US Energy Department Funds 'Energy Earthshots' to Speed Clean-Energy Innovations

This week America's Department of Energy announced $264 million for 29 projects as part of its Energy Earthshots Initiative "to advance clean energy technologies within the decade." The funding will support 11 new research centers - along with 18 university research teams - studying things like industrial decarbonization, carbon storage, and offshore wind energy. The ultimate goal is a clean-energy revolution that will "accelerate innovations toward more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions." One ambitious example:The Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been selected to lead an Energy Earthshot Research Center focused on developing chemical processes that use sustainable methods instead of burning fossil fuels to radically reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions to stem climate change and limit the crisis of a rapidly warming planet... The ORNL-led Non-Equilibrium Energy Transfer for Efficient Reactions center, or NEETER, will coordinate a research team from across the nation focused on replacing bulk heating for chemical processes with electrified means, providing a new way to do chemistry, and decarbonizing large-scale processes in the chemical industry. DOE has committed $19 million over four years for the center... The scientists, in addition to using their own laboratories, will use Department of Energy Office of Science user facilities, including ORNL's Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, Spallation Neutron Source, High Flux Isotope Reactor, and Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences. They will also include the beam line at Stanford's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. NEETER's proposed research is a radical departure from traditional chemistry and holds promise for transformational breakthroughs in energy-related chemical reactions. The NEETER EERC addresses the Department of Energy's Industrial Heat Shot announced in 2022, which aims to develop cost-competitive industrial heat decarbonization technologies with at least 85% lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. This EERC will employ new kinds of chemical catalysis as one pathway toward electrifying the delivery of process heat. The projects include: Investigating hydrogen arc plasmas for carbon-free steelmaking Using exascale computer simulations and observations to produce more resilient clean energy systems.The University of Florida has reportedly teamed with Switzerland-based Synhelion to "research the production of green hydrogen, aiming for a lower cost to produce." The Center for Understanding Subsurface Signals and Permeability will attempt research to "advance enhanced geothermal systems with the goal of making them a widely accessible and reliable source of renewable energy" Another research center (also lead by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) will research effort to "make floating offshore wind a long-term viable energy source.""Our Energy Earthshots are game-changing endeavors to unleash the technologies of the clean energy transition and make them accessible, affordable, and abundant," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. "The Energy Earthshot Research Centers and the related work happening on college campuses around the country will be instrumental in developing the clean energy and decarbonization solutions we need to establish a 100% clean grid and beat climate change."

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