CLEAN ENERGY TOOLS HIGHLIGHTED AT DOE BUDGET HEARING
Members of both parties on the House Energy and Commerce Committee signaled a willingness at a May 9 budget hearing to continue working with the Department of Energy on carbon capture, advanced nuclear, energy storage and other clean power R&D.
Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) noted DOE’s help in crafting his bipartisan bill with Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) that passed the House unanimously last year and would ensure a domestic supply of the high-assay low-enriched uranium (HA-LEU) needed to fuel many advanced nuclear reactors.
“These small modular reactors, we truly believe that that is the answer to being able to have a reasonably-priced, sustainable civil nuclear program in the United States,” Perry told Flores. “Having that fuel available by a domestically-owned company is very important. Without the fuel, you’re wasting your time with all the other work that you’re doing.” Flores said he will try to get his bill (H.R. 1760) with McNerney “back on the table before too long.”
Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.) asked about the work DOE is helping on creating grid-scale storage solutions, including pilot projects. Perry noted partnerships between national labs and the private sector means "the holy grail of battery storage will be found in the not too distant future.”
As ClearPath policy analyst Faith Smith outlined in a recent blog, DOE’s FY20 budget proposal includes a new Advanced Energy Storage Initiative across multiple DOE offices, as well as a new “launchpad” hosted at Pacific Northwest National Lab focused on testing and evaluating battery and potentially other grid-scale storage materials and systems.
Energy and Commerce ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) praised Perry’s announcement last week that the world’s fastest supercomputer will be built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by 2021. The machine, dubbed Frontier, will be built by chip designer AMD and supercomputer manufacturer Cray and is expected to produce more than 1.5 exaflops of processing power.
“Originally developed for weapons work, DOE’s supercomputers now promise tremendous advances across the agency’s missions and national priorities, from carbon-free fossil energy to helping cure diseases,” Walden said.
Walden also noted legislation the committee helped shepherd through last Congress, including ensuring DOE “is able to develop the infrastructure for advanced nuclear energy currently being pursued by companies” such as Oregon-based NuScale Power, as well as carbon capture and streamlining liquefied natural gas and nuclear technology exports.
Perry told the panel he will not oppose any LNG export proposal under his watch.
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The House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee will mark up its FY20 spending bill Wednesday, starting at noon.
ExxonMobil announced it will invest about $100 million over 10 years in emissions-reduction technologies at some of the nation’s top energy research labs. The oil and gas giant said the funds will go the U.S. Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and National Energy Technology Laboratory for research into biofuels and carbon capture and storage projects in the power generation, transportation and industrial sectors.
William Cooper was sworn in May 9 as DOE’s general counsel. Cooper, a previous senior House aide and president of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, was approved by the Senate energy panel back in March alongside Rita Baranwal to head DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Chris Fall to lead the Office of Science and Lane Genatowski to head ARPA-E. Cooper is the only one of that group of nominees so far to be confirmed by the Senate.
The House Science Committee May 1 approved legislation to direct the Secretary of Energy to include water into the DOE’s research, development and demonstration programs. This includes RD&D through advanced cooling technologies for carbon capture systems utilizing water, as well as improving water use data for energy generation and fuel production. The bill does this in part by creating a subcommittee overseeing this nexus between water use and energy generation on the Department of Energy’s Energy Advisory Board as well as other relevant agencies and organizations.
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