy Secretary Poneman, at a ceremony at Pellissippi State Community College near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, addresses the first 24 participants who have successfully completed the Advanced Manufacturing Internship program, a pilot effort sponsored by DOE.
August 18, 2014
The Department releases two reports on the U.S. wind energy industry. The 2013 Wind Technologies Market Report finds that after modest growth in 2013 the total installed wind power capacity in the U.S. now stands at 61 gigawatts (GW), which meets nearly 4.5 percent of electricity demand in an average year. The 2013 Distributed Wind Market Report finds that U.S. turbines in distributed applications, which accounted for more than 80 percent of all wind turbines installed in the U.S. in 2013, reached a cumulative installed capacity of more than 842 MW–enough to power 120,000 average American homes. Compared to traditional, centralized power plants, distributed wind energy installations supply power directly to the local grid near homes, farms, businesses, and communities.
August 19, 2014
The Department issues a Notice of Public Comment in the Federal Register, inviting the public to comment on the draft National Electric Transmission Congestion Study. The public comment period will close on October 20, 2014.
August 19, 2014
The Department awards a sole-source cooperative agreement to the Southern States Energy Board (SSEB). The Board’s mission is to enhance economic development and the quality of life in the South through innovations in energy and environmental policies, programs, and technologies. The board will convene a committee of appropriate state personnel to be known as the Transuranic Waste Transportation Working Group. The board will provide the working group with the appropriate information to address regional issues relative to transuranic waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The value of the agreement is $10,438,070, and has a project period of 5 years.
August 19, 2014
The Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that new supercomputing calculations provide the first evidence that particles predicted by the theory of quark-gluon interactions but never before observed are being produced in heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). These heavy strange baryons, containing at least one strange quark, still cannot be observed directly, but instead make their presence known by lowering the temperature at which other strange baryons "freeze out" from the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) discovered and created at RHIC.
August 19, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announces a new project, the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy, or ACME, designed to accelerate the development and application of fully coupled, state-of-the-science Earth system models for scientific and energy applications. The plan is to exploit advanced software and new high performance computing machines as they become available to address the most challenging and demanding climate change issues. Eight DOE national laboratories are combining forces with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, four academic institutions and one private-sector company in the new effort.
August 20, 2014
The Department announces nearly $67 million in nuclear energy research and infrastructure enhancement awards. The awards include: $30 million to support 44 university-led nuclear energy research and development projects to develop innovative technologies and solutions; $20 million for 5 Integrated Research Projects that will deliver solutions to high priority nuclear energy research challenges; and $11 million for 12 research and development projects led by U.S. universities, DOE national laboratories, and industry in support of the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies Crosscutting Technology Development Program to address crosscutting nuclear energy challenges.
August 21, 2014
The Department announces $17.6 million for 14 cooperative agreements with small businesses and institutions of higher education to develop and deploy efficient and environmentally friendly highway transportation technologies that will help reduce petroleum use. The projects support innovative technologies and solutions in the areas of energy storage, power electronics and electric motors, advanced combustion engines, materials technologies, and fuels and lubricant technologies.
August 22, 2014
Secretary Moniz joins the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, and local officials in officially dedicating the new National Security Campus in Kansas City. The complex manufactures non-nuclear components for the U.S. nuclear stockpile. The $687 million new campus houses about 2,600 employees and consists of manufacturing, laboratory, office, and warehouse space. The Kansas City plant manufactures or purchases 85 percent of the non-nuclear components that make up the nation’s nuclear weapons.
August 26, 2014
The Department’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announces that unique experiment called the Holometer has started collecting data that will answer some mind-bending questions about the universe – including whether we live in a hologram. Much like characters on a television show would not know that their seemingly 3-D world exists only on a 2-D screen, we could be clueless that our 3-D space is just an illusion. The information about everything in our universe could actually be encoded in tiny packets in two dimensions.
August 26, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that an international collaboration of researchers has reported the first experimental observation of ultrafast charge transfer in photo-excited MX2 materials, a new family of two-dimensional semiconductors. The recorded charge transfer time clocked in at under 50 femtoseconds, comparable to the fastest times recorded for organic photovoltaics. The research has opened up potentially rich new avenues, not only for photonics and optoelectronics, but also for photovoltaics.
August 27, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that researchers, by modifying the microstructural characteristics of carbon black, a substance recovered from discarded tires, have developed a better anode for lithium-ion batteries that provide power to plug-in electric vehicles and store energy produced by wind and solar. Researchers produced a small, laboratory-scale battery with a reversible capacity that is higher than what is possible with commercial graphite materials.
August 28, 2014
The Department releases the 2014 Smart Grid System Report, which is intended to provide an update on the status of smart grid deployment nationwide, technological developments, and barriers that may affect the continued adoption of the technology.
August 29, 2014
The Department announces a new report, the 2014 Offshore Wind Market and Economic Analysis, showing steady progress for the U.S. offshore wind energy industry over the past year. The report highlights 14 projects in advanced stages of development, together representing nearly 4,900 megawatts (MW) of potential offshore wind energy capacity for the U.S. The report highlights global trends toward building offshore turbines in deeper waters using larger, more efficient turbines that increase the amount of electricity delivered to consumers.
August 29, 2014
The Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that DOE’s Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase) – a new computational platform to help the biological community analyze, store, and share data – is transitioning from the scientific pilot phase into the production phase and will gradually expand from the limited functionality currently available. KBase amasses the data available on plants, microbes, microbial communities, and the interactions among them with the aim of improving the environment and energy production. The computational tools, resources, and community networking available will allow researchers to propose and test new hypotheses, predict biological behavior, design new useful functions for organisms, and perform experiments never before possible.
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September 3, 2014
Project LIBERTY, the nation’s first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant to use corn waste as a feedstock, announces the start of production. Once operating at full, commercial-scale, the biorefinery in Emmetsburg, Iowa, will produce 25 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year - enough to avoid approximately 210,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually. Developed with the support of approximately $100 million in investments and research from DOE, the facilities use biochemical conversion technologies such as yeast and enzymes to convert cellulosic biomass into transportation fuels.
September 3, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that researchers at the lab’s Electron Microscopy Center have captured the world’s first real-time images and simultaneous chemical analysis of nanostructures while “underwater,” or in solution. The technique will allow chemists and materials scientists to explore never-before-measured stages of nanoscale chemical processes in materials. Understanding how materials grow at the nanoscale level helps scientists tailor them for everything from batteries to solar cells.
September 4, 2014
The Department announces $7.25 million for six projects that will advance water power as a viable resource. Marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technologies convert the energy of waves, tides, rivers, and ocean currents into electricity that can be used by homes and businesses, especially in coastal regions of the U.S. The funding will aide in the development of advanced instrumentation for environmental monitoring and data collection and support a partnership between three universities to accelerate the development of cost-effective MHK technologies.
September 5, 2014
Deputy Secretary Poneman participates in the official groundbreaking ceremony of the Petra Nova project, which will apply carbon capture technology to an existing coal-fired power plant outside Houston, Texas. The Department announced the beginning of construction at the site on July 15.
September 5, 2014
The Department announces $4.5 million for four projects to help increase deployment of innovative wind power technologies by optimizing the operation, boosting efficiency, and improving the environmental performance of wind energy systems. The research and development projects are located in Maine, North Carolina, Nebraska, and Texas.
September 8, 2014
The Department announces more than $8 million for microgrid projects to help cities and towns better prepare for extreme weather events and other potential electricity disruptions. This investment – which includes seven awardees in Alaska, California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Tennessee, and Washington – supports the development of advanced technologies. Microgrids are localized grids that are usually connected to the more traditional electric grid but can also disconnect to operate autonomously and help mitigate grid disturbances.
September 9, 2014
The Department selects six new projects under the University Coal Research Program that seek long-term solutions for the clean and efficient use of our nation’s abundant coal resources. The selected projects support the Office of Fossil Energy’s (FE) Crosscutting Research Program’s initiatives in high-performance materials and sensors and controls technology. The projects will be managed by FE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory.
September 9, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that scientists have married two unconventional forms of carbon – one shaped like a soccer ball, the other a tiny diamond – to make a molecule that conducts electricity in only one direction. This tiny electronic component, known as a rectifier, could play a key role in shrinking chip components down to the size of molecules to enable faster, more powerful devices.
September 9, 2014
The Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases International Energy Outlook 2014 (IEO2014). Key IEO2014 findings include: 1) World liquid fuels use is projected to grow from 87 million barrels per day (MMbbl/d) in 2010 to 119 MMbbl/d in 2040, spurred by increased demand in the developing Asia and Middle East. 2) OPEC oil producers are the largest source of additional liquid fuel supply between 2010 and 2040, with OPEC crude and lease condensate accounts for 14 MMbbl/d of the 33 MMbbl/d increase in total liquid fuel supply. 3) Non-OPEC crude and lease condensate production increases by 10 MMbbl/d, with rising world oil prices attracting investment in areas previously considered uneconomic. Potential new supplies of oil from tight and shale resources have raised optimism for large, new sources of global liquid supplies to meet growing demand. Compared to previous reports, IEO2014 incorporates larger new supplies of tight oil from the U.S. and Canada. However, other countries, including Mexico, Russia, Argentina, and China, begin producing substantial volumes of tight oil prior to 2040.
September 10, 2014
The Department announces that it has issued the final authorization to Cameron LNG, LLC, (Cameron) and Carib Energy LLC (Carib) to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S. The Cameron LNG Terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, is authorized to export LNG up to the equivalent of 1.7 billion standard cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas for a period of 20 years. Carib is authorized to export LNG up to the equivalent of 0.04 Bcf/d of natural gas for a period of 20 years from the proposed liquefaction facility in Martin County, Florida, using approved ISO LNG containers.
September 10, 2014
Princeton University announces that scientists at DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) using the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) have identified how magnetic reconnection transforms magnetic energy into explosive particle energy, which has been a major unsolved problem in plasma astrophysics. Magnetic reconnection in the Earth and sun's atmospheres can trigger geomagnetic storms that disrupt cell phone service, damage satellites, and blackout power grids. The PPPL results could help resolve decades-long questions and create practical benefits, including a better understanding of geomagnetic storms that could lead to advanced warning of the disturbances and an improved ability to cope with them.
September 10, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers using the lab’s Advanced Light Source (ALS) to produce low energy or “soft” X-rays have imaged structures only five nanometers in size. This resolution is the highest ever achieved with X-ray microscopy.
September 12, 2014
The Department issues a Notice of Public Comment in the Federal Register, inviting the public to comment on DOE's Energy Sector Cybersecurity Framework Implementation Guidance. Comments must be received on or before October 14, 2014. In February 2014, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released a Cybersecurity Framework. The Department has collaborated with private sector stakeholders through the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council and the Oil & Natural Gas Subsector Coordinating Council forums for the development of the draft Guidance. The Department has also been coordinating with other Sector Specific Agency representatives and interested government stakeholders for the development of the draft Guidance and to address cross-sector overlaps. The primary goal of the document is to help energy sector stakeholders develop or align existing cybersecurity risk management programs to meet the objectives of the Cybersecurity Framework.
September 12, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that researchers are using neutrons to study cavitation, which forms damage-causing bubbles in fuel injectors. Research to non-destructively study the internal structure of the fuel injector at the High Flux Isotope Reactor’s CG-1D beam line, which is used for neutron radiography and computed tomography, compiled approximately 1 million injection events.
September 15, 2014
The Department’s National Energy Technology Laboratory releases a technical report on the results of a limited field study that monitored a hydraulic fracturing operation in Greene County, Pennsylvania, for upward fracture growth out of the target zone and upward gas and fluid migration. Results indicate that under the conditions of this study, for this specific location, fracture growth ceased more than 5,000 feet below drinking water aquifers and there was no detectable upward migration of gas or fluids from the hydraulically-fractured Marcellus Shale.
September 15, 2014
The Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) announces the development of a simple and inexpensive way to turn a cell phone into a high powered, high quality microscope that can be used to identify biological samples in the field. PNNL makes the design specifications available, free of charge, to the public so anyone with access to a 3D printer can make their own microscope.
September 15-16, 2014
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosts the third annual Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Women in Clean Energy Symposium. C3E was created in 2010 by DOE and eight partner governments to advance women’s participation in the clean energy. Designed to help women working in the clean energy sector build the skills and professional networks needed to succeed, this year’s symposium focuses on clean energy issues at the city level.
September 16, 2014
Secretary Moniz joins Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) for National Lab Day on Capitol Hill. Lab Directors and representatives from all 17 of the DOE National Laboratories are on hand to showcase demonstration projects across five theme areas – energy innovation and environmental sustainability, manufacturing innovations, high performance computing, national security, and discovery science. Following opening remarks, Secretary Moniz moderates a roundtable discussion on the role of the National Lab system in American innovation. Senators Durbin and Risch also formally launched the Senate National Laboratory Caucus, which aims to increase awareness of the reach of the national labs as leaders in developing new breakthrough technologies and discoveries to address some of our nation’s most pressing challenges.
September 16, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that researchers analyzing carbon fibers made from a woody plant polymer known as lignin have found the material’s microstructure -- a mixture of perfectly spherical nanoscale crystallites distributed within a fibrous matrix -- could make it useful as a battery anode, potentially improving upon graphitic materials found in most lithium-ion batteries. Lignin, a low-cost byproduct of the pulp, paper and biofuels industries, could be transformed into a cheaper version of highly engineered graphite through a simple and industrially scalable manufacturing process.
September 16, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that a research team has succeeded in developing a new in-situ facility for use at the lab's Advanced Photon Source that for the first time accurately simulates extreme turbine engine conditions. This goes beyond any other in-situ capabilities to allow the influence of temperature, stress, and thermal gradients to be studied together. With the new in-situ facility, manufacturers of turbine engines for airplanes, automobiles and electric generation plants could expedite the development of more durable, energy-efficient turbine blades
September 16, 2014
The Obama Administration announces new private sector commitments to reduce emissions of hydroflourocarbons (HFCs), powerful greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. The commitments would reduce cumulative global consumption of these greenhouse gases by the equivalent of 700 million metric tons of carbon dioxide through 2025, equivalent to 1.5% of the world’s 2010 greenhouse gas emissions and the same as taking nearly 15 million cars off the road for 10 years. In addition, the Administration announces a set of executive actions to continue progress in reducing HFC emissions. Counselor to the President John Podesta posts an article on the White House blog.
September 17, 2014
Secretary Moniz at DOE’s 2014 American Energy and Manufacturing Competitiveness Summit, jointly sponsored by the Council on Competitiveness, announces a partnership with the Council and the Alliance to Save Energy to launch Accelerate Energy Productivity 2030, which will create a national roadmap to grow the economy while reducing energy costs. The Department also announces nearly $23 million for 12 projects across the country to advance technologies aimed at helping American manufacturers dramatically increase the energy efficiency of their manufacturing facilities, lower costs, and develop new manufacturing technologies. These Innovative Manufacturing Initiative project selections leverage federal investments with additional cost share from the private sector to develop leading-edge materials, tools, and techniques.
September 18, 2014
The White House announces a series of public and private sector commitments and executive actions to advance solar deployment and promote energy efficiency. The executive actions include: partnering with up to three military bases to create a veterans solar job training pilot; investing $68 million in 540 renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in rural areas across the country, including 240 solar projects; proposing an energy conservation standard for commercial unit air conditioners that has the potential to save more energy than any previously issued standard; supporting funding for clean energy and energy efficiency for affordable housing; strengthening commercial and residential buildings codes; and harmonizing the power of national service and volunteerism to tackle climate change and its effects. The Department issues a press release.
September 18, 2014
The Department announces $2 million for two projects in Iowa and Massachusetts that will use innovative construction processes to cost-effectively manufacture taller wind turbine towers to harness stronger winds available at higher heights.
September 18, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues a follow-up Audit Report to determine whether the Department had effectively managed a contract awarded CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company (CHPRC) to decontaminate and demolish the Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) located at the Hanford Site. The IG finds that DOE’s Richland Operations Office encountered problems with CHPRC's ability to plan, manage, and execute work; factors which contributed to both cost and schedule increases. Notably as of March 2014, the PFP project was expected to be completed in September 2016, at a cost of $932 million; 2 years behind and $179 million over CHPRC's revised performance baseline. Richland management recognized that it needs to take additional steps to improve the manner in which this important work is carried out and stated that they had taken key steps to improve safety and productivity. The IG, however, concludes that more needs to be done to improve Richland's administration of the CHPRC contract
September 18, 2014
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is confirmed by the Senate as the Department’s Deputy Secretary.
September 19, 2014
The Departments of Navy, Energy, and Agriculture announce that three companies have been awarded contracts to construct and commission biorefineries capable of producing “drop-in” biofuels to meet the transportation needs of the military and private sector. In total, these projects will produce more than 100 million gallons of military grade fuel beginning in 2016 and 2017 at a price competitive with their petroleum counterparts. The drop-in alternative fuels can be blended at a 50/50 ratio with traditional fossil fuels. This blend was successfully demonstrated during the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) demonstration in 2012 for ships and planes, showing firsthand that this fuel can be utilized in Navy’s warfighting platforms with no degradation to performance or mission.
September 19, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that researchers have created a small scale “hydrogen generator” that uses light and a two-dimensional graphene platform to boost production of the hard-to-make element.
September 22-25, 2014
Secretary Moniz represents the U.S. at the International Atomic Energy Agency 58th General Conference and in his opening plenary statement delivers a message from President Obama and discusses climate change, peaceful cooperation, safety, security, non-proliferation, and disarmament.
September 22, 2014
The Department announces $5 million in funding for nine projects that will advance the development of combined heat and power (CHP) and renewable energy technologies at facilities across the federal government and help meet energy efficiency, renewable energy, and greenhouse gas reduction goals.
September 22, 2014
The Department, in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, issues its Final Environmental Assessment (EA) on the Disposition of Five Signature Properties at Idaho National Laboratory. The EA finds that tearing down four World War II-era historic structures and part of another structure at Idaho National Laboratory’s Central Facilities Area that remain from when the area served as the U.S. Naval Proving Ground will not have a significant impact on the environment. Coordination in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act has resulted in an agreement to preserve significant historic elements.
September 23, 2014
President Obama, at the United Nations Climate Summit in New York, announces a new set of tools to harness the unique scientific and technological capabilities of the U.S. to help vulnerable populations around the world strengthen their climate resilience. The tools include improved and extended extreme weather risk outlooks to help avoid loss of life and property; data, tools, and services to enable countries to better prepare for the impacts of climate change, including a new release of global elevation data; and an announcement of a new public-private partnership to ensure that the climate data, tools, and products made available by U.S. technical agencies are useful to developing countries. The U.S. also announces its leadership and participation in more than a dozen new climate change partnerships launched at the Climate Summit. The White House posts three blog articles.
September 23, 2014
The Department announces $4.4 million to support the application of advanced materials and manufacturing techniques to the development of next-generation hydropower technologies. Significant advancements in manufacturing over the past decade, such as the use of advanced materials, computer-aided design, and additive manufacturing technologies, have the potential to boost the performance of new, cost-effective hydropower technologies built to operate at small, distributed hydropower facilities.
September 23, 2014
The Department presents Housing Innovation Awards to 28 industry leaders during the Energy and Environmental Building Alliance’s Excellence in Building Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The industry leaders are commercializing and deploying cutting-edge technologies and helping to significantly reduce the energy costs of the nation’s homes.
September 23, 2014
The Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that DOE has approved the start of routine operations at the lab’s Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), beginning a period of significant transition in project activities from construction and commissioning to operations. NSLS-II, a third-generation synchrotron light source, will be the newest and most advanced synchrotron facility in the world when it comes online later in the year. As a DOE Office of Science User Facility, it will offer researchers from academia, industry, and national laboratories new ways to study material properties and functions with nanoscale resolution and exquisite sensitivity by providing state-of-the-art capabilities for x-ray imaging and high-resolution energy analysis.
September 24, 2014
The Department awards $6.5 million to a Prize Administration Team led by Ricardo Inc. of Van Buren Township, Michigan, for the development and execution of DOE’s Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) Prize Competition. The WEC Prize aims to attract innovative ideas from developers by offering a monetary prize purse to participants and by providing an opportunity for tank testing and evaluation of scaled WEC prototypes. The WEC Prize is designed to increase the diversity of people involved in WEC technology development, while motivating and inspiring existing stakeholders. DOE envisions this competition will achieve game-changing performance enhancements to WEC devices, establishing a pathway to sweeping cost reductions at a commercial scale.
September 24-25, 2014
The Department's Electricity Advisory Committee meets. Final work products are made available.
September 25, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that a novel X-ray technique used at the lab’s Advanced Photon Source has revealed surprising dynamics in the nanomechanics of operating lithium ion batteries and suggests a way to mitigate battery failures by minimizing the generation of elastic energy.
September 25, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the completion of an important test for the W88 ALT 370, an alteration to replace the Arming, Fuzing, and Firing assembly of the W88-0/Mk 5, a warhead in its third decade of life. The Critical Radar Arming and Fuzing Test (CRAFT), flown this summer, was designed to test the new joint Air Force and Navy radar in the W88 ALT 370. The CRAFT was the first of several flight tests planned to demonstrate the functional performance of the upgraded weapon system in ballistic missile flight environments. Radar performance was successfully measured during the harsh conditions of hypersonic atmospheric reentry.
September 29, 2014
The Department’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a DOE Office of Science user facility, announces that 32 new projects have been selected for the 2015 Community Science Program (CSP). The CSP 2015 projects were selected by an external review panel from 76 full proposals received that resulted from 85 letters of intent submitted. The total allocation for the CSP 2015 portfolio is expected to exceed 60 trillion bases (terabases or Tb)—or the equivalent of 20,000 human genomes of plant, fungal, and microbial genome sequences. The projects reflect JGI’s strategic shift in emphasis from solving an organism’s genome sequence to facilitating an understanding of what this information enables organisms to do.
September 30, 2014
The Department announces a draft solicitation that would provide up to $12.6 billion in loan guarantees for Advanced Nuclear Energy Projects. Authorized by Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the solicitation will provide loan guarantees to support construction of innovative nuclear energy and front-end nuclear projects in the U.S. that reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions. The Department identifies four key technology areas of interest in the draft solicitation: advanced nuclear reactors, small modular reactors, upgrades and uprates at existing facilities, and front-end nuclear projects.
September 30, 2014
The Department announces, as part of the Better Buildings Challenge, the first data center owners and operators who have committed to reduce their energy use by at least 20 percent over the next decade. Data centers consumed about 100 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity in the U.S in 2013 and that number is expected to grow as more information is shared and stored online. The 19 new partners joining the Better Buildings Challenge include private companies, national laboratories, and federal agencies.
September 30, 2014
The Department announces up to $25 million in funding to reduce the cost of algal biofuels to less than $5 per gasoline gallon equivalent (gge) by 2019. Algae biomass can be converted to advanced biofuels that offer promising alternatives to petroleum-based diesel and jet fuels. Additionally, algae can be used to make a range of other valuable bioproducts, such as industrial chemicals, bio-based polymers, and proteins. However, barriers related to algae cultivation, harvesting, and conversion to fuels and products need to be overcome to achieve the Department’s target of $3 per gge for advanced algal biofuels by 2030.
September 30, 2014
President Obama meets with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi at the White House. Among other issues, the two leaders discuss energy and climate change, reaffirming their commitment to implement fully the U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement and agreeing to a new and enhanced strategic partnership on energy security, clean energy, and climate change. The two leaders make remarks after the meeting.
September 30, 2014
The Department releases the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Recovery Plan, outlining the necessary steps to resume operations at the transuranic waste disposal site outside of Carlsbad, N.M. WIPP operations were suspended following an underground truck fire and a radiological release in February. Key elements of the recovery plan include strengthening safety programs, regulatory compliance, decontamination of the underground, increasing ventilation, mine stability and underground habitability, and additional workforce retraining.
September 30, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues a Management Alert on whether the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) appropriately managed the remediation and repackaging of transuranic (TRU) waste shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in light of the radiological release from a TRU waste drum at WIPP in February. The IG’s review identifies several major deficiencies in LANL's procedures for the development and approval of waste packaging and remediation techniques that may have contributed to the radiological event. Of particular concern, not all waste management procedures at LANL were properly vetted through the established procedure revision process nor did they conform to established environmental requirements. The IG calls for immediate action to ensure that these matters are addressed and fully resolved before TRU waste operations are resumed, or, for that matter, before future mixed radioactive hazardous waste operations are initiated.
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October 1, 2014
Secretary Moniz, to commemorate the 37th anniversary of DOE’s opening in 1977 and to kick off National Energy Action Month, hosts the first Schlesinger Medal Ceremony and Symposium on Energy Security. The Secretary begins the event by presenting the new James R. Schlesinger Medal to energy expert and Pulitzer-Prize winning author Dr. Daniel Yergin. Then two distinguished panels convene to discuss and debate critical energy security issues from the past and looking toward the future.
October 1, 2014
The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces a $60 million funding opportunity in two new programs. The Advanced Research In Dry cooling (ARID) program aims to develop low-cost, highly efficient and scalable dry-cooling technologies for thermoelectric power plants. The Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture (TERRA) program seeks to rapidly accelerate biomass yield gains through automated, predictive and systems-level approaches to biofuel crop breeding.
October 1, 2014
The Department announces $25 million in funding to advance concentrating solar power (CSP) system technologies. This investment will fund research and development projects to improve the performance and increase the efficiency of all components of CSP plants, ultimately lowering the cost of solar electricity.
October 1, 2014
The White House announces a new Climate Action Champions competition that will identify, showcase, and invest in up to 15 local and tribal governments across the country that demonstrate an ongoing commitment to cutting carbon pollution and preparing for the impacts of a changing climate. The competition will be administered by DOE and will be implemented in collaboration with a broad range of Federal agencies.
October 2, 2014
The Department recognizes 11 companies that have met ambitious energy-efficiency goals through the Better Buildings, Better Plants Program.
October 2, 2014
Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and National Nuclear Security Administrator Frank Klotz releases his Administrator’s Update for September.
October 3, 2014
Secretary Moniz, as part of the Obama Administration’s commemoration of National Manufacturing Day, visits Corning Incorporated in Corning, New York, where he examines their black-carbon-removing filtration systems -- which go into heavy-duty trucks, construction equipment, and off-road vehicles.
October 3, 2014
The Department’s Sandia National Laboratories announces that it will pursue a Center for Collaboration and Commercialization to strengthen partnerships, technology transfer and ties to the community. The center, known as C3, will support the city of Albuquerque’s and the University of New Mexico’s Innovation District and Innovate ABQ initiatives. C3 will offer programming and services to boost Sandia’s interaction with partners in industry, academia, and government, and will promote technology commercialization.
October 5, 2014
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is officially sworn in as DOE's Deputy Secretary.
October 6, 2014
The Department finalizes a Presidential Permit for the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a transmission line that will deliver renewable hydropower from Quebec to meet New York City's growing energy demand. The project developers estimate the 1,000-megawatt transmission line will save consumers $650 million each year and cut carbon pollution 2.2 million metric tons.
October 6, 2014
The Department releases a message from Mark Whitney, DOE’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, on the court-enforceable 2010 agreement known as a Consent Decree with the State of Washington on cleanup of the Hanford site. Due to unresolved technical challenges, the deadlines for startup of the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) are not achievable, and the Consent Decree needs to be modified. The Department has been in discussions with the State and had hoped to reach an agreement on an amendment to the Consent Decree, but the State announced on September 5 it would not extend discussions.
October 6, 2014
The Department issues a Final Request for Proposal for the performance of infrastructure support services at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Paducah, Kentucky. The total estimated value of the contract is between $100 and $180 million, with a three-year base period of performance with an additional 22-month option period.
October 6, 2014
The Department’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announces that with construction completed the NOvA neutrino experiment has begun its probe into one of nature’s most elusive subatomic particles, which may hold the key to understanding the universe. Construction on NOvA’s two massive neutrino detectors began in 2009. In September, DOE officially proclaimed construction of the experiment completed, on schedule and under budget.
October 7, 2014
The Department announces the selection of four research projects that will provide educational and research training opportunities for minority students while advancing key technical areas in fossil fuel utilization. DOE expects the research completed to advance the development of new nanostructured materials for application in carbon capture and to accelerate modeling of multiphase flow in fossil fuel systems.
October 7, 2014
At the 2014 - 2015 Winter Energy Outlook Conference, sponsored by DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability and Energy Information Administration (EIA) and hosted by the National Association of State Energy Officials, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski presents the EIA Winter Fuels Outlook.
October 7, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG), in its annual Special Report on management challenges at DOE, finds that the list of challenges for 2015 remains "largely consistent" with those of previous years. These include: contract and financial assistance award management, cybersecurity, environmental cleanup, nuclear waste disposal, safeguards and security, and stockpile stewardship. Challenges removed from the 2014 list include operational efficiency and cost savings and human capital management, which was downgraded to the annual “watch list” consisting of significant issues that do not meet the threshold of a management challenge but warrant special attention by DOE officials. Also on the watch list are infrastructure modernization, the loan guarantee program, and worker and community safety.
October 7, 2014
The Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that a series of detailed genetic studies conducted at the lab reveals previously unknown biochemical details about how plant leaves make and break down oils, as well as new ways to increase the accumulation of oil in leaves, an abundant source of biomass for fuel production. In growing plants for biofuels, added calories are the goal, because energy-dense oils give more "bang per bushel" than less-energy-dense leaf carbohydrates.
October 8, 2014
Secretary Moniz delivers the keynote speech at the SXSW Eco conference in Austin, Texas. In his remarks, Secretary Moniz highlights the increase in adoption of four key clean energy technologies -- land-based wind, photovoltaic solar, LED lights, and electric vehicles. He also emphasizes the need to continue investments in the basic science and early-stage research and development that are needed to develop the game-changing clean energy technologies of the future.
October 9, 2014
Secretary Moniz visits the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s (SPR) Big Hill site in Winnie, Texas. The Secretary participates in meetings with the SPR staff and completes a site tour of the facility. The visit is the first Secretarial appearance at an SPR field site in nine years.
October 9, 2014
Department announces up to $13.4 million for five projects to develop advanced biofuels and bioproducts that will help drive down the cost of producing gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from biomass. These products not only will help reduce carbon emissions, but also advance DOE's work to enable the production of clean, renewable and cost-competitive drop-in biofuel at $3 per gallon by 2022. The research and development projects, located in Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Colorado and Georgia, will focus on developing integrated processes for the production of advanced biofuels and chemicals. Two of these selections will address research efforts on the efficient conversion of biogas (a mixture of gases generated from the biological breakdown of organic material) to valuable products other than power.
October 10, 2014
Vice President Biden swears in Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall at DOE’s Forrestal headquarters building. The Deputy Secretary addresses employees and contractors gathered in the Forrestal auditorium, as well as those watching online.
October 10, 2014
The Department announces nearly $8 million to support research and development (R&D) of the next generation of heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) technologies. The R&D will focus on developing regionally appropriate HVAC solutions that would offer significant potential energy savings for new and existing buildings, and on developing innovative approaches that could replace current vapor compression HVAC technologies and their use of refrigerants that harm the global environment.
October 10, 2014
The Department issues a final rule that requires verified energy and water performance for new and retrofitted federal buildings that are certified by private sector green building certification systems. The rule, which goes into effect November 13, ensures that in cases where agencies choose to use green building certification systems to meet federal sustainability and energy standards, they must choose a system that verifies enhanced energy and water efficiency. By requiring re-assessments at least every four years, the rule will ensure energy and water savings continue well beyond the initial building opening or retrofit.
October 10, 2014
The Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that research done in part at the lab’s National Synchrotron Light Source provide unprecedented insights into hepatitis C virus (HCV) cell entry and will play a role in developing an HCV vaccine and new drugs to treat the disease.
October 14, 2014
The Department announces approximately $5 million in funding to 13 states to advance innovative approaches for local clean energy development. Each state will design and deploy innovative programs to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy, ranging from programs targeting specific areas for advancement to more comprehensive plans that consider economic development along with resiliency and energy supply issues.
October 14, 2014
The Department issues a Final Request for Proposal for support services at the Oak Ridge Transuranic Waste Processing Center (TWPC) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The total estimated value of the contract is $100 Million - $300 Million. Services under this procurement include safely and compliantly managing and operating the Oak Ridge TWPC Category II nuclear facility in support of processing Environmental Management legacy TRU waste
October 15, 2014
Secretary Moniz and Deputy Secretary Sherwood-Randall hold a joint Town Hall event.
October 15, 2014
The Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) releases a new report titled "Customer Participation in the Smart Grid: Lessons Learned." The report highlights the experiences of four Recovery Act Smart Grid Investment Grant projects with customer education and outreach efforts, which are key ingredients for Smart Grid success. OE also releases a new Smart Grid report describing the activities of three municipal utilities that received funding through the Recovery Act Smart Grid Investment Grant program. "Municipal Utilities' Investment in Smart Grid Technologies Improves Services and Lowers Costs" reports on the benefits of the cities' investments, including improved operating efficiencies, lower costs, shorter outages, and reduced peak demands and electricity consumption.
October 15, 2014
The Department's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announces that a new analysis of global energy use, economics, and the climate shows that without new climate policies, expanding the current bounty of inexpensive natural gas alone would not slow the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions worldwide over the long term.
October 17, 2014
Secretary Moniz delivers remarks at the grand opening of Abengoa’s second-generation cellulosic ethanol plant in Hugoton, Kansas. Once operating at full commercial-scale, the biorefinery will produce up to 25 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year – enough to avoid 132,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually and equivalent to taking 28,000 vehicles off the road. The cellulosic ethanol produced at the Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas (ABBK) facility, located about 90 miles southwest of Dodge City, Kansas, will be sold into the ethanol commodity market and used to fuel light duty vehicles. Developed with the support of DOE investments, Abengoa’s Hugoton facility will be the nation’s third commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol biorefinery to come on line.
October 17, 2014
The Department announces $10 million to support research, development, and manufacturing of solid-state lighting (SSL) technologies across the country. The funding will accelerate the development of high-quality light-emitting diode (LED) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) products with the potential to reduce lighting energy use by one half.
October 20, 2014
The Department announces a new partnership with the Association of Science and Technology Centers. The Department will provide energy expertise and energy literacy educational materials in assisting with exhibits and museums.
October 20, 2014
The Department announces up to $14 million to support landscape design approaches that maintain or enhance the environmental and socio-economic sustainability of cellulosic bioenergy through the improvement of feedstock production, logistics systems, and technology development. Applying landscape design to bioenergy production systems is a promising approach for meeting multiple environmental, social, and economic objectives, such as maintaining or enhancing ecosystem health, as well as food/feed/fiber production, and profitability for landowners. The funding will support interdisciplinary research and development projects that use landscape design principles to incorporate cellulosic feedstock production and logistics into existing agricultural or forestry systems. Examples might include growing energy crops on marginal lands to improve both agricultural productivity and water quality, or utilizing agricultural residue in a way that enhances both profitability and soil quality.
October 20, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that DOE’s Energy Sciences Network, or ESnet, is deploying four new high-speed transatlantic links, giving researchers at America’s national laboratories and universities ultra-fast access to scientific data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and other research sites in Europe. ESnet’s transatlantic extension will deliver a total capacity of 340 gigabits-per-second (Gbps), and serve dozens of scientific collaborations. To maximize the resiliency of the new infrastructure, ESnet equipment in Europe will be interconnected by dedicated 100 Gbps links from the pan-European networking organization GÉANT.
October 20, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that research by an international team led by SLAC and Stanford scientists has uncovered a new, unpredicted behavior in a copper oxide material that becomes superconducting – conducting electricity without any loss – at relatively high temperatures. This new phenomenon – an unforeseen collective motion of electric charges coursing through the material – presents a challenge to scientists seeking to understand its origin and connection with high-temperature superconductivity. Their ultimate goal is to design a superconducting material that works at room temperature.
October 20-24, 2014
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) hosts the quadrennial Symposium on International Safeguards in Vienna, Austria. The DOE/National Nuclear Security Administration Assistant Deputy Administrator for Nonproliferation and International Security Kasia Mendelsohn gives the keynote address at the opening plenary session.
October 21, 2014
The Department and Skyonic Corporation mark the opening of a major project demonstration for converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into commercial products. The new plant will use a first-of-its-kind process to capture 75,000 tons of CO2 from a San Antonio, Texas, cement plant and convert the greenhouse gas into other products, including sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate, hydrochloric acid, and bleach.
October 21, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that a lab-led team has discovered exceptional properties in a garnet material that could enable development of higher-energy battery designs. Using scanning transmission electron microscopy to take an atomic-level look at a cubic garnet material called LLZO, researchers found the material to be highly stable in a range of aqueous environments, making the compound a promising component in new battery configurations.
October 21, 2014
The Department’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory announces that researchers have devised a new method for minimizing turbulence in bumpy donut-shaped experimental fusion facilities called stellarators. This could help physicists overcome a major barrier to the production of fusion energy in such devices, and could also apply to their more widely used symmetrical donut-shaped cousins called tokamaks.
October 22, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces more than $53 million for 40 innovative research and development (R&D) projects that aim to drive down the cost of solar energy, tackling key aspects of technology development in order to bring innovative ideas to the market more quickly. The awards include: $14 million to 10 research institutions to improve the performance, efficiency, and durability of solar photovoltaic (PV) devices; $14 million to 20 small businesses that will develop innovative technologies and services to further drive down hardware and non-hardware costs for solar electric systems; and $24 million to 10 U.S.-based solar manufacturers working to develop and implement innovative technologies that will reduce costs and increase efficiency in manufacturing processes used to make PV and concentrating solar power technologies.
October 22, 2014
The Department announces the selection of a multi-year, field-based research project designed to gain further insight into the nature, formation, occurrence and physical properties of methane hydrate‐bearing sediments for the purpose of methane hydrate resource appraisal. Methane hydrate — natural gas trapped in an ice-like cage of water molecules — occurs in both terrestrial and marine environments. The objectives of the marine gas hydrate program are to: (1) collect a full suite of in situ measurements and core samples to characterize the physical properties of marine methane hydrates; (2) assess their potential response to possible production activities; and (3) further delineate the occurrence and nature of gas hydrates in the U.S. outer continental shelf.
October 22, 2014
The Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that it is embarking upon a major new Computational Science Initiative. This program will leverage computational science expertise and investments across multiple programs at the Laboratory—including the flagship facilities that attract thousands of scientific users each year—further establishing Brookhaven as a leader in tackling the "big data" challenges at the frontiers of scientific discovery. Key partners in this endeavor include nearby universities such as Columbia, Cornell, New York University, Stony Brook, and Yale, and IBM Research.
October 23, 2014
The Department announces a $9 million funding opportunity to encourage investments in energy-saving technologies that can be tested and deployed in offices, shops, restaurants, hospitals, hotels and other types of commercial buildings. The funding will facilitate the implementation of market-ready solutions across the U.S. to improve commercial building energy efficiency, with a goal of demonstrating 20 percent savings or more across a variety of approaches.
October 23, 2014
Secretary Moniz delivers remarks at the opening of Building 33 or the General Purpose Laboratory, a new facility at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that will house game-changing aspirations, especially in the areas of energy storage and renewable energy.
October 23, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces that it had reached the halfway point in the production phase of the W76-1 warhead Life Extension Program (LEP). The W76-1 Life Extension Program involves engineers, scientists, and technicians from NNSA’s Pantex Plant, the Y-12 National Security Complex, Savannah River Site, National Security Campus, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. The program’s first unit was completed in September 2008. The program remains on track to produce and deliver warheads to the Navy in keeping with its commitment to complete production not later than the end of FY 2019. The primary goals of the W76-1 Life Extension Program are to extend the original warhead service life from 20 to 60 years and address aging issues.
October 23, 2014
The Department's Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), the brightest synchrotron light source in the world, has delivered its first x-ray beams when operators opened the shutter to begin commissioning the first experimental station (called a beamline), allowing powerful x-rays to travel to a phosphor detector and capture the facility's first photons. Scientific experiments at NSLS-II are expected to begin before the end of the year.
October 23, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) celebrates the opening of the new NNSA Alarm Response Training Academy at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The facility houses the NNSA Alarm Response Training program which trains local law enforcement and other critical first responders around the country. The program features a three-day course held at Y-12. Participants develop and discuss tactics, techniques, procedures, and protocols for responding to a theft or sabotage event involving radioactive materials. After two days of classroom instruction, Y-12 experts facilitate live-action scenarios.
October 28, 2014
The Department releases a new resource, the Better Buildings Residential Program Solution Center, to share proven methods for reducing energy waste and carbon emissions in U.S. buildings. A result of the Better Buildings Neighborhood Program, the Solution Center shows how to design, implement, and evaluate efficiency programs to improve the energy efficiency of communities across the nation. It profiles solutions used to improve the efficiency of many homes and other buildings by 20% or more.
October 28, 2014
Sandia National Laboratories announces the first flight and drop tests for the latest variant of the W88 nuclear warhead, providing data to validate designs, improve computer modeling, and update component specifications.
October 28, 2014
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Gina McCarthy posts a video and article on Energy Star Day commemorating the Energy Star program.
October 29, 2014
The Department launches a new $2.3 million pilot program called Lab-Corps to accelerate the transfer of innovative clean energy technologies from DOE’s National Laboratories into the commercial marketplace. Lab-Corps aims to better train and empower national lab researchers to successfully transition their discoveries into high-impact, real world technologies in the private sector. Lab-Corps, which builds on the National Science Foundation’s successful Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) model, is a specialized technology accelerator and training curriculum for the national laboratories that will enable lab-based teams to gain direct market feedback on their technologies and pursue the development of startup companies, industry partnerships, licensing agreements, and other business opportunities.
October 29, 2014
The Department announces the launch of the $1 million H2 Refuel H-Prize. This two-year competition challenges America's engineers and entrepreneurs to develop affordable systems for small-scale, non-commercial hydrogen fueling. Successful entries will install and test systems that generate hydrogen from resources available at most homes, like electricity or natural gas, and provide the hydrogen to fuel vehicles. This competition plans to offer a $1 million cash prize to the team that demonstrates the best system.
October 29, 2014
The Department, in coordination with the Navy, announces $10 million in funding for two companies to advance marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technology as a viable source for clean energy. Ocean Energy USA and Northwest Energy Innovations will test their innovative, full-scale wave energy conversion devices for one year in new deep water test berths at the Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site off the waters of Marine Corps Base Hawaii.
October 29, 2014
The Department announces $15 million in available funding to help integrate distributed, on-site solar energy systems into the nation’s electrical grid. Funding is specifically aimed at supporting projects that enable low-cost, flexible and reliable solutions that successfully integrate solar PV power plants and energy storage.
October 30, 2014
The Department announces that Secretary Moniz will serve as a keynote speaker for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) Energy Innovation Summit, which will be held from February 9-11, 2015, in National Harbor, Maryland. Other renowned speakers at the Summit will include, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, University of California President Janet Napolitano, CPS Energy CEO Doyle N. Beneby, DBL Investors Founder and Managing Partner Nancy Pfund, SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive and Archer Daniels Midland Company Chairman and CEO Patricia Woertz.
October 30, 2014
The Department celebrates National Weatherization Day.
October 31, 2014
The Department announces awards for five companies to lead key nuclear energy research and development projects supporting advanced reactor technologies. These projects will receive $13 million in cost-share agreements to help address significant technical challenges to the design, construction, and operation of next generation nuclear reactors, based off needs identified by industry designers and technical experts.
October 31, 2014
The Department issues a Draft Request for Proposal for Low-Level Waste and Mixed-Low Level Waste treatment services that may result in the issuance of one or more Basic Ordering Agreements.
October 31, 2014
The Department releases plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for climate change impacts such as flooding, sea level rise, severe weather, and temperature extremes. The Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan outlines the steps DOE plans to take in order to integrate sustainability into all aspects of its mission. The Climate Change Adaptation Plan serves as a tool to guide the DOE’s response to the changing climate.
October 31, 2014
Current and former nuclear weapons program workers and their friends and families come together at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, NV, to celebrate National Day of Remembrance (NDR) for Nuclear Weapons Program Workers. This marks the 6th anniversary of the NDR, honoring the thousands of men and women who served the country by building and maintaining the nuclear weapons complex during World War II, the Cold War, and through the present day.
October 31, 2014
National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice hosts International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano at the White House. Ambassador Rice reaffirms the U.S. commitment to the IAEA and the important missions it undertakes in furtherance of international security and promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Director General Amano speaks at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. and discusses the challenges of nuclear verification and the role of the IAEA with regards to Iran's nuclear program.
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November 2, 2014
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases its Synthesis Report, which “distils and integrates the findings of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report produced by over 800 scientists and released over the past 13 months – the most comprehensive assessment of climate change ever undertaken.” The report “confirms that climate change is being registered around the world and warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”
November 3, 2014
Secretary Moniz releases a statement regarding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s final Synthesis Report. The Secretary says that the report “reiterates many of the critical takeaways from the last three reports. Leading climate scientists from many countries have restated their conclusion that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, sea level is rising and the effect of human activity on the climate system is clear. The IPCC also notes that recent changes to the climate system are impacting human and natural systems now . . . . Acting now is essential if we are to avoid the worst consequences of climate change and minimize economic impact of climate risk mitigation and of adaptation to climate impacts.”
November 3, 2014
The Department’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) announces that a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School, using computing resources at NERSC, have demonstrated a mathematical toolkit that can turn cancer-mutation data into multidimensional models to show how specific mutations alter the social networks of proteins in cells. From this they can deduce which mutations among the myriad mutations present in cancer cells might actually play a role in driving disease.
November 4, 2014
The Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announces that results from experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) reveal new insights about how quarks and gluons, the subatomic building blocks of protons, contribute to the proton’s intrinsic angular momentum, a property more commonly known as “spin.” Specifically, the findings show for the first time that gluons make a significant contribution to proton spin, and that transient “sea quarks”—which form primarily when gluons split—also play a role.
November 5, 2014
The Department's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that scientists have shown that a promising technique for accelerating electrons on waves of plasma is efficient enough to power a new generation of shorter, more economical accelerators. This could greatly expand their use in areas such as medicine, national security, industry, and high-energy physics research.
November 6, 2014
The Department announces the selection of three multiyear, field laboratories and six other multiyear research projects for continued research to promote environmentally prudent development of unconventional oil and natural gas (UOG) resources. These research projects are designed to address critical gaps in knowledge of the characterization, basic subsurface science, and new completion/stimulation strategies for tight oil, tight gas, and shale gas resources, with the goal of enabling more efficient resource recovery from fewer and less environmentally impactful wells. This multiagency effort involves DOE, the Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Geological Survey.
November 6, 2014
The Department announces the selection of four projects to receive funding for next-generation gasification systems that also reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Awardees will receive approximately $16 million to advance the gasification process, which converts carbon-based materials like coal into syngas for use as power, chemicals, hydrogen, and transportation fuels.
November 6, 2014
The Environmental Protection Agency and DOE release the 2015 Fuel Economy Guide, providing consumers with a valuable resource to help them choose the most fuel-efficient and low greenhouse gas emitting vehicles that meet their needs. In comparison to previous years, the 2015 models include a greater number of fuel efficient and low-emission vehicles in a broader variety of classes and sizes.
November 7, 2014
The Department's Office of Inspector General (IG) issues a Special Inquiry on alleged attempts by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) to influence Congress and Federal officials on the lab’s Management and Operating (M&O) contract extension. The IG inspection substantiates the allegation that SNL used Federal contract funds to engage in activities that were intended to influence the extension of the M&O contract with DOE—a contract then valued at about $2.4 billion per year. In particular, SNL developed and executed a plan that involved meeting with and attempting to influence Federal and Congressional officials to provide assistance in obtaining a noncompetitive extension of its contract with DOE.
November 10-12, 2014
President Obama travels to Beijing, China, where he attends a meeting of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders' Meeting. Among other issues, the APEC leaders discuss the environment and energy. President Xi Jinping of China also hosts President Obama for a state visit. The two leaders agreed to expand and deepen cooperation in a number of areas, including on nonproliferation and counter-proliferation issues within the U.S.-China Nonproliferation Joint Working Group, which held its inaugural meeting in Beijing on November 3. The group is focused on strengthening export controls, enforcement, and information sharing, and includes a unique bilateral mechanism to address priority proliferation threats.
November 12, 2014
President Obama and President Xi Jinping issue a U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change and Clean Energy Cooperation. President Obama announces a new target to cut net greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. President Xi Jinping announces targets to peak CO2 emissions around 2030, with the intention to try to peak early, and to increase the non-fossil fuel share of all energy to around 20 percent by 2030. Together, the U.S. and China account for over one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. The new U.S. goal will double the pace of carbon pollution reduction from 1.2 percent per year on average during the 2005-2020 period to 2.3-2.8 percent per year on average between 2020 and 2025. The joint announcement marks the first time China has agreed to peak its CO2 emissions. The two countries also pledge to strengthen cooperation on climate and clean energy. President Obama and President Xi Jinping hold a joint press conference. The White House posts a blog article.
November 12, 2014
The Department announces that it has awarded a new five-year, $3.2 billion contract to Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA) to manage and operate Brookhaven National Laboratory. The award was the result of a DOE competition for the management and operations (M&O) contract for the laboratory, which has been operated by BSA for DOE since 1998.
November 12, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces research that suggests for the first time how scientists might deliberately engineer superconductors that work at higher temperatures. Researchers determined why a thin layer of iron selenide superconducts -- carries electricity with 100 percent efficiency -- at much higher temperatures when placed atop another material, which is called STO for its main ingredients strontium, titanium, and oxygen. These findings open a new chapter in the 30-year quest to develop superconductors that operate at room temperature, which could revolutionize society by making virtually everything that runs on electricity much more efficient.
November 13, 2014
The Department announces a $5 million investment to develop and demonstrate new residential energy efficiency solutions, and that will support building energy efficiency research at universities and colleges. DOE will provide $4 million to support the demonstration of high-impact energy efficiency technologies and practices that can produce 50% energy savings in new homes by 2025 and 40% energy savings in existing homes by 2030. DOE also will award $1 million to American universities to fund student teams that will work in partnership with industry to develop energy efficiency technologies.
November 13, 2014
The Department's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that a planned experimental station will expand capabilities for atomic-scale explorations in human health, biology, energy, and environmental science using one of the brightest X-ray sources on the planet. The new station, called MFX for Macromolecular Femtosecond (X-ray) Crystallography, will primarily focus on solving the 3-D structures of hard-to-study proteins and other biological samples at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, a DOE Office of Science User Facility. Engineering work is in progress and major construction is planned in 2015.
November 13, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces it is awarding more than $8 million additional support to its cooperative agreement partners, NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes and SHINE Medical Technologies, to accelerate the establishment of new, domestic sources of the medical isotope Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) - produced without the use of proliferation-sensitive highly enriched uranium (HEU). Mo-99 is the parent isotope of technetium-99m, the most widely used radioisotope in medical diagnostic imaging, used in approximately 80 percent of nuclear diagnostic imaging procedures, equating to about 50,000 medical procedures in the U.S. every day. The U.S. does not currently produce Mo-99 and must import 100 percent of its supply from foreign producers, most of which use HEU in the production processes.
November 14, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces two new High Performance Computing (HPC) awards to put the nation on a fast-track to next generation exascale computing. The funding of $325 million is to build two state-of-the-art supercomputers at DOE’s Oak Ridge and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. The joint Collaboration of Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Lawrence Livermore (CORAL) was established in early 2014 to leverage supercomputing investments, streamline procurement processes, and reduce costs to develop supercomputers that will be five to seven times more powerful when fully deployed than today’s fastest systems in the U.S. In addition, Secretary Moniz also announces approximately $100 million to further develop extreme scale supercomputing technologies as part of a research and development program titled FastForward 2.
November 14, 2014
The Department announces that it has issued two final authorizations for Freeport LNG Expansion, L.P., and FLNG Liquefaction, LLC (Freeport) to export domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to countries that do not have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S. The Freeport LNG Terminal in Quintana Island, Texas, is authorized to export LNG up to the equivalent of 1.4 billion standard cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas and 0.4 Bcf/d, for a total authorized volume of 1.8 Bcf/d, for a period of 20 years.
November 14, 2014
The Department’s ARM Climate Research Facility announces six extended or intensive field campaigns to improve understanding of atmospheric processes that are relevant to regional and global climate. The field campaigns will take place from 2015 through most of 2019.
November 15-16, 2014
President Obama attends the G-20 Summit, focused on growth and jobs, in Brisbane, Australia. The G-20 leaders increase their commitment to energy and climate change through energy deliverables and a strong endorsement of the need for action to address climate change. The leaders agree on an Energy Efficiency Action Plan that includes, among other initiatives, a program to increase fuel quality and reduce carbon emissions by heavy-duty vehicles. President Obama holds a press conference at the end of the summit.
November 15, 2014
President Obama announces the intention of the U.S. to contribute $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), reflecting the U.S. commitment to reduce carbon pollution and strengthen resilience in developing countries, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. The GCF will help leverage public and private finance to avoid some of the most catastrophic risks of climate change. The U.S. and Japan announce a total of up to $4.5 billion in pledges to the GCF. This includes up to $3 billion from the U.S. and up to $1.5 billion from Japan, subject to respective domestic procedures and based on strong contributions from other donors.
November 17, 2014
The Department’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer issues the Fiscal Year 2014 DOE Agency Financial Report.
November 17, 2014
The Department announces the launch of the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium, a strategic partnership between DOE headquarters and the national laboratories to bring together our leading experts and resources to collaborate on the goal of modernizing the nation’s grid. The Consortium employs an integrated approach to ensure that DOE-funded studies and research and development are efficiently coordinated to reap the greatest return for the taxpayer dollar. One of the many undertakings of the consortium will be to develop a multi-year program plan for grid modernization.
November 17, 2014
The Department launches a mobile app called Lantern Live that helps consumers quickly find and share critical information about nearby gas stations and power outages during energy emergencies. Lantern Live allows users to report the operational status of local gas stations, find fuel, and look up power outage maps from local utilities, while also accessing useful tips and guidelines. With the launch of this app, DOE is testing the power of crowdsourcing and open data in disaster and recovery.
November 17, 2014
The Department’s Office of Science announces 56 projects aimed at accelerating scientific discovery and innovation that will share 5.8 billion core-hours on America’s two fastest supercomputers dedicated to open science. The diverse set of projects will advance knowledge in critical areas from sustainable energy technologies to climate modeling.
November 18, 2014
Secretary Moniz hosts stakeholders from industry, government, academia, and nonprofits at a forum to highlight the successes during the first year of the Minorities in Energy Initiative (MIE). At the forum, DOE announces the launch of its new Industry Partners Network. The network is comprised of energy-focused companies and trade associations joined by a common mission to increase engagement of minority and tribal communities in the energy sector through science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, workforce development, energy economic development, and climate change policy and awareness. Industry partners have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with DOE agreeing to contribute toward making measurable advancements in these areas.
November 18, 2014
The White House and the Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities, announce new commitments by more than 120 businesses, non-profits, and schools, including more than 70 Edison Electric Institute utility companies, to purchase electric vehicles and technologies and to install workplace charging stations. Secretary Moniz is at the White House as Pacific Gas & Electric demonstrates their new plug-in hybrid bucket truck — a utility vehicle with emissions nearly 80% lower than a conventional truck.
November 19, 2014
The LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announces the discovery of two new particles, each consisting of three quarks. The particles, known as the Xi_b'- and Xi_b*-, were predicted to exist by the quark model but had never been observed. Similar to the protons that the LHC accelerates and collides, these two new particles are baryons and made from three quarks bound together by the strong force. But unlike protons—which are made of two up quarks and one down quark—the new Xi_b particles both contain one beauty quark, one strange quark and one down quark. Because the b quarks are so heavy, these particles are more than six times as massive as the proton.
November 20-22, 2014
Secretary Moniz is a keynote speaker at the opening session of the Sixth Atlantic Council Energy and Economic Summit in Istanbul, Turkey. Following the opening session, Secretary Moniz and Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yıldız sign a Memorandum of Understanding on wind energy. The Summit ends with a special closing session address on European energy security by Vice President Biden.
November 20, 2014
President Obama, at a White House ceremony, honors the newest recipients of the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. These awards are the highest honors bestowed by the U.S. Government for achievements in science, technology, and innovation. Burton Richter of DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, is one of ten winners of the Science medal. Richter’s award is for pioneering contributions to the development of electron accelerators, including circular and linear colliders, synchrotron light sources, and for discoveries in elementary particle physics and contributions to energy policy.
November 20, 2014
CERN launches its Open Data Portal, which makes data from real collision events produced by Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments available to the public for the first time. The LHC collaborations will continue to release collision data over the coming years. The first high-level and analyzable LHC collision data openly released come from the CMS experiment and were originally collected in 2010 during the first LHC run. Open source software to read and analyze the data is also available, together with the corresponding documentation. The CMS collaboration is committed to releasing its data three years after collection, after they have been thoroughly studied by the collaboration.
November 20, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that researchers using the lab’s Advanced Photon Source have found that the atomic structure of uranium dioxide (UO2) changes significantly when it melts. UO2 is the primary fuel component in the majority of existing nuclear reactors, but little is known about the molten state because of its extremely high melting point. Determining the behavior of UO2 under extreme conditions is essential to enhancing our understanding of reactor safety during severe accidents.
November 21, 2014
President Obama makes the determination required under the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 regarding the supply of petroleum and petroleum products from countries other than Iran. The analysis contained in the Energy Information Administration’s report of October 30, 2014, indicates that oil markets continued to loosen in recent months. “While market conditions suggest that there is sufficient supply to permit additional reductions in purchases or Iranian oil,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest says, “the United States has committed to pause efforts to further reduce Iran’s crude oil sales during the period of the Joint Plan of Action between the P5+1 and Iran. In return for this and other limited relief measures, Iran has taken steps that have halted – and in key respects rolled back – progress on its nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency has verified that Iran is meeting these commitments.”
November 21, 2014
The Department issues a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to Stanford University for four violations of DOE's worker safety and health regulations. The violations are associated with laser and energetic beam events that occurred from May 25, 2011, through February 28, 2013, at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California.
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December 1, 2014
The Department announces a total of $4.4 million for two projects in Michigan and Pennsylvania to support the use of advanced materials and manufacturing techniques in the development of new “low-head” hydropower technologies. The funding will advance research and development of new technologies that can be quickly manufactured at low cost and rapidly deployed without the need for expensive powerhouses.
December 1, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces 15 Sustainability Awards for innovation and excellence to its national laboratories and sites. The awards recognize exemplary individual and team performance in advancing sustainability objectives through innovative and effective programs and projects that increase energy, water, and fleet efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases, pollution and waste.
December 1, 2014
The Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory announces the release of an updated version of powerful, award-winning bioinformatics software that is now capable of identifying DNA from viruses and all parts of the Tree of Life—putting diverse problems such as identifying pathogen-caused diseases, selection of therapeutic targets for cancer treatment, and optimizing yields of algae farms within relatively easy
reach for health-care professionals, researchers, and others.
December 2, 2014
The Department announces more than $9 million in funding for breakthrough research and development projects that will advance the reliability and durability of solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies. This funding opportunity supports projects aimed at improving product testing and increasing module quality and performance by providing the solar energy community and investors with access to improved predictive models, relevant accelerated testing techniques, and more reliable photovoltaic modules that will ultimately increase PV system investments.
December 3, 2014
The Department announces the third round of the Alaska Strategic Technical Assistance Response Team (START) Program, a competitive technical assistance program that assists Alaska Native corporations and federally recognized Alaska Native governments with accelerating clean energy projects. The announcement came at the White House Tribal Nations Conference, where leaders of 566 federally recognized tribes are meeting directly with President Obama and members of the Cabinet.
December 3, 2014
The Department’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that it has teamed up with Santa Monica-based RadiaBeam Systems to develop a device known as a dechirper, which will provide a new way of adjusting the range of energies within single pulses from SLAC’s X-ray laser. The dechirper will enable scientists to narrow or broaden the spectrum of each X-ray pulse—similar to the spectrum of colors in visible light—up to four-fold. This will enhance the capabilities of experiments that use SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility, for pioneering studies in materials science, chemistry, biology, and other fields.
December 3, 2014
The White House announces 16 communities from around the country as the first cohort of Climate Action Champions. The competition, launched on October 1, is administered by DOE.
December 4, 2014
Franklin (Lynn) Orr is confirmed by the Senate as DOE Under Secretary for Science and Energy. Joseph Hezir is confirmed by the Senate as DOE’s Chief Financial Officer.
December 4, 2014
The Department announces up to $7 million for two projects aimed at developing and demonstrating ways to reduce the cost of delivering bioenergy feedstocks to biorefineries. Examples of bioenergy feedstocks include corn stover, switchgrass, and woody biomass. The projects, located in New York and Tennessee, will focus on developing advanced machinery for efficient and low-cost harvesting, collection, and transportation of high-quality bioenergy feedstocks.
December 4, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the successful transfer of a linear accelerator (LINAC), used for cancer therapy treatment, from the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital to the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT) in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In exchange for the shipment, Ukraine has agreed to disposition two of their aging Cobalt-60 (Co-60) teletherapy units. These units contain high-risk radioactive material that could be attractive for terrorists’ use in a dirty bomb. Providing a non-isotopic alternative to the Co-60 teletherapy units supports NNSA’s comprehensive global campaign to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear and radiological material.
December 4, 2014
The Department’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves, 2013. The report finds that U.S. crude oil proved reserves increased for the fifth year in a row in 2013, a net addition of 3.1 billion barrels of proved oil reserves (a 9% increase). U.S. natural gas proved reserves increased 10% in 2013, more than replacing the 7% decline in proved reserves seen in 2012, and raising the U.S. total to a record level of 354 trillion cubic feet (Tcf).
December 4, 2014
The Department’s Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) proposes a 6.7 percent average wholesale power rate increase for the fiscal year 2016-2017 rate period. BPA also proposes a 5.6 percent increase in its transmission rates to sustain and expand the federal transmission system to meet regional needs, including renewable resource integration.
December 5, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) joins the governments of Georgia and the United Kingdom in announcing the removal of more than 150 disused radioactive sources from Georgia’s Institute of Radiobiology. The achievement is the culmination of a two-year project with Georgia’s Radiation Technology Safety Center to plan and execute the safe and secure removal of disused high activity sources from the Institute of Radiobiology to a more secure storage facility.
December 5, 2014
The Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability announces that it is making up to $3.5 million in funding available for communities to deploy smart grid tools and technologies to advance climate preparedness and resiliency of the electricity delivery infrastructure. This Funding Opportunity supports the goals of other initiatives by the Administration to prepare the Nation for the impacts of climate change by providing funding to local and tribal governments.
December 8, 2014
Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and Secretary Moniz announce that they will lead a Business Development Mission to China in April 2015 focused on industries supporting Smart Cities and Smart Growth. The trade mission will help U.S. companies launch or increase their business in China in areas such as green buildings, building energy retrofitting, building management, green data centers, carbon capture utilization and storage, energy efficiency technologies, clean air and water technologies, waste treatment technologies, smart grid, and green transportation.
December 8, 2014
The Department’s Nuclear Safety Research and Development Program, managed by the Office of Nuclear Safety in the Office of Environment, Health, Safety and Security, issues its first annual report. The report includes a description of the program and summaries of R&D projects related to DOE (including NNSA) nuclear facility and operational safety.
December 8, 2014
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that researchers, using a specialized petawatt laser and a charged-particle gas called plasma to get the particles up to speed, have accelerated subatomic particles to the highest energies ever recorded from a compact accelerator. The setup is known as a laser-plasma accelerator, an emerging class of particle accelerators that physicists believe can shrink traditional, miles-long accelerators to machines that can fit on a table. The researchers sped up the particles—electrons in this case—inside a nine-centimeter long tube of plasma. The speed corresponded to an energy of 4.25 giga-electron volts. The acceleration over such a short distance corresponds to an energy gradient 1000 times greater than traditional particle accelerators and marks a world record energy for laser-plasma accelerators.
December 8, 2014
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory announces that a team of researchers has created integrated modeling of one key element of the internal combustion engine: the fluid dynamics of fuel injectors. Partnering with industry leaders Cummins, Inc., and Convergent Science, Inc., and using the unique facilities and massive computing resources available at Argonne, the team hopes to take one step closer to the Holy Grail of engine design: cleaner and more efficient engines simulated, designed, and optimized in virtual space before production ever begins.
December 8, 2014
Ellen Williams is confirmed by the Senate as the Director of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E).
December 8, 2014
The Y-12 National Security Complex announces an agreement with NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, to support the design of a small nuclear-powered reactor with potential to lead to small fission power reactors for future space exploration missions.
December 9, 2014
The Department issues a Final Request for Proposal for the continued performance of infrastructure support services at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The total estimated value of the contract is between $100 and $180 million, with a three-year base period of performance with an additional 22-month option period.
December 10, 2014
The Department issues the final Advanced Nuclear Energy Projects loan guarantee solicitation, which provides as much as $12.5 billion to support innovative nuclear energy projects. The solicitation would provide loan guarantees to support the construction of innovative nuclear energy and front-end nuclear projects in the U.S. that reduce, avoid, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions. While any project that meets the eligibility requirements may apply, DOE has identified four key technology areas of interest in the solicitation: advanced nuclear reactors, small modular reactors, uprates and upgrades at existing facilities, and front-end nuclear projects. The Department’s Loan Programs Office now has open solicitations in four areas, also including the $8 billion Advanced Fossil Energy Projects Solicitation, the $4 billion Renewable Energy and Efficient Energy Projects Solicitation, and the $16 billion Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program.
December 11, 2014
President Obama, at a meeting of the President’s Export Council, announces two new competitions for manufacturing innovation institutes—one in smart manufacturing at DOE and one in flexible hybrid electronics at the Department of Defense. Each institute will receive $70 million or more of federal investment to be matched by at least $70 million from the private sector for a total of more than $290 million in new investment. The DOE competition focuses on smart manufacturing, including advanced sensors, control, platforms, and models for manufacturing. By combining manufacturing, digital, and energy efficiency expertise, technologies developed by the institute will give American manufacturers unprecedented, real-time control of energy use across factories and companies to increase productivity and save on energy costs.
December 11, 2014
Adam Sieminski, Administrator of DOE's Energy Information Administration (EIA), testifies before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on “The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975: Are We Positioning America for Success in an Era of Energy Abundance?”
December 11-12, 2014
Secretary Moniz travels to Arizona for a two-day summit and roundtable dialogue with tribal leaders. The Secretary discusses the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education for Native American youth as a means of building hope for the future, building resilient economies for tribal governments and building strong native nations for future generations.
December 12, 2014
Secretary Moniz announces the establishment of the Nuclear Energy Tribal Working Group (NETWG), providing a forum for Tribal Leaders to engage with DOE on a wide scope of nuclear energy issues. The establishment of NETWG formalizes the efforts of the Nuclear Energy Tribal Leader Dialogue, established by the Office of Nuclear Energy in October 2013, which focused on topics such as the management of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, to include transportation and related emergency response planning activities, nuclear research and development, small modular reactors, and potential economic business opportunities.
December 15, 2014
Secretary Moniz hosts a trilateral North American Energy Ministers meeting with Natural Resources Canada Minister Greg Rickford and Mexican Secretary of Energy Pedro Joaquin Coldwell. The ministers discuss in depth a strategic vision for North America’s energy sector. Key topics included public energy data and statistics collaboration; Mexico’s energy reform, its vision, perspectives and opportunities for trilateral cooperation; and creating resilient energy infrastructure for North America. They agree to begin with trilateral cooperation in three strategic areas: 1) North American energy public data, statistics, and mapping collaboration; 2) Responsible and sustainable best practices for the development of unconventional oil and natural gas; and 3) Modern, resilient energy infrastructure for North America in all aspects - physical infrastructure as well as institutional infrastructure such as policies, regulations, workforce, innovation, practices to promote energy efficient goods and services, and sustainable technologies.
December 15, 2014
Physics World, an international monthly magazine published by the Institute of Physics, names the achievement of fuel gain by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) one of its top 10 breakthroughs of the year. Ignition -- the process of releasing fusion energy equal to or greater than the amount of energy used to confine the fuel -- has long been considered the "holy grail" of inertial confinement fusion science. Before achieving ignition, a key step along the path is to have "fuel gains" greater than unity, where the energy generated through fusion reactions exceeds the amount of energy deposited into the fusion fuel and alpha-particle self-heating of the fusing region. NIF -- the world's largest and most energetic laser -- was the first facility to ever reach the milestone of achieving fuel gains greater than 1 with significant levels of alpha-heating.
December 15, 2014
The Department’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) announces that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent to a novel technique and device for pasteurizing eggs developed by engineers at PPPL and the Department of Agriculture.
December 16, 2014
The Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announces $60 million in funding for 22 innovative new projects aimed at detecting and measuring methane emissions and developing localized thermal management systems that reduce the energy needed to heat and cool buildings. The projects are funded through ARPA-E’s two newest programs: Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Obtain Reductions (MONITOR) and Delivering Efficient Local Thermal Amenities (DELTA).
December 16, 2014
Christopher A. Smith is confirmed by the Senate as DOE’s Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy.
December 16, 2014
President Obama announces his plan to designate Bristol Bay in Alaska as off limits to consideration for oil and gas leasing.
December 18, 2014
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards and DOE’s Office of Environment, Health, Safety and Security sign a nuclear safety information sharing agreement. The purpose of this Agreement is to establish a framework for the two agencies to exchange information related to safety issues associated with non-reactor nuclear facilities that would be beneficial to both agencies in performance of their respective missions.
December 19, 2014
President Obama signs the National Defense Authorization Act into law, authorizing the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. The Park will be located at three DOE sites: Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The park will be managed as a partnership between the National Park Service and DOE.
December 19, 2014
The Department reaches a major milestone in efforts to clean up the Cold War legacy at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. Secretary Moniz signs a determination that allows SRS to complete cleanup and closure of the underground liquid waste tanks in the H Tank Farm as they are emptied and cleaned. Prior to the determination, DOE and SRS conducted extensive technical environmental analysis, public review and comment, and consultation with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The State of South Carolina and the Environmental Protection Agency also provided input as part of the review process.
December 22, 2014
The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announces the recovery its one millionth curie (Ci) of disused and unwanted radioactive sources from domestic sites through its Off-Site Source Recovery Project. The radioactive source that achieved the millionth curie milestone was a small stainless steel capsule, about the size of a pencil, containing 100 Ci of the radioactive isotope Cobalt-60 (Co-60). This source was recovered from an industrial facility in Maryland. Technical experts from both Los Alamos and Idaho National Laboratories provided expertise in implementing this mission.
December 22, 2014
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that researchers, working collaboratively with scientists funded by The American Chestnut Foundation, have helped confirm that addition of a wheat gene increases the blight resistance of American chestnut trees. The ORNL team, in collaboration with foundation researchers, used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze chestnuts from transgenic American chestnut trees—trees that were transformed with a wheat gene to increase resistance to blight. Results also showed that the transgenic chestnuts had similar metabolite concentrations to a panel of non-transgenic nuts, suggesting that they are edible.
December 23, 2014
The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) announces the release of the Energy Storage Safety Strategic Plan, a roadmap for grid energy storage safety that highlights safety validation techniques, incident preparedness, safety codes, standards, and regulations. The Plan, which is now available for downloading, also makes recommendations for near- and long-term actions. OE worked with industry and other stakeholders to develop the plan.
December 23, 2014
Secretary Moniz and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to formalize the senior-level Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) Working Group, previously established to address issues of interest related to the NNSS. The MOU supports the continuation of a variety of activities, including the review and discussion of waste streams, waste acceptance criteria, public safety and environmental stewardship, future missions at the NNSS, and other important issues. The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration also issues a Record of Decision (ROD) that works to preserve and enhance the important national security activities taking place at NNSS.
December 23, 2014
The Department’s Sandia National Laboratories announces that researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, a method to successfully predict pressure-dependent chemical reaction rates – an important breakthrough in combustion and atmospheric chemistry that is expected to benefit auto and engine manufacturers, oil and gas utilities, and other industries that employ combustion models.
December 31, 2014
The Department announces two new energy efficiency standards. The new standards for general service fluorescent lamps (GSFLs) and automatic commercial ice makers (ACIMs) are the ninth and tenth standards to be finalized in 2014. Altogether, the ten standards finalized in 2014 will help reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 435 million metric tons and save American families and businesses $78 billion in electricity bills through 2030.
December 31, 2014
The Department’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer issues the Fiscal Year 2014 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) report. The LDRD program allows the labs to pursue innovative, self-selected projects in support of DOE’s mission. The total FY 2014 LDRD Program cost at the national laboratories was $527 million in 1,662 projects.
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