DOE 2010 Budget - focus on innovation hubs and EERE

Dear Friends and Colleagues

 Without having completed any analysis as yet, we just wanted to let you know that that the Department of Energy's FY2010 budget request released yesterday features as its lead new program a significant new energy innovation program that appears heavily informed by the Brookings proposal for the creation of energy discovery-innovation institutes (e-DIIs).

DOE's embodiment of the e-DIIs concept is the creation of eight Energy Innovation Hubs supported with $280 million (see the 6th slide of the attached Sec. Chu presentation; page 1 of the DOE FY2010 budget request; and DOE CFO Steve Isakowitz's presentation, which introduces the Hubs on slide 8).  These hubs will "support cross-disciplinary research and development focused on the barriers to transforming energy technologies into commercially deployable materials, devices and systems. They advance highly promising areas of energy science and technology from their early stages of research to the point that the risk level will be low enough for industry to deploy into the marketplace. This initial set of research Hubs will explore the following topics: Solar Electricity; Fuels from Sunlight; Batteries and Energy Storage; Carbon Capture and Storage; Grid Materials, Devices, and Systems; Energy Efficient Building Systems Design; Extreme Materials; and Modeling and Simulation." 

 Eight hubs will be created from within various existing DOE offices:

 -Office of Science:  The DOE's Office of Science budget request includes $70 million for two Hubs:

            -A hub focused on "the creation of fuels directly from sunlight without the use of plants or microbes

            -A hub focused on "advanced methods of electrical energy storage"

(see page 6 of the DOE's budget request)

 -Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: The DOE's EERE budget request includes $70 million for two Hubs:

-A hub focused on "on integrating smart materials, designs, and systems to tune building usage to better conserve energy,"

-A hub focused on "designing and discovering new concepts and materials needed for solar to electricity conversion"

(see page 7 of the DOE's budget request)

-Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability: Some of the $174 million requested for research and development within the EDER office will be used to establish one of the eight Hubs:

-A hub "to develop 'smart' materials that will allow the grid to adapt and respond to changing conditions" 

(see page 8 of the DOE's budget request)

-Office of Nuclear Energy: The DOE's Nuclear Energy budget request includes $70 million for two Hubs:

-A "Modeling and Simulation hub" that will "focus on providing validated advanced modeling and simulation tools necessary to enable fundamental change in how the U.S. designs nuclear power and fuel cycle technologies"

-An "Extreme Materials Research hub" that will "further the fundamental knowledge of the behavior of materials under extreme conditions, including high radiation fields, high temperatures, and corrosive environments over long periods of time, relevant to nuclear energy applications"

(see page 10 of the DOE's budget request)

 -Office of Fossil Energy: Part of the $431 million requested for Carbon Capture and Sequestration R&D within the Office of Fossil Energy will be used to create one of the eight Hubs:

-A Hub that will "focus on enabling fundamental advances and discovery of novel and revolutionary capture/separation approaches to dramatically reduce the energy penalty and costs associated with CO2 capture"

(see page 11 of the DOE's budget request)

 Obviously there are many questions we need to ask and get answered about these hubs--and I encourage you to inquire and share anything you learn as we will be drilling down to analyze the proposal in the coming days.    But for now we are gratified to see that the innovation institute or hub idea has found a home, and believe we all--through hard, hard work and teamwork--should take some satisfaction at having gotten something across at a tumultuous moment.

With all the best,

Mark Muro | Fellow and Policy Director

Sarah Rahman | Policy Analyst

Metropolitan Policy Program | The Brookings Institution

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