[Senate Hearing 108-244]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 2003
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met at 2:32 p.m., in room SD-124, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Pete V. Domenici (chairman)
presiding.
Present: Senators Domenici, Craig, and Dorgan.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Office of Science
STATEMENT OF DR. RAYMOND L. ORBACH, DIRECTOR
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETE V. DOMENICI
Senator Domenici. The Senator from Nevada will probably be
along shortly. Senator Craig, nice to have you here.
Today the subcommittee is going to review the Department of
Energy's fiscal year 2004 budget request for, one, the Office
of Energy Efficiency and Renewables, and the Office of Science
and the Office of Nuclear Energy. In that regard, we will hear
from Dr. David Garman, Assistant Secretary for Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy. We will hear from Dr. Ray
Orbach, Director of the Office of Science, and Mr. Bill
Magwood, the Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy and
Science Technology.
All of these witnesses have appeared before the
subcommittee before and are well known to us. We look forward
to your testimony today.
Let me summarize just a moment. It will not take me very
long, Senator Craig, and then we will go right to the
witnesses.
The budget request for renewable energy under Mr. Garman is
$444 million, an increase of $24 million, about 6 percent over
the current year. However, more than all of the increases put
toward the President's initiative, an initiative that may
displace much of our dependence on foreign oil in years to
come, the so-called hydrogen research for the hydrogen car.
Under this subcommittee, we would more than double the
amount spent for that endeavor to $88 million. Unfortunately,
many of the traditional areas of renewable research, such as
biomass, renewable research, geothermal and wind, are proposed
to be cut. And that is below current levels in order to fund
this initiative. I am not sure that will hold. But somehow or
another, we will work it out.
I continue to believe in the importance of the balanced
portfolio. Our country must increase the diversity of energy
production in order to reduce our dependence upon unstable
sources of foreign energy. Under any scenario, renewable energy
technologies will play a dramatic role in our energy future,
recognizing the priorities of the administration, while
continuing to address the priorities of many of the Senators on
this subcommittee may prove to be a real challenge this year.
However, in addition to what we just talked about, the
budget request for nuclear energy has elements of both good
news and bad news. For me, the most notable new development,
and Larry Craig, I think you would be interested in this, is
the administration's request for $63 million to continue the
advanced fuel cycle initiative. I am very pleased that someone,
somehow, has worked through the Office of Management and
Budget, and the Executive Branch has finally recognized that
this is a truly long-term initiative of great significance. And
the sooner we start, the sooner we will find out if and when it
will be available as part of the nuclear cycle.
We have long believed that the country must move ahead to
the next generation of fuel cells that generate less waste,
extract full energy benefit from each gram of fuel. This is a
long-term effort that requires a much larger investment by the
Department.
Senator Reid and I have worked hard in our position of
chairman and ranking member and vice versa in this effort the
last few years. And to see the administration embrace the
importance is truly gratifying.
Generally, the whole area of R&D is a mix of good news and
some of bad news. The administration, with much help from this
subcommittee, has begun to correct many years of neglect. The
Department has now in place the structure of a well thought-out
R&D program and addresses the near-term goal of bringing a new
plant online through nuclear power in 2010 while performing the
R&D necessary for nuclear power to support growing demand for
worldwide electricity over the next 50 years, a Generation IV
program and advanced fuel cycle initiatives.
However, the request is not all good news, as the
Department proposes the elimination of new funding for the
Nuclear Energy Optimization Program. And perhaps you will
address that for us a bit. I know you work for the
administration. Nonetheless, we would appreciate your
evaluation for us as to what that does to the program; that is
the program of continued and maximum use of nuclear power
plants.
Finally, the budget request for the Office of Science, it
is only a little better than flat for the coming year. The
Department of Energy is the Federal Government's largest
supporter of physical science. And as such, I remain concerned
about the tremendous imbalance in the Government's investment
in physical sciences versus life sciences. NIH's budget has
doubled in 5 years, while DOE's science can probably claim and
prove that it has been slightly higher than inflation.
PREPARED STATEMENTS
Past successes in biomedicine have been built upon the
strong foundation of the physical and computational sciences
that are present in DOE. However, we will not be equipped to
take advantage of these remarkable new opportunities in
genomics, nanotechnology, and advanced materials and other
areas unless we increase the funding for DOE science.
The rest of my statement can be made a part of the record.
Senator Cochran has a statement. It will be made a part of the
record immediately following mine.
[The statements follow:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Pete V. Domenici
Today, the Subcommittee will review the Department of Energy's
fiscal year 2004 budget request for the Office of Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy; the Office of Science; and the Office of Nuclear
Energy.
In that regard, we will hear from Mr. David K. Garman, Assistant
Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Dr. Ray Orbach,
Director of the Office of Science; and Mr. Bill Magwood, Director of
the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology.
All of the witnesses have appeared before the subcommittee before
and are well known to us. We look forward to your testimony today.
This is the Subcommittee's second hearing this year but our first
opportunity to review the Administration's budget request for the
Department of Energy. Overall, the Administration is seeking $21.7
billion for programs and activities of the Department within the
jurisdiction of this subcommittee. That is a $785 million increase over
the current year enacted level of $20.89 billion (or approximately 4
percent).
That increase appears reasonable, but it must be viewed in its
proper context. Almost all of the increases for the Department occur in
the nuclear weapons and nonproliferation programs of the NNSA, in the
Department's environmental clean-up programs, and in proposed funding
for the Yucca Mountain project.
The programs we are reviewing today, which make up just over $4
billion of the Department's budget, would increase by less than
inflation, or 2 percent over the current year enacted level.
The budget request for renewable energy research under Mr. Garman
is $444 million, an increase of $24 million (6 percent) over the
current year level. However, more than all of the increase is put
toward the President's exciting hydrogen initiative that may displace
much of our dependence on foreign oil by 2020. Hydrogen research under
this subcommittee would more than double to $88 million in fiscal year
2004.
Unfortunately, many of the traditional areas of renewable research,
such as biomass, geothermal and wind, are proposed to be cut below
current year levels in order to fund the President's agenda.
I continue to believe in the importance of a balanced energy
portfolio. Our country must increase our diversity of energy production
in order to reduce our dependence on unstable foreign sources of
energy. Under any scenario, renewable energy technologies will play a
dramatic role in our energy future. Recognizing the Administration's
priorities while continuing to address the priorities of many Senators
on this subcommittee may prove to be a real challenge this year.
Likewise, the budget request for Nuclear Energy has elements of
both good news and bad news. For me, the most notable new development
is the Administration's request for $63 million to continue the
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative.
I have long believed that the country must rapidly move ahead with
a next-generation fuel cycle that generates far less waste and extracts
the full energy benefit from each gram of fuel. This is a long-term
effort that requires a much larger investment by the Department.
Senator Reid and I have worked hard to sustain this effort for the last
several years and I am pleased to see the Administration embrace this
important initiative.
I am generally encouraged with the progress in nuclear R&D. The
Administration, with much help from this subcommittee, has begun to
correct many years of neglect. The Department now has in place the
structure of well-thought-out nuclear R&D program that:
--addresses the near-term goal of bringing a new plant on line
through the Nuclear Power 2010 program;
--while performing the R&D necessary for nuclear power to support the
growing demand for electricity world-wide over the next 50
years through the Generation IV Program and the Advanced Fuel
Cycles Initiative.
However, the request is not all good news, as the Department
proposes elimination of new funding for the Nuclear Energy Plant
Optimization program and a 50 percent cut to the well regarded Nuclear
Energy Research Initiative. We will address these concerns and others
as best we can.
Finally, the budget request for the Office of Science remains only
a little better than flat for the coming year.
The Department of Energy is the federal government's largest
supporter of physical sciences. As such, I remain concerned about the
tremendous imbalance in the government's investments in the physical
sciences verses the life sciences. For example, NIH's budget has
doubled in 5 years while DOE Science cannot even keep up with
inflation.
Past successes in biomedicine have been built upon the strong
foundation of the physical and computational sciences. However, we will
not be equipped to take advantage of remarkable new opportunities in
genomics, nanotechnology, advanced materials, and other areas unless we
increase funding in DOE Science.
Each of the program areas before us today will present unique
challenges and opportunities for this subcommittee. I will look forward
to engaging each of our witnesses today and working with the Senator
Reid and the members of the Subcommittee to put together the best
possible bill.
I will yield now to Senator Reid and any other Senator that would
like to make an opening statement.
Thereafter, we will hear from Mr. Garman, Dr. Orbach, and finally
Mr. Magwood.
______
Prepared Statement of Senator Thad Cochran
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank the Undersecretary and Directors
for testifying before this committee today. The work you do is very
important to my state and to me. I'd like to commend David Garman, the
Director of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, for
the work he does with biomass research.
This scientific research is so important to a rural, agricultural
state like Mississippi. Biomass energy is estimated to contribute over
7 percent of Mississippi's total energy consumption--that amount is
double the national average. The majority of our lumber facilities burn
wood waste to generate steam for industrial processes. Biomass offers
special opportunities for benefitting Mississippi's economy by keeping
energy dollars in our state and by providing jobs in rural areas where
biomass is produced. By using their wastes for energy, disposal costs
are avoided, and industries are better able to compete.
The principal biomass waste streams that occur in Mississippi are
generated by agriculture (e.g., cotton gin waste), wood products
manufacturing (e.g., sawdust and wood scraps), animal wastes from
confined feeding operations, and municipal solid waste collections
(e.g., paper and cardboard, demolition waste, lawn and tree trimmings).
Last year I visited a biomass plant in Winona, Mississippi and
inquired about plans for using federal funds that were appropriated in
the fiscal year 2003 omnibus bill. I learned that the Winona biomass
project can enter its final stages of discovering the organism which
will cause the heated biomass to turn into gas. Once that organism or
``bug'' is discovered, the plant can operate from start to finish where
chips of wood can be input, burned and then gasified into ethanol. In a
town like Winona, that sort of success has great economic development
potential.
I am pleased to learn that the Department is concentrating its
biomass research efforts on the catalysts needed for biomass gasifiers.
Many communities, beyond the scientific community, will benefit from
this work.
I would also like to commend the Mississippi Diagnostic
Instrumentation and Analysis Laboratory at Mississippi State
University. I am pleased to see that you're funding good science, like
the joint Los Alamos-Mississippi State project that we hope will be
useful for both DOE and Homeland Security. A continuing concern is how
do we take this magnificent science and turn it into the new
technologies DOE needs to accelerate cleanup. I am hopeful that you
consider using organizations such as DIAL at Mississippi State to turn
your science into technologies that will be used at the DOE sites.
Mr. Chairman, with your permission I have a question I'd like to
submit for the record.
Senator Domenici. And I yield now to Senator Larry Craig
for his comments. And then we will take the witnesses.
Senator Craig.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR LARRY CRAIG
Senator Craig. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be
brief. And I do appreciate a chance to speak now. I have to
pull out about 3:00 to attend something else.
But first of all, I want to visit Bill Magwood. We have
been working very closely since Secretary Abraham announced
that the INEEL and Argonne-West would be DOE's lead lab for
nuclear energy. And certainly the chairman has been a leader in
advancing this cause for some time. He spoke to it a few
moments ago.
But I do appreciate the hard work that you have put into
the transition at the Idaho National Engineering Environmental
Laboratory and the new mission that we are talking about. I
have looked at the administration's budget request for nuclear,
and I am pleased by what is there. It is much improved. The
chairman just mentioned it. The previous administration had
pretty much zeroed things out. If we are going to advance the
cause of nuclear in the next generation, we have to get at it.
You are getting at it, and we appreciate that.
Obviously last year, the Chairman and I met with you, the
Vice President, Secretary Abraham. And we talked about
Generation IV reactor development, to get it beyond the design
or the study on papers to the actual step forward. And clearly,
that is what we are about now. And we thank you for that. And,
Mr. Chairman, I lay a great deal of the effort to your credit
for the work you have done there.
But we must keep trying to fix the Argonne layoff
situation. It is unacceptable to do it, if we are going to try
to grow nuclear. You do not fire one year and hire the next
year, when you have top quality scientists on board ready to
go. And that is really an issue that I think has to get
resolved as we move forward.
Dr. Orbach, I do appreciate your presence. I have read your
testimony. Although the Office of Science program does not have
a large presence in Idaho, you are doing a lot of extremely
valuable work. I want to highlight one area, and that is fusion
energy. Yesterday I introduced the Fusion Development Act of
2003. Senator Dianne Feinstein and I have worked cooperatively
on that as cosponsors. President Bush has been focused on the
movement of this Nation in a clean, sustainable hydrogen
economy. That is certainly important.
We have invested a fair amount in it so far, and we are a
ways down the road toward that. Obviously, continued
development and infrastructure become a major hurdle to
overcome. The President has acknowledged that fusion energy, if
we can make it practical and affordable, will be one of the
ways to get us to that hydrogen future. The other way is,
obviously, nuclear energy. And I will be working on that front
as well, as we work to craft this bill.
David, it is great to have you back before us. Between this
committee and the Energy Committee, we have been seeing you
quite often here on the Hill. And that is always appreciated.
The work you have done in the past year and of course the work
you did for Senator Murkowski is well recognized.
We also had you recently on a visit to Idaho. And I
appreciate your effort to take the time to better understand
what we do out there and the kind of work that goes on. And
while you were there, I suspect you heard us talk about some
agriculture and some bioenergy initiatives.
The issue that the Governor, while Senator, worked with me
on was fish-friendly turbines. They say it cannot be done. And
while some of our friends do not like to admit it, the
adjustment and the management of the Snake and the Columbia
River systems is beginning to establish record fish runs. We
have clearly stopped the decline in five of these critical
species. And there is now movement upward. And part of that is
beginning to understand, manage the river, retrofit many of
these hydro facilities with fish-friendly turbines. That work
began at Bonneville. It is working upriver. And it is
critically important to the West, to all of us, and to the
fisheries of our country.
So thank you very much for being here. We look forward to
your testimony.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRY REID
Senator Domenici. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Reid's statement will also be made a part of the
record.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Harry Reid
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad to see that you are feeling a
little better than you did last week. Senator Cochran filled in nicely
for you at the hearing, but we all missed you.
Today is the second in a series of five budget oversight hearings
for the Energy and Water Development Subcommittee. Last Wednesday, the
Subcommittee heard testimony from the Bureau of Reclamation and the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Today we will hear from three witnesses:
--Dr. Raymond Orbach, the Director of DOE's Office of Science;
--Mr. Bill Magwood, the Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy; and
--Mr. Dave Garman, the Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Good afternoon, gentlemen, thank you for coming. Senator Domenici
and I both appreciate you taking the time to join us. My duties on the
Floor may require me to depart early today, but my staff will remain
here and will report back on what transpires. I do have a series of
questions for each of you and would ask, at this time, that they be
made a part of the record. I hope each of you can respond quickly
because the Chairman and I rely on your answers to help us make
informed funding decisions.
I plan to keep my comments very brief today, but do want to
highlight several issues concerning the budget requests for each of the
three DOE offices represented today.
Dr. Orbach, I have reviewed the budget for the Office of Science
and, by and large, I suspect that you and I share some of the same
frustrations with it. The administration's budget request provides your
office with a mere 1.4 percent increase. While I am somewhat comforted
by the notion that the ramp-down in construction funding for the
Spallation Neutron Source actually allows a research budget increase of
closer to 4.5 percent, my overall impression is that the request is
weak and shortsighted.
I hope that we are able to improve on that a little bit before
Congress completes work this year. As I have said many times before,
funding for research in the hard sciences is one of the very best and
most appropriate investments of taxpayer dollars that Congress can
make. Very few things that we do here can make our country safer or
more secure than maintaining a scientific and technological edge.
For many years now Chairman Domenici and I have watched as the last
two administrations have sent ever-escalating budget requests up here
for the National Institutes of Health that have far outstripped the
increases requested for the Office of Science. The imbalance between
funding for the physical science and the biological sciences was
getting to be staggering, particularly because both disciplines rely on
each other so much.
This year, the disparity has lessened, but not in the way I had
hoped. Rather than the usual 14-15 percent increase for NIH, the
administration has chosen to request an additional 7-8 percent. Again,
over the long-term, this is very short-sighted.
I am, however, pleased that the administration has decided to take
the long view on another important international effort, though.
Earlier this year, the administration announced that the United States
would re-join the international burning plasma fusion program, the so-
called ITER project. This was a wise decision that I hope will be
followed-up with robust budget requests.
I am also very pleased with the work you are doing on the Genomes
to Life Program and with the impressive pace of the nanotechnology
program.
You have been on the job now for nearly a year to the day and I
hope you are enjoying your time in one of the greatest jobs our Federal
Government has to offer.
Mr. Garman, my guess is that we are going to hear a lot from you on
the subject of hydrogen today. The administration's initiative has
certainly gotten a lot of attention, both positive and negative.
My inclination is to try to be as supportive as possible. I am
pleased that the administration has decided to tackle a big, long-term
renewable energy effort to complement the shorter-term focus on the
deployment of promising technologies that dominates much of the rest of
your budget.
My staff has been talking to me about the potential of the
``hydrogen economy'' for years, so I want to help as best I can.
Obviously, the devil will be in the details in how this program comes
together, but those are details that we can work out as we move
forward.
One immediate concern that I do have is that it appears that you
cut many of your other programs in order to accommodate the increases
for hydrogen. Particularly hard-hit is your geothermal program, which
is down $16 million.
I realize that you were probably told to go find the additional
dollars for hydrogen at the very last minute, long after you thought
your budget had been put to bed, but ultimately, your overall portfolio
must be balanced.
Good luck as you move forward.
Mr. Magwood, as you know I have been very supportive of your
programs during my years as Chairman and Ranking Member of this
Subcommittee. I am supportive even though it sometimes puts me in an
awkward spot due to that very visible word ``nuclear'' in your office's
title.
I support strong budgets for you because, as I mentioned earlier,
long-term, stable, investments in scientific research and development
is what makes our Nation strong.
My biggest problem with nuclear power comes at the end of the fuel
cycle. However, I firmly believe that investments in the future of
nuclear power can produce reactors that are safer and will not produce
the deadly waste streams that plague the current generation of
reactors.
To the extent that there will be an on-going waste stream, it will
be investments in the science that solves all or most of the disposal
problem.
This is why I am pleased that your Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative
seems to be coming along nicely. Senator Domenici and I both have been
interested in transmutation of waste for years, so we are both pleased
that the Department is preparing to invest some resources in this area.
I need to be careful not to steal too much of Chairman Domenici's
thunder in talking about what I know to be one of his favorite
programs, so I will stop here.
Again, thanks to our witnesses for appearing today.
Senator Domenici. Let us proceed then with the witnesses.
Let us start with Dr. Orbach.
STATEMENT OF RAYMOND L. ORBACH
Dr. Orbach. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Domenici. You are welcome.
Dr. Orbach. I would like to thank you and the members of
the committee for your support for the Department of Energy and
specifically the Office of Science. This is the beginning of my
second year now as director. And I have enjoyed my relationship
with you very much.
I hope I can submit my testimony for the record and just
make a few comments and introductions.
The investment of basic research of the Office of Science
supports the work of more than 8,000 researchers and students
at more than 250 universities and Department of Energy
laboratories. This year we reached 18,000 users of our
facilities. Our budget, as we have submitted it to you, is
roughly half for the operation of those facilities, and then
the other half for the research that is carried out across the
country, and indeed the world. That half is about equally
divided between universities and laboratory personnel.
We support as much research in the universities as we do in
the laboratories. All of that, both the components for
university and laboratories, are competed together with the
peer review process, so that everybody has an equal chance at
funding. Just because someone is in a research laboratory does
not mean that they have an advantage over anyone else.
The Office of Science is privileged to be responsible for
these large facilities. We think we complement the national
effort because of our commitment to long-term funding, high
risk with high payoff, and multidisciplinary teams.
Just to comment on our highlights of the budget, the areas
that are priorities for the Office of Science; Senator Craig,
as you have noticed, we have joined ITER now as a partner. We
are pleased to take our place as a partner in this very
important development. The consequences of fusion energy are
recognized in the National Energy Policy on an abundant and
clean source of energy.
High-performance computation remains a high priority. This
budget contains $14 million to begin looking at different
architectures so that we can find the structures that will
enable us to solve major problems, scientific discovery through
simulation and computation. We are working now with three, and
we hope four, vendors to try their structures out on real
science problems that we want to solve.
The Spallation Neutron Source, which will be the leading
source for neutron science in the world for at least a decade
or more, now that Europe has decided not to go in this
direction, is well under way and on track and on budget. We
look forward to that operation giving the United States primacy
again in neutron science.
Four of our five nanotechnology centers currently are
contained within the fiscal year 2004 budget. Nanotechnology is
an opportunity that the Office of Science is pursuing
aggressively. We are pleased that our scientists will have
access to these world-class facilities that are nowhere else
found but in the United States.
The life sciences, the Genomes to Life program is
proceeding well. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
support for this program. We are now expanding it to produce
the energy requirements that this country faces and also to
help with carbon sequestration.
Finally, in this budget there is a new initiative for
teacher education, for workforce development. We have a line
item that will enable us to bring, on a pilot basis, teachers
to our laboratories where we will work with them during the
summer and then follow up in their classroom, providing support
for them.
A program like this used to exist in the mid-1990's, and we
are anxious to begin it again. We have quantitative evidence
that the students whose teachers have gone through this program
fare much better on examinations in both science and
mathematics than a comparable category, a control group, of
students whose teachers had not experienced these
opportunities.
We have had some major accomplishments this year. We are
very proud of Mr. Raymond Davis, Jr., for receiving the Nobel
Prize in physics for his work on neutrinos. I think it marks
the beginning of development in cosmology where we will be
working at the very small in order to predict the behavior of
the very large. Mr. Davis' citation from the Nobel Committee
points that out as the beginning of the relationship between
the experiments we do here on Earth and what we observe at the
very large.
Finally, we have, through our materials program and our
nanotechnology program, been able to accomplish something I
think that all of us should take pride in, and that is
restoring sight. We have been able to implant a small chip in
the retina of a person who lost their sight over 30 years ago.
By use of our materials sciences--this is not a simple task to
keep electrical contacts stable in the vitreous humor of the
eye--that person was able to see.
So far, we are operating only at a small number of pixels,
only 16. But we have underway a 1,000-pixel implant, which will
enable a person who was blind to read a large-print newspaper.
Over 200,000 Americans each year suffer from retinal disease.
This program, we hope, will combine the material science
characteristics of the Office of Science with the medical
profession, showing again how the physical sciences can aid the
medical profession in accomplishing their goals.
PREPARED STATEMENT
This is a great opportunity for us to present our programs
to you. I want to thank you again for your support. This
concludes my testimony. I will be pleased to answer questions.
Thank you.
Senator Domenici. Thank you very much. Your statement will
be made a part of the record.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Raymond L. Orbach
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today about the Department of Energy's (DOE)
Office of Science fiscal year 2004 budget request. I am deeply
appreciative of your support for basic research, Mr. Chairman, and the
support we have received from the other Members of this Subcommittee. I
am confident that our fiscal year 2004 request represents a sound
investment in our Nation's future. Through this budget we will
strengthen core research programs, increase operating time at major
scientific user facilities, and expand our capabilities for the future.
This budget requests $3,310,935,000 for the fiscal year 2004
Science appropriation, an increase of $47,059,000 over fiscal year 2003
(see Figure 1), for investments in: Advanced Scientific Computing
Research (ASCR), Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Biological and
Environmental Research (BER), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES), High Energy
Physics (HEP), Nuclear Physics (NP), Science Laboratories
Infrastructure, Safeguards and Security, Workforce Development and
Science Program Direction.
These investments in basic research directly support the work of
more than 8,000 researchers and students at more than 250 universities
and at DOE's national labs. In addition, another 18,000 researchers
annually take advantage of the major scientific user facilities
operated on behalf of the Nation. The Office of Science is the steward
of 10 national laboratories, which conduct and collaborate on the
multi-disciplinary research that is essential to providing sustained
progress toward the most difficult scientific questions and to ensuring
that our Nation is able to respond rapidly in times of need.
These researchers will advance the frontiers of nanoscale science;
pursue the key questions at the intersection of physics and astronomy
identified by the National Academy of Sciences; develop the knowledge
base for bringing genomes to life with the potential to harness
microbes and microbial communities to improve energy production and
environmental remediation; advance the goals of the Administration's
Climate Change Research Initiative and the National Energy Policy;
begin negotiations to participate in the international fusion project--
ITER; develop a new generation of computing architecture to identify
and address performance bottlenecks in existing and planned systems;
and bring the full potential of scientific computation to bear on the
Department's scientific problems.
The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic
research in the physical sciences, providing approximately 40 percent
of all Federal funds in this area over the past decade. It is also the
steward, and by far the principal funding agency, of the Nation's
research programs in high energy physics, nuclear physics and fusion
energy sciences, as well as being the Federal government's largest
source of support for materials and chemical sciences. The Office of
Science also supports unique or critical pieces of U.S. research in
scientific computation, climate change, geophysics, genomics, and the
life sciences.
Research projects supported by the Office of Science are selected
on the basis of peer review and evaluation for quality, relevance and
performance as emphasized in the President's Management Agenda and R&D
Investment Criteria. These diverse and multidisciplinary programs rely
upon the advice of the scientific community in developing daring and
innovative research directions and facility capabilities. As a result,
the program oversees one of the strongest research portfolios in the
world--a strategic investment in the future technological strength and
agility of the Nation.
The Council on Competitiveness noted in its report Competitiveness
2001, Strengths, Vulnerabilities and Long Term Priorities, that,
``Given the rising bar for competitiveness, the United States needs to
be in the lead or among the leaders in every major field of research to
sustain its innovation capabilities.'' Beginning with the impact on
technology development of scientific discoveries in chemistry and
electromagnetism at the end of the 19th century, scientific discovery
has become the source of new technologies that are critically important
to economic progress, energy and national security. We are in a period
of rapid technological change. Advances in computing, communications
and scientific instruments--many of them developed by SC--have
transformed our society including the conduct of science. As a result,
there are new scientific opportunities today that promise revolutionary
technologies to come.
FIGURE 1.--OFFICE OF SCIENCE FISCAL YEAR 2004 PRESIDENT'S REQUEST
(B/A in Thousands)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fiscal Year Fiscal Year
Fiscal Year 2003 2004
2002 Approp. President's President's
Request Request
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advanced Scientific Computing Research.......................... 150,205 166,557 173,490
Basic Energy Sciences........................................... 979,560 1,019,163 1,008,575
Biological and Environmental Research........................... \1\ 554,125 484,215 499,535
High Energy Physics............................................. 697,383 724,990 737,978
Nuclear Physics................................................. 350,589 382,370 389,430
Fusion Energy Sciences.......................................... 241,100 257,310 257,310
Science Laboratories Infrastructure............................. 37,125 42,735 43,590
Science Program Direction....................................... 149,467 137,332 150,813
Workforce Development........................................... 4,460 5,460 6,470
Safeguards and Security......................................... 45,770 43,744 43,744
SBIR/STTR....................................................... \2\ 99,668 .............. ..............
-----------------------------------------------
Total Office of Science................................... 3,309,452 3,263,876 3,310,935
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Includes $68,822,000 of one time projects.
\2\ Includes $36,391,000 from other programs.
FISCAL YEAR 2004 SCIENCE PRIORITIES
The fiscal year 2004 request supports major research programs that
respond to DOE priorities and will contribute to the strength and
vitality of the national research enterprise. Many of these research
programs are conducted jointly with other Federal agencies and are
illustrative of the wide array of scientific talent and resources that
DOE brings to bear on critical national challenges:
--Enter negotiations with representatives of the European Union,
Japan, Russia and other international partners on construction
and operation of a burning plasma experiment--the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
--Continue to build on its leadership in high performance computing
and networking to bring the full potential of scientific
computation to bear on the Department's scientific and
technical challenges. It will initiate a Next Generation
Computer Architecture program to identify and address
performance bottlenecks in existing and planned systems.
--Continue construction of the Spallation Neutron Source, proceed
with construction of three Nanoscale Science Research Centers
(NSRCs) and initiate work on two others. These NSRCs--located
at national laboratories in New York, Tennessee, Illinois, New
Mexico and California--will provide scientists with an
unmatched set of tools to design and build complex nanoscale
materials.
--Exploit its unique capabilities at the intersection of the physical
sciences, the life sciences and scientific computation to
continue and expand its effort to understand how the
instructions embedded in genomes control the development of
organisms, with the goal of harnessing the capabilities of
microbes and microbial communities to help us to produce
energy, clean up waste, and sequester carbon from the
atmosphere.
--Initiate a Laboratory Science Teacher Professional Development
program for K-14 teachers in science and mathematics. Teachers
will be competitively selected for a 4-8 week mentoring program
by both scientists and master teachers at a national
laboratory, followed by both additional 1 week mentoring visits
and long term continuing support.
--Exploit the capabilities of the world's finest set of research
facilities in particle physics to attempt to find the answers
to questions about matter and energy at the most fundamental
level. What gives elementary particles their great variety of
masses? Are there extra dimensions of space beyond the three we
know? Why is there so little antimatter in the universe when we
expect equal amounts of each were created in the Big Bang? What
is the Dark Energy that causes the recently observed
acceleration in the expansion of the universe and comprises
fully two thirds of the mass and energy budget of the universe?
What were the properties of the early universe before quarks
and gluons condensed into protons and neutrons?
SCIENCE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The Office of Science can trace its roots to the original
legislation creating the Atomic Energy Commission in 1947, which had a
charter to use fundamental research in nuclear physics and other
physical sciences towards ``. . . improving the public welfare,
increasing the standard of living, strengthening free competition in
private enterprise, and promoting world peace.'' More than five decades
later, the Office of Science can point to an extraordinary and diverse
array of scientific discoveries that have led to dozens of Nobel
Prizes, a draft map of the Human Genome, the creation of ``Bucky
Balls,'' discovery of the quark structure of matter and the
``Accelerating Universe,'' major breakthroughs in medical diagnoses and
nuclear medicine, and providing tools that allow researchers to ``see''
at the atomic and subatomic scales, to simulate complex interactions
and to collaborate across great distances.
That history of discovery (which is documented on the Office of
Science website, www.er.doe.gov/feature_articles_2001/June/Decades/
index.html) continues to this day, with major accomplishments in the
past year that are the result of our long-term, high-risk,
multidisciplinary research and strong management practices.
Two achievements in 2002 stand out as representative of the scope
and magnitude of the research sponsored by SC. First is a technological
miracle--restoring sight to the blind--being developed through an
extraordinary marriage of biology and the physical sciences. The
combination of diverse scientific disciplines such as these is a
hallmark of Office of Science research and a particular strength of the
DOE national laboratories. But realizing this remarkable technology
also relies on the unique capabilities of industry (Second Sight,
located in Santa Clarita, Calif.) and academia (the Doheney Eye
Institute at the University of Southern California and North Carolina
State University) in partnership with the national laboratories. In
this project, specially designed MEMs (microelectro-mechanical systems)
electrodes are positioned on the retinas of patients who have been
blinded by disease, enabling them to convert light to electrical pulses
that are received by the brain. Today's prototype enables a formerly
blind patient to distinguish light from dark. Tomorrow's technology has
the potential to restore almost full sight to the 200,000 people in the
United States who are blinded every year by macular degeneration. This
miracle of science is possible due to the long-term commitment of
dedicated teams of scientists supported by DOE.
The second was the award of the 2002 Nobel Prize for Physics shared
by Raymond Davis, Jr., whose sublime experiments led to the capture of
solar neutrinos, proving that fusion provides the Sun's energy and
leading to the creation of an entirely new field of research: neutrino
astronomy. Davis did his groundbreaking work while a researcher at
DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory, which is home to multiple Nobel
Prize recipients. This is the most recent of the Nobel Prizes that have
been awarded to DOE-supported scientists.
In its announcement, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said of
Davis's accomplishment: ``This year's Nobel Laureates in Physics have
used these very smallest components of the universe (neutrinos) to
increase our understanding of the very largest: the Sun, stars,
galaxies, and supernovae. The new knowledge has changed the way we look
upon the universe.''
SCIENCE PROGRAMS
ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING RESEARCH
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$150.2M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$166.6M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$173.5M
The Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program underpins
DOE's ability to accomplish its mission through scientific computation.
The ASCR program supports research in applied mathematics, computer
science and high-performance networks and provides high-performance
computational and networking resources to enable the advancement of the
leading edge science that the DOE mission requires. ASCR delivers the
power of advanced scientific computation and networking to the wide
array of scientific disciplines supported by SC.
In fiscal year 2004, ASCR will embark on research to identify,
address and correct bottlenecks that presently constrain DOE's
capabilities in modeling and simulation. A research portfolio in Next
Generation Computer Architecture will be initiated to assess novel
computer architectures and their prospects for achieving optimal
performance for cutting-edge scientific simulations.
In fiscal year 2004, the ASCR program will continue to develop the
underlying mathematical algorithms, software building blocks and
infrastructure for the ``Scientific Discovery through Advanced
Computing,'' (SciDAC) program. SciDAC is an Office of Science research
endeavor to produce the scientific computing, networking and software
that DOE researchers will need for sustained progress at the scientific
forefront in areas of strategic importance to the Department. The scope
of the SciDAC program will be extended to include new activities to
address the urgent need for a quantitative understanding of matter at
the nanoscale.
The ASCR program will also maintain the vitality of its basic
research efforts in applied mathematics, computer and computational
science, and network research to bolster the foundation for continued
success in advancing scientific frontiers through computation.
In fiscal year 2004, the Genomes to Life research activities in
partnership with Biological and Environmental Research will be expanded
to include new research in the applied mathematical sciences that will
enable new computational techniques for the study of regulatory
networks and metabolic pathways for microbial systems.
Finally, in fiscal year 2004, ASCR will provide high performance
computing and networking resources at the levels needed to meet Office
of Science needs. The National Energy Research Scientific Computing
Center, as a result of an enhancement in fiscal year 2003, will be
operated at 10Tflops to meet the computational needs of nearly 2,400
users. ESnet will be operated to provide state-of-the-art network
services and capabilities to DOE-supported researchers nationwide to
collect, analyze, visualize and distribute large-scale scientific data
sets.
BASIC ENERGY SCIENCES
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$979.6M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$1,019.2M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$1,008.6M
The Basic Energy Sciences (BES) program is a principal sponsor of
fundamental research for the Nation in the areas of materials sciences
and engineering, chemistry, geosciences, and bioscience as it relates
to energy. This research underpins DOE missions in energy, environment,
and national security; advances energy related basic science on a broad
front; and provides unique user facilities for the United States
scientific community.
In fiscal year 2004, construction will proceed on three Nanoscale
Science Research Centers (NSRCs), project engineering design will be
initiated on the fourth NSRC, and a Major Item of Equipment will be
initiated for the fifth and final NSRC. NSRCs are user facilities for
the synthesis, processing, fabrication, and analysis of materials at
the nanoscale. The five NSRCs will be located strategically at national
laboratories across the country in New York, Tennessee, Illinois, New
Mexico, and California. These facilities, in conjunction with existing
user facilities at these national laboratories, will provide a
strikingly unique suite of forefront capabilities where the Nation's
leading scientists can design and build complex nanoscale materials all
in one place.
The five NSRCs will be the Nation's critical focal points for the
development of the nanotechnologies that will revolutionize science and
technology. They will provide state-of-the-art nanofabrication
equipment and quality in-house user support for hundreds of visiting
researchers. The Centers will provide an environment for research of a
scope, complexity, and disciplinary breadth not possible under
traditional individual investigator or small group efforts. As such,
the DOE Centers will be the training grounds of choice for the top
graduate students and elite postdoctoral associates who will lead the
future of scientific research.
A high priority in fiscal year 2004 is continued construction of
the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) to provide the next-generation,
short-pulse spallation neutron source for neutron scattering. The
project, which is to be completed in June 2006, is on schedule and
within budget with over half of the work completed as of the end of
fiscal year 2002. At the end of fiscal year 2004, construction of the
SNS will be 80 percent complete.
BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$554.1M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$484.2M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$499.5M
Today, we have unprecedented opportunities to use advances in
biology, computation, engineering, physics, and chemistry, to develop
new solutions for challenges in energy, the environment, and health.
The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program is bringing
these diverse fields together at DOE laboratories, universities, and
private research institutes to find innovative approaches to address
DOE challenges.
In fiscal year 2004, the Genomes to Life program continues to
develop novel research and computational tools that, when combined with
our genomics, structural biology, and imaging research provide a basis
to understand and predict responses of complex biological systems.
Other BER efforts in the Life Sciences include Human Genome research
and DNA sequencing and Low Dose Radiation research.
BER contributions to the President's Climate Change Research
Initiative include research in climate modeling, atmospheric
composition, and regional impacts of climate change. Carbon cycle
research will work toward understanding what fraction of carbon dioxide
emissions are taken up by terrestrial ecosystems. New in fiscal year
2004 are ecological research efforts to begin to bridge the knowledge
gap between molecular level effects and the responses of entire
ecosystems to natural and human-induced environmental changes.
A key challenge in Environmental Remediations Science is to
understand the subsurface environment and to then develop innovative
options for clean up and protection. In fiscal year 2004, BER research
will continue to develop new cleanup strategies, including
bioremediation of metals and radionuclides and the treatment and
disposal of high-level radioactive wastes stored in large underground
tanks. The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory is maintained at
the leading edge of computational capabilities for enhanced modeling of
environmental and molecular processes.
Because of DOE's diverse capabilities across a range of scientific
disciplines, BER Medical Applications research will continue to provide
the medical community with novel devices and technologies to detect,
diagnose, and treat disease. One example is research that will develop
the capability to detect genes as they are turned on and off in any
organ in the body with enormous impacts in developmental biology and
the diagnosis of disease.
FUSION ENERGY SCIENCES
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$241.1M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$257.3M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$257.3M
The Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program leads the national
research effort to advance plasma science, fusion science, and fusion
technology--the knowledge base needed for an economically and
environmentally attractive fusion energy source. The National Energy
Policy states that fusion power has the long-range potential to serve
as an abundant and clean source of energy and recommends that the
Department develop fusion. It is the consensus of fusion researchers
worldwide that the next frontier in the quest for fusion power is the
creation and study of a sustained, burning (or self-heated) plasma. The
Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) has concluded that
the fusion program is ready to proceed and has recommended joining the
ongoing negotiations to construct the international burning plasma
experiment, ITER, a strategy endorsed by the National Research Council
(NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences. Following these
recommendations, and an Office of Science reviewed cost estimate for
the construction of ITER, the Administration decided to join the ITER
negotiations.
To be successful, the ITER negotiations must resolve not only
citing of the project and an agreed-upon financial and procurement
arrangement, but also satisfactory management and oversight
arrangements. In these negotiations, the United States will strive for
a robust management structure and an oversight program based on the
principles of equity, accountability and transparency to ensure both
the success of the project and the best use of taxpayer dollars.
In light of the Administration decision to join the ITER
negotiations, many elements of the fusion program that are broadly
applicable to burning plasmas will now be directed more specifically
toward the needs of ITER, while some longer range technology
development activities will be curtailed. The majority of existing and
proposed program elements, however, already contribute to tokamak
science, thereby providing a strong base for our future contributions
to and ability to benefit from ITER.
Four areas characterize the FES program activities for fiscal year
2004 and beyond. These are Burning Plasmas, which will include our
efforts in support of ITER; Fundamental Understanding, which includes
theory, modeling, and general plasma science; Configuration
Optimization, which includes experiments on advanced tokamaks, advanced
magnetic configurations, and inertial fusion concepts, as well as
facility operations and enabling R&D; and Materials and Technology,
which includes fusion specific materials research and fusion nuclear
technology research. Integrated progress in all of these thrust areas
is required for ultimate success in achieving a practical fusion energy
source.
The fiscal year 2004 budget supports a balanced fusion science
program. The fiscal year 2004 budget request supports research in
alternate confinement concepts, to include the final design and initial
fabrication of the National Compact Stellarator Experiment facility at
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, facility upgrades and an increase
in facility operations, research in inertial fusion energy and basic
plasma science, as well as a focus on the use of high-end computational
simulation.
HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$697.4M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$725.0M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$738.0M
The High Energy Physics (HEP) program provides over 90 percent of
the Federal support for the Nation's high energy physics research. This
research seeks to understand the nature of matter and energy at the
most fundamental level, as well as the basic forces that govern all
processes in nature. High energy physics research requires accelerators
and detectors utilizing state-of-the-art technologies in many areas
including fast electronics, high speed computing, superconducting
magnets, and high power radio-frequency devices. Until 2007, when
Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is scheduled to begin operations,
the United States is the primary world center for HEP research. In
fiscal year 2004, the HEP program will concentrate on facility
utilization, including direct support for researchers, as well as
incremental facility upgrades.
In fiscal year 2004, the Fermilab Tevatron Collider Run II will be
in full swing. The Run II program will enable many advances and
discoveries at the energy frontier, including: possible discovery of
the long-sought Higgs particle, thought to be the key to understanding
why particles have mass; providing even greater information about the
heaviest known particle, the top quark, discovered at Fermilab in 1995;
possible discovery of an entirely new class of particles that have been
predicted, by many theories, to be present in Run II data; or unfolding
of the as yet undiscovered space-time dimensions that have been
postulated to complete the unification of fundamental interactions. A
series of planned upgrades to the Tevatron accelerator complex, the
major detectors, and computing facilities will continue in fiscal year
2004 in order to enable a vigorous physics program that will maintain
Fermilab's scientific leadership through the end of the decade. The
NuMI/MINOS project, scheduled for completion in September 2005, will
provide a world-class facility to study neutrino properties and make
definitive measurements of neutrino mass differences.
Building on the outstanding performance of the B-factory at the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), the HEP program will
increase support for operation of the B-factory in fiscal year 2004 to
break new ground in exploring the source and nature of matter-
antimatter asymmetry in the B-meson system. The upcoming round of
experimental results may provide evidence for new physics beyond the
Standard Model of particle physics. Incremental upgrades are also
planned in fiscal year 2004 for the accelerator to improve physics
output and for the computing capabilities to cope with high data
volumes.
Continued U.S. participation in the LHC project at CERN is a high
priority in fiscal year 2004. The U.S. contributions to the LHC
accelerator and the ATLAS and CMS detectors are on schedule and within
budget for the scheduled start-up date of 2007. Focus of this effort
will begin to shift in fiscal year 2004 from construction to pre-
operations for the U.S.-built detector components and to developing the
software and computing infrastructure necessary to exploit LHC physics.
Non-accelerator experimentation is a growing part of HEP research
and offers many exciting opportunities for the future. Progress
continues on particle astrophysics experiments and R&D in partnership
with NASA. Collaborations on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and
the Large Area Telescope (LAT), part of the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space
Telescope (GLAST) mission, will be engaged in full detector fabrication
and assembly in fiscal year 2004. The SuperNova Acceleration Probe
(SNAP) will begin fabrication of detector prototypes in support of a
2006 Conceptual Design. These experiments are working toward solving
key mysteries in astrophysics and cosmology, including dark energy,
high energy gamma ray sources, and antimatter in space, all of which
play a role in the story of the origin and fate of the Universe. Other
non-accelerator experiments are located at ground level, such as the
Pierre Auger project and the Supernova Cosmology Project, or deep under
ground, such as neutrino detectors.
In addition, the program continues to support advanced technology
R&D in fiscal year 2004 geared toward future accelerators, including a
high-energy, high-luminosity Linear Collider. In January 2002, the
HEPAP Subpanel on Long Range Planning stated that such a collider
should be the highest priority of the U.S. HEP program.
NUCLEAR PHYSICS
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$350.6M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$382.4M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$389.4M
The Nuclear Physics (NP) program supports fundamental nuclear
physics research, providing about 90 percent of Federal support for
this field. NP research advances our knowledge of the properties and
interactions of atomic nuclei and nuclear matter in terms of the
fundamental forces and particles of nature. It also supports the
scientific knowledge-base, technologies and trained manpower that are
needed to underpin DOE's missions for nuclear-related national
security, energy, and the environment.
The NP program seeks answers to questions in three broad areas. (1)
The basic constituents of nuclei, the neutrons and protons (nucleons)
are themselves each composed of three quarks and the gluons that
``carry'' the strong force between them. Yet, these quarks are
``confined'' and cannot be found individually in nature. Understanding
this confinement and the transition from a nucleon to quark description
of nuclear structure is a central question of the field. (2) The early
universe, up to a millionth of a second after the ``Big Bang,'' is
believed to have been a soup of quarks and gluons, a quark-gluon
plasma. Creation of microcosms of this primordial matter in the
laboratory is now being attempted in order to answer how the universe
evolved at the very beginning of time. (3) The chemical elements are
believed to have been created in stars and supernovae explosions, yet
the nuclear reactions involved in this process involve nuclei far from
the naturally occurring ones on earth. To answer how the elements were
made (nucleosynthesis) requires producing exotic radioactive nuclear
beams. Understanding the dynamics of supernovae also requires
understanding the properties of the elusive neutrino which can only be
detected in massive detectors.
In fiscal year 2004, the NP program will focus on enhancing the
operations of the program's user facilities, especially the
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), so as to bring all operating
facilities to about 83 percent of optimal utilization. This will
increase beam hours for research by about 5 percent over the fiscal
year 2003 Request. Nuclear Theory, new Low Energy instruments, and
increased support to non-accelerator research such as neutrino
experiments are also strongly supported.
In addition to increased operations at RHIC, fiscal year 2004
funding will support an aggressive experimental program with the newly
completed G0 detector at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
(TJNAF) to begin to map out the strange quark contribution to the
structure of the nucleon. The MIT/Bates research program with the BLAST
detector is being initiated in fiscal year 2003 with completion planned
in fiscal year 2004. The two Low Energy user facilities (ATLAS and
HRIBF) will also increase running schedules in fiscal year 2004 for
nuclear structure and astrophysics studies.
In fiscal year 2003-2005, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO)
will make sensitive measurements of the flux and spectra of solar
neutrinos. Neutrino oscillations are evidence that neutrinos have mass,
an observation that forces a re-evaluation of the existing Standard
Model of particle physics.
SCIENCE LABORATORIES INFRASTRUCTURE
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$37.1M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$42.7M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$43.6M
The Science Laboratories Infrastructure (SLI) program plays a vital
role in enabling the continued performance of world-class research at
the Office of Science laboratories by funding line item construction
projects to maintain the general purpose infrastructure (GPI) and the
clean-up and removal of excess facilities. In fiscal year 2004, SLI
will support six ongoing projects and one new start--seismic safety and
operational reliability improvements at SLAC. Excess Facilities
Disposition (EFD) will continue disposition of both contaminated and
non-contaminated excess facilities, resulting in reduction of costs and
risks while freeing-up valuable land. The fiscal year 2004 Budget
Request also includes funding for the Oak Ridge Landlord subprogram.
SAFEGUARDS AND SECURITY
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$45.7M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$43.7M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$43.7M
Safeguards and Security reflects the Office of Science's commitment
to maintain adequate protection of cutting edge scientific resources.
In fiscal year 2004, Safeguards and Security will enable the Office of
Science laboratories to meet the requirements of maintaining approved
Security Condition 3 level mandates for the protection of assets.
Integration of security into the laboratories' systems and continued
risk management are also supported. In addition, critical cyber
security tools and software will be purchased to respond to the ever
changing cyber threat.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$4.5M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--$5.5M;
Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$6.5M
Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists supports three
subprograms: Pre-College Activities such as the National Science Bowl;
the Undergraduate Research Internships for undergraduate students
wishing to enter science, technology and science teaching careers; and
Graduate/Faculty Fellowships for K-16 teachers of science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Each of the subprograms targets a
different group of students and teachers in order to attract a broad
range of participants to the programs and expand the Nation's supply of
well-trained scientists and engineers. Focus of this program is on the
Physical Sciences and other areas of research which underpin the DOE
missions and have, over the last decade, seen a marked decline in the
numbers of undergraduate degrees awarded. Initiated in fiscal year 2004
is the Laboratory Science Teacher Professional Development program that
will provide long-term scientific community support from our National
Laboratories for K-14 STEM teachers.
SCIENCE PROGRAM DIRECTION
Fiscal Year 2002 Appropriation--$149.5M; Fiscal Year 2003 Request--
$137.3M; Fiscal Year 2004 Request--$150.8M
Science Program Direction enables a skilled, highly motivated
Federal workforce to manage SC's research portfolio, programs,
projects, and facilities in support of new and improved energy,
environmental, and health technologies, and to provide continuous
learning opportunities. Science Program Direction consists of four
subprograms: Program Direction, Field Operations, Technical Information
Management (TIM) and Energy Research Analyses (ERA).
The Program Direction subprogram supports Federal staff in
Headquarters responsible for directing, administering, and supporting
the broad spectrum of scientific disciplines. The Field Operations
subprogram is the funding source for the Federal workforce in the Field
complex responsible for providing business, administrative, and
specialized technical support to DOE programs. The TIM subprogram
collects, preserves, and disseminates the scientific and technical
information of the DOE. The ERA subprogram provides the capabilities
needed to evaluate and communicate the scientific excellence,
relevance, and performance of Office of Science basic research
programs.
As part of a restructuring effort, the Office of Science will focus
on its Federal human capital in fiscal year 2004 to effectively respond
to the science needs of the future and to the challenge of an
anticipated 50 percent turnover of retirement-eligible senior
scientists over the next 5 years. Also in fiscal year 2004, the Office
of Science continues to support a corporate DOE information management
system, the Electronic R&D Portfolio Management Tracking and Reporting
Environment (ePME), which enables end-to-end tracking of research
projects, information sharing across programs, and snapshots of the
Department's R&D portfolio. ePME will integrate with the e-Grants
functions of e-Government, the Department's e-Financial Management
System, and the e-Procurement Modernization System.
CONCLUSION
The Office of Science occupies a unique and critical role within
the U.S. scientific enterprise. We fund research projects in key areas
of science that our Nation depends upon. We construct and operate major
scientific user facilities that scientists from virtually every
discipline are using on a daily basis, and we manage civilian national
laboratories that are home to some of the best scientific minds in the
world.
Our researchers are working on many of the most daunting scientific
challenges of the 21st Century, including pushing the frontiers of the
physical sciences through nanotechnology, exploring the key questions
at the intersection of physics and astronomy, and opportunities at the
intersection of the physical science, the life sciences and scientific
computation to understand how the instructions embedded in genomes
control the development of organisms, with the goal of harnessing the
capabilities of microbes and microbial communities to help us to
produce energy, clean up waste, and sequester carbon from the
atmosphere. The Office of Science is also pushing the state-of-the-art
in scientific computation, accelerator R&D, plasma confinement options
and a wide array of other technologies that advance research
capabilities and strengthen our ability to respond to the rapidly
changing challenges ahead.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for providing this opportunity
to discuss the Office of Science's research programs and our
contributions to the Nation's scientific enterprise. On behalf of DOE,
I am pleased to present this fiscal year 2004 budget request for the
Office of Science.
This concludes my testimony. I would be pleased to answer any
questions you might have.
Senator Domenici. With that, we will proceed now to you,
David.
Mr. Garman, nice to have you here. How do you like your
work?
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
STATEMENT OF DAVID K. GARMAN, DIRECTOR
Mr. Garman. Oh, I like it a great deal, Mr. Chairman, and
thank you. And thank you, Senator Craig, for your kind words. I
appreciate this opportunity, and I appreciate the support of
the subcommittee for our work.
As you know, funding for activities in my office is split
between the Energy and Water Development and the Interior
Appropriations bills. Our overall budget request for fiscal
year 2004 is $1.32 billion, a bit more than our request for
fiscal year 2003. However, our fiscal year 2004 request for
activities in the Energy and Water Development Appropriations
is $37.2 million over the amount we requested for fiscal year
2003.
As the Chairman noted, our most notable expansion is in the
area of hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles research and
development, resulting from the President's Hydrogen Fuel
Initiative announced during his State of the Union Address. I
will say just a few words about hydrogen before highlighting
other elements of our proposal.
Our hydrogen technology subprogram is a key component of
the President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. Our fiscal year 2004
request is $48.1 million above our fiscal year 2003 request.
This does not include additional funds that have been requested
for hydrogen in the Offices of Fossil and Nuclear Energy. Our
total hydrogen request is over $100 million. These funds would
be used to establish a national research effort on hydrogen
storage, to enhance technology development for hydrogen
production from renewables and distributed natural gas, to
accelerate work on codes and standards development, to
accelerate work on hydrogen education, and to validate some
hydrogen infrastructure technologies to support fuel cell
vehicles and their test and evaluation.
The increase in funding is designed to enable the industry
to make a commercialization decision on hydrogen fuel cell
vehicles and infrastructure by 2015. We believe this can help
bring affordable hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to the showroom
floor by 2020.
For our solar energy technology program we are seeking
$79.7 million, essentially the same as our fiscal year 2003
request. We want to continue our work to bring down the cost
and improve the reliability of solar photovoltaic systems.
Our wind energy technology program has been successful in
bringing down the cost of electricity generated from wind. Wind
energy systems have been the fastest growing source of
electricity worldwide for over a decade and are now providing
cost-competitive power in high wind speed areas. As a result,
our focus for wind R&D has shifted to larger blades and
turbines using advanced materials that will allow economically
viable development in the lower wind speed areas that are
present more evenly across the Nation.
In fiscal year 2004, we are requesting $41.6 million for
wind energy, which is $2.4 million less than our fiscal year
2003 budget request. This request is in alignment with our
projected needs to achieve our goals.
For our hydropower technology work, we are requesting about
$7.5 million, the same level of funding we requested last year.
As Senator Craig pointed out, our work in this area focuses on
improving the environmental performance of hydropower plants by
developing turbines that reduce fish injury and improve
downstream water quality.
Geothermal energy offers promise as a base load renewable
energy resource, particularly in the Western United States. Our
program focuses on exploration and reservoir technologies and
drilling research to enable industry to locate and produce new
geothermal fields at greatly reduced cost. In fiscal year 2004,
we are requesting $25.5 million for these activities, $1
million less than our fiscal year 2003 request.
Biomass and biorefinery systems present some interesting
challenges and opportunities for us. We know how to make power,
as well as a variety of individual fuels, chemicals, and
products from biomass. But we do not know necessarily how to do
it affordably and competitively. We believe that the synergies
of an integrated biorefinery that makes both power, products,
and fuels cannot only help us reduce our dependence on imported
oil, but expand economic opportunities in rural areas of the
country.
For the first time, we have brought together a diverse
industry together and produced a vision, an R&D road map, that
is helping us to restructure our biomass program and to focus
on the most promising long-term opportunities for these
technologies.
We have also dramatically improved the collaboration
between the Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. In that connection, the farm bill has provided $14
million in mandatory biomass funding, which we are going to
jointly manage with the Department of Agriculture under the
direction of the Biomass Research and Development Board
established under the Biomass R&D Act of 2000.
In fiscal year 2004, we are also requesting almost $77
million for electricity reliability, slightly more than our
fiscal year 2003 request. That program consists of four main
areas, including high temperature superconductivity,
transmission reliability research, distribution and
interconnection energy storage research, and the renewable
energy production incentive.
We are creating a new program office in the Department
bringing various transmission-related activities together. We
look forward to presenting more information to you about that
in the weeks ahead.
PREPARED STATEMENT
For now I ask that my full statement appear in the record.
I am happy to answer any questions the committee may have,
either now or in the future.
Senator Domenici. It will be made a part of the record.
Thank you very much.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of David K. Garman
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the
opportunity to testify before you today on the fiscal year 2004 budget
request for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
(EERE).
As you know, the EERE budget is split between Energy and Water
Development and Interior Appropriations Bills. Our overall budget
request for fiscal year 2004 is $1,320,000,000 compared to
$1,318,651,000 requested in fiscal year 2003. Our fiscal year 2004
request for our Energy and Water Development programs totals
$444,207,000, or 34 percent of EERE's budget, compared to $407,000,000
requested in fiscal year 2003. The most notable programmatic expansions
are in the area of hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles research and
development (R&D), reflecting the priorities and recommendations of the
President's National Energy Policy, the Department of Energy's (DOE)
mission, EERE's Strategic Plan, and the EERE's Strategic Program
Review.
This request reflects EERE's streamlined new organization. Two
years ago, EERE was divided into 31 programs, in 17 offices, stovepiped
into 5 market sectors. Overlapping layers of management and duplicative
and inconsistent business systems generated significant inefficiencies
and made it difficult to ensure accountability and the most cost-
effective application of taxpayer funds. Responding to the President's
Management Agenda and our own Strategic Program Review, we launched a
dramatic restructuring of the EERE program in June 2002. This
restructuring streamlined our organization, eliminating up to four
management levels, and centralizing administration functions into a
single support organization with a focus on developing consistent,
uniform, and efficient business practices. This is arguably the most
dramatic restructuring in EERE's history.
--The restructuring combined all the hydrogen and fuel cell
activities, formerly scattered across two market sectors and
three programs, into a single program for greater efficiency
and synergy.
--The restructuring combined all the bioenergy-related activities,
formerly scattered across three market sectors and three
programs, into a single program focused on advanced
biorefineries. If successful, this research will allow waste
plant matter to be turned into high value chemicals, fuels, and
power.
--The fiscal year 2004 budget is fully aligned with EERE's new
management structure and strategic goals, allowing a strong
linkage between congressional appropriations and the
performance and productivity of EERE's research and development
(R&D) and deployment activities.
The fiscal year 2004 budget supports EERE's R&D and technology
deployment efforts to provide Americans with increased energy security
and independence through utilization of diverse domestic supplies,
greater freedom of choice of technology, and reducing the financial
costs and environmental impacts of energy utilization.
As Secretary Abraham noted recently, the Department has ``. . . an
ambitious, long-term vision of a zero-emissions future, free of
reliance on imported energy.'' We must call upon science, technology,
and the research talents in our national laboratories, universities,
and industry to help us move beyond today's energy choices towards
carbon-free generation of electricity and fuels, including hydrogen.
Secretary Abraham has also made clear that all missions at the
Department flow from our core mission to support national security.
This EERE fiscal year 2004 budget demonstrates that the Department
takes its responsibility toward national security seriously as it does
its responsibilities toward science and technology. The Department has
taken a deliberate and integrated approach to its research and
development portfolio, using the strengths of all DOE programs to
address this central mission. Clearly, environmental security and
economic security underpin national security and each is sustained by
science.
What is more, there is only one way to build an integrated budget
and that is to engage in a vigorous and disciplined planning process
that forces programs to set priorities.
Our EERE fiscal year 2004 budget request has been developed with
these challenges and opportunities in mind.
THE PRESIDENT'S HYDROGEN FUEL INITIATIVE
Mr. Chairman, the big news in our fiscal year 2004 budget is, of
course, the President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, which directly
supports EERE's number one priority to dramatically reduce or even end
dependence on foreign oil.
Our nation currently imports 55 percent of our oil--a dependence
that is projected to rise to 68 percent by 2025. Since two thirds of
the 20 million barrels of oil we consume each day is used for
transportation, we must focus on finding alternative, domestic fuels to
power our transportation system if we ever expect to reverse this
trend.
In his recent State-of-the-Union address, President Bush announced
a groundbreaking plan to transform our nation's energy future from one
dependent on foreign petroleum, to one that utilizes the most abundant
element in the universe--hydrogen. The concept for this initiative is
simple, yet profound--create automotive operating systems that run on
hydrogen rather than gasoline. The benefits will be considerable and
widespread. Hydrogen can be produced from diverse domestic sources,
freeing us from a reliance on foreign imports for the energy we use at
home. Hydrogen can fuel ultra-clean internal combustion engines, which
would reduce auto emissions by more than 99 percent. And when hydrogen
is used to power fuel cell vehicles, it will do so with more than twice
the efficiency of today's gasoline engines--and with none of the
harmful emissions. In fact, fuel cells' only byproduct is pure water.
On February 6, 2003, at an event on energy independence in
Washington, D.C., featuring new uses for fuel cells including
automobiles, the President reiterated his commitment to his new
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative stating, ``The technology we have just seen is
going to be seen on the roads of America. And it's important for our
country to understand that by being bold and innovative, we can change
the way we do business here in America; we can change our dependence
upon foreign sources of energy; we can help with the quality of the
air; we can make a fundamental difference for the future of our
children.''
During his speech on energy independence, the President also
provided details of his initiative stating, ``We must make hydrogen
more plentiful and produce it in the most efficient, cost-effective
way. That is one of our challenges . . . We must increase the capacity
of hydrogen storage systems. And we must put in place the
infrastructure to get hydrogen to the consumers. There would be nothing
worse than developing a car and having no place for somebody to find
the fuel. People aren't going to buy many cars if they can't refuel
their car.''
To support the President's vision we need to make the necessary
research and development investments to develop vehicles powered by
hydrogen fuel cells and the infrastructure to support them. The
President's Initiative will accelerate research and development on
hydrogen production, delivery, storage and distribution, and establish
the necessary safety-related codes and technology standards. In
addition, it will accelerate the demonstration of fuel cell vehicles
and hydrogen infrastructure so that these technologies can be validated
under real world conditions.
The government's role here is clear. We will coordinate and cost-
share the high-risk R&D work of numerous private sector partners and
our national network of science laboratories. Government coordination
of this undertaking will also help resolve one of the difficulties
associated with development of a commercially viable hydrogen fuel cell
vehicle: the ``chicken and egg'' question. Which comes first, the fuel
cell vehicle or the hydrogen production and delivery-refueling
infrastructure to support it? The President's Initiative, in
conjunction with FreedomCAR--the public-private partnership with U.S.
automakers launched last year to accelerate the development of
practical, affordable hydrogen fuel cell vehicles--answers the question
by proposing to develop both systems in parallel. By so doing, federal
investments will help to advance commercialization of hydrogen fuel
cell vehicles and infrastructure by 15 years, from approximately 2030
to 2015.
To meet this challenge, the President's fiscal year 2004 budget
request commits $1.7 billion over five years for the FreedomCAR
partnership and Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. This includes $1.2 billion
for hydrogen and fuel cells--$720 million in ``new'' money (i.e., not
included in baseline projections of spending). EERE's overall fiscal
year 2004 budget request for the FreedomCAR partnership and Hydrogen
Fuel Initiative is $256.6 million. There is an additional $15.5 million
for hydrogen production research requested by the Offices of Fossil and
Nuclear Energy, and $0.7 million requested by DOT Research Special
Projects Agency.
Mr. Chairman, we stand on the cusp of revolutionary change in
personal transportation in this country--and the world. The President
has completely recast this Nation's vision of personal transportation
by describing a future where vehicles will be fueled by hydrogen--and
he is taking the steps necessary to lead us to that future.
FISCAL YEAR 2004 ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT BUDGET REQUEST
For fiscal year 2004, we request a $37,207,000 increase above our
fiscal year 2003 amended budget request.
Let me now briefly review the portfolio of Renewable Energy
Resources programs within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy. Before I begin, I'd like to highlight how the President's
Management Agenda has helped us focus our resources and become better
stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. For example, the R&D investment
criteria help us guide budget decisions to ensure we fund only
activities that can provide real public benefits and that the private
sector would not undertake without our help. And the budget-performance
integration initiative, through the Program Assessment Rating Tool
(PART), has helped us to focus on continuing to improve our performance
goals, and to identify program planning and management strengths and
challenges.
Two years ago, the President's Management Agenda pointed out that
Federal government R&D programs in general ``do not link information
about performance to our decisions about funding. Without this
information, decisions about programs tend to be made on the basis of
anecdotes, last year's funding level, and the political clout of local
interest groups.'' This year, our funding request is in better
alignment with what it will take to achieve our goals.
Hydrogen Technology
The Hydrogen Technology Subprogram is a key component of the
President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative.
The program works with industry to improve efficiency and lower the
cost of technologies that produce hydrogen from renewable energy
resources and natural gas. In addition, the program works with the
national laboratories to reduce the cost of technologies that produce
hydrogen directly from sunlight and water. Hydrogen can be used in
stationary applications for residential, commercial and industrial fuel
cells, as well as in fuel-cell powered vehicles. Development of this
clean energy carrier will lessen our dependence on imported fuels in
both stationary and transportation applications.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $87,982,000 ($48,101,000 more than
our fiscal year 2003 budget request) for the Hydrogen Technology
Subprogram (there is an additional $15.5 million in the Offices of
Fossil and Nuclear Energy for a total of $103.5 million). This will be
used to establish a national research effort on hydrogen storage; to
enhance technology development for hydrogen production from renewables
and distributed natural gas; to accelerate codes and standards
development; to create a major hydrogen education effort; and to
validate hydrogen infrastructure technologies to support fuel cell
vehicle test and evaluation.
Our fiscal year 2004 budget request represents a significant
consolidation and realignment in the Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, and
Infrastructure Technologies Program when compared to the fiscal year
2003 budget request. This budget request reflects the functional
priorities of the program: hydrogen production and delivery, hydrogen
storage, hydrogen infrastructure validation, safety and codes/standards
related to hydrogen and its infrastructure, and education and
crosscutting analysis. The new budget structure consolidates all
electrolyzer research and development under production and delivery.
In addition, the fiscal year 2004 request proposes that all fuel
cell activities be performed under Interior and Related Agencies
Appropriation. This is a change since some fuel cell work was requested
under Energy and Water Development Appropriation in fiscal year 2003.
Also, all hydrogen production, delivery, and storage work is proposed
to be under the Energy and Water Development Appropriation request in
fiscal year 2004. This is a change since some hydrogen storage and off-
board natural gas reforming work was requested under Interior and
Related Agencies in fiscal year 2003.
The increase in funding for fiscal year 2004 compared to the fiscal
year 2003 request enables hydrogen production, storage, and
infrastructure technology goals to be accelerated 15 years to enable
industry to make a commercialization decision regarding hydrogen
infrastructure and fuel cell vehicles by 2015.
Specific fiscal year 2004 program activities include:
--Accelerating development of low-cost, small-scale reformers and
separation technology to enable hydrogen generated from
distributed natural gas to achieve $3.00 per gasoline gallon
equivalent by 2005 and to be competitive with gasoline by 2010
($1.50 per gasoline gallon equivalent, delivered, pre-tax).
--Accelerating and expanding research on the production of hydrogen
from renewable resources to reach a 2008 goal of $2.55 per
gasoline gallon equivalent at the plant gate.
--Creating a national research effort in hydrogen storage
technologies, based on low pressure, solid state materials, to
enable achievement of 2010 goals of 2.0 kWh/kg (6 percent by
weight hydrogen storage capacity), 1.5 kWh/l and $4/kWh.
--Conducting operations of the Las Vegas fueling station to determine
emissions and system efficiency. Initiating limited
``learning'' demonstrations of hydrogen refueling stations to
support fuel cell vehicle test and evaluation.
--Providing leadership in developing safety-related codes and
standards and conducting necessary coordination with the
international community so that U.S.-based technology can
compete globally.
These efforts support the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, and will enable
the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for the showroom floor
by 2020. Success of these programs will begin to eliminate the need for
imported oil, while simultaneously beginning to eliminate emissions and
significantly reducing greenhouse gases from America's transportation
fleet without affecting the freedom of personal mobility we demand.
Solar Energy Technology
The EERE Solar Energy Technology Program develops solar energy
systems that are more efficient, reliable, and affordable for
converting sunlight into electricity, space heat, hot water, and
lighting. A primary objective of the program is to increase the value
of solar energy by putting it at the point of use, making it an
integral part of super efficient, state-of-the-art residential and
commercial buildings and industrial establishments.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $79.7 million for the Solar Energy
Technology Program, which is level funding with our fiscal year 2003
request. The fiscal year 2004 activities are as follows:
Under Photovoltaic (PV) Energy Systems, we will increase technology
development to support module and systems reliability improvements. In
thin film modules, we will increase funding for accelerated lifetime
testing and diagnostics to determine failure modes in pre-commercial
products. In systems, we will increase funding for the inverter
initiative to accelerate attainment of a next-generation grid-tied
inverter with a greater than twenty-year lifetime. We will begin the
second year of three-year contracts under the PV Science Initiative
with universities to develop next-generation PV materials and devices
that have the potential for dramatic cost reductions. The PV Science
Initiative will more fully develop new ideas and concepts that can
replace conventional technologies with a new generation of lower-cost,
easier-to-manufacture technologies. In the Thin Film Partnership, the
program will continue funding the most promising industry cost-shared
contracts on technologies making the greatest achievements.
In Solar Building Technology Research, we will continue development
of a polymer water heater capable of operation in cold climates and
test a hybrid solar daylighting system.
The Concentrating Solar Power subprogram will be phased-out in
accordance with the National Academy of Science recommendations.
Zero Energy Buildings
The focus of the Zero Energy Buildings concept involves efforts to
integrate renewable energy systems into building designs and
operations, such as integrating photovoltaic, water heating systems
and/or space conditioning systems. These buildings use renewable energy
sources so that the buildings produce as much energy as they consume on
an annual basis.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $4.0 million for the Zero Energy
Buildings program, $4.0 million less than our fiscal year 2003 budget
request. The program will evaluate its activities to ensure no
duplications or overlaps with Interior-funded efforts in the Building
Technologies Program.
As part of the reorganization of EERE in fiscal year 2002, Zero
Energy Buildings activities have been moved from the Solar Energy
Program to the Buildings Technologies Program. This shift will enable
more effective access to the residential and commercial building
industries for Zero Energy Buildings technology developers and expand
the range of opportunities for industry participation and cost sharing.
The Zero Energy Buildings activities will continue to maintain
effective technical coordination with the Solar Energy Program.
In fiscal year 2004, we will focus on completing the evaluation and
monitoring of first generation Zero Energy Buildings homes, built by
leading homebuilders, to verify a 50 percent reduction in annual
utility bills to $600 per year for an average sized home in a temperate
climate.
Wind Energy
Wind energy systems have been the fastest growing source of
electricity worldwide for over a decade, and are now providing cost-
competitive power in high wind speed areas. As a result, the
Department's focus for wind energy R&D has shifted to advanced
technologies to allow economically viable development in the nation's
more widespread lower wind speed areas. These areas are on average five
times closer to major load centers, providing an opportunity to relieve
transmission constraints as a major wind energy barrier, and over
twenty times more abundant than currently-economic high wind areas.
Under the Technology Viability key activity, the program is underway
with a broad range of cost-shared public/private partnerships coupled
with laboratory supporting research and testing to achieve low wind
speed development goals for both large turbines used for utility scale
wind farms, and for smaller (<100 kilowatt) turbines for use in
distributed power applications. The Technology Application key activity
targets remaining technical and institutional barriers to wind energy
use, including grid systems integration, resource assessment, outreach
to states and stakeholders, and support for near-term industry needs
such as certification testing.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $41,600,000 for the Wind Energy
subprogram, $2.4 million less than our fiscal year 2003 budget request.
The request is in alignment with our projected needs to achieve our
goals.
In fiscal year 2004, the Wind Energy subprogram will select and
commence several new industry partnership projects for concept studies,
component development, and/or full system development under competitive
solicitations issued in 2003 for both large wind turbines and small,
distributed power scale turbines. It will also conduct research efforts
in wind turbine aerodynamics, structures, materials, advanced
components, and wind characteristics to support development of new and
improved tools and technology for low wind speed system design and
applications. Advanced systems integration studies will assess
opportunities for coordinated operation of wind and hydropower
generation, and production of hydrogen from wind and hydropower.
Hydropower
In the case of hydropower, the program focuses on improving the
environmental performance of hydropower plants by developing turbines
that reduce fish injury and improve downstream water quality. The
Department has engaged the expertise of the national laboratories to
study and better understand hydropower's biological and environmental
effects. Study results have been critical to the development of design
thresholds for industry to use in their efforts to improve existing
turbine designs.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $7,489,000 for the hydropower
subprogram, the same level of funding as our fiscal year 2003 request.
Under Technology Viability: Advanced Hydro Turbine Technology, we
have increased funding in fiscal year 2004 by $500,000 to support
testing of new prototype hydro turbines.
Under Technology Application: Low-Head/Low-Power R&D, we have
decreased funding in fiscal year 2004 by $500,000, to reflect a shift
in funding to higher-priority testing of new prototype hydro turbines
under Technology Viability.
In fiscal year 2004, the hydropower subprogram will develop and
test full-scale (greater than 1 MW) prototypes of retrofit and new
environmentally friendly turbine designs under competitively selected
public private partnerships awarded in prior years. The Department will
also complete the low head/low power resource assessment of all 50
states, identifying the undeveloped hydropower resources that could be
developed without building new impoundments.
Geothermal Technology
The Geothermal Technology Development Program works in partnership
with U.S. industry to establish geothermal energy as an economically
competitive contributor to the U.S. energy supply, capable of meeting a
portion of the Nation's heat and power needs, especially in the West.
The program focuses on exploration and reservoir technologies, and
drilling research because better understanding of geothermal resources
and cost-effective means of accessing those resources will enable
industry to locate and produce new geothermal fields at greatly reduced
cost.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $25,500,000 for geothermal program
activities, $1 million less than our fiscal year 2003 budget request.
In fiscal year 2004, the program will step up work on Enhanced
Geothermal Systems (EGS) cost-shared projects at three competitively-
selected sites. In fiscal year 2004, we will increase funding for EGS
by $2.5 million over our fiscal year 2003 budget request due to the
high priority of this program area and budget projections supporting
the field development phases of the cost-shared projects. The program
will also support at least five cost-shared, competitively-selected,
exploration projects initiated with industry to validate new technology
and find and confirm new geothermal resources within the United States.
Biomass and Biorefinery Systems R&D
In fiscal year 2004, we are requesting $69,750,000 for Biomass/
Biorefinery Systems, a $16,255,000 decrease from our fiscal year 2003
budget request.
For the first time we have brought a diverse industry together and
produced a vision and R&D roadmap that has increased the level of
industry investment. This roadmap has allowed us to begin the process
of rebuilding the program and focusing on the most promising long-term
opportunities for these technologies. We have dramatically improved the
collaboration among federal agencies, especially the Department of
Agriculture (USDA). In addition, the Farm Bill provided direction and
funding to USDA to work with DOE in advancing biomass technologies. In
fact, the Farm Bill provides $14 million in fiscal year 2004 mandatory
biomass funding for the Department of Agriculture, which DOE's Biomass
Program will jointly manage at the direction of the Biomass Research
and Development Board established under the Biomass R&D Act of 2000.
The Department has focused its R&D efforts to high-priority, long-
term technologies, both within the Biomass Program and the entire EERE
portfolio. Earlier last year, the EERE bioenergy activities were
integrated into one office to help focus resources on a limited and
more coherent set of goals and objectives, increasing collaboration
with industry, reducing overhead expenses, and exploiting synergies
among similar activities in support of a future biorefinery industry.
This focus on a clear set of goals, substantial leveraging of research
funding with industry, and the transfer to industry of a number of
demonstration activities that industry should continue to pursue
without federal support has allowed a reduction in the need for funding
to achieve our goals.
Our fiscal year 2004 activities will include additional long-term,
high-risk R&D in thermochemical conversion in support of biorefinery
development. Efforts will continue on the testing of clean up and
conditioning technologies and catalysts needed for biomass gasifiers.
An industrial partner will validate the performance of an organism
capable of fermenting multiple biomass sugars for ethanol production.
Intergovernmental Activities
Intergovernmental Activities support the program mission by
providing consumers with improved choices for efficient and renewable
energy products. Intergovernmental Activities are managed as part of
the Weatherization and Intergovernmental Program, which is comprised of
grant-related and technical assistance activities brought together
through the reorganization of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
(EERE) in fiscal year 2002. Combining these activities will improve the
Department of Energy's effectiveness in deployment of efficient and
renewable energy technologies by streamlining administration of program
funding and consolidating management of competitive awards. The former
Renewable Implementation and Support activities have been given
stronger focus by inclusion in the Weatherization and Intergovernmental
Program.
The Intergovernmental Activities subprogram receives appropriations
from both the Energy and Water Development and the Interior and Related
Agencies subcommittees. Interior activities focus on energy efficiency
measures, while Energy and Water Development activities focus on
maintaining working relationships with international and Native
American tribal governments that inform and assist consumers with
renewable and efficient energy options.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $12,500,000 for Intergovernmental
Activities, $2.307 million less than our fiscal year 2003 budget
request.
--The International Renewable Energy Program promotes clean U.S.
exports, expanding the market of U.S. industries and reducing
the cost of energy to our trading customers while improving
their environment, reducing air and water pollution and
greenhouse gas emissions, and creating new jobs. In fiscal year
2004, we request $6.5 million for international activities (the
same level of funding as our fiscal year 2003 request).
--The Tribal Resources Program provides assistance to Native American
Tribes and Tribal entities in assessing energy resources,
comprehensive energy plan development, energy technology
training, and project development. In fiscal year 2004, we
request $6.0 million to assist Tribes in ways to use renewable
energy technologies on Tribal lands. Funds will be awarded
competitively.
The U.S. Country Studies Program has completed its mission of
showing how the United States could cost-effectively reduce global
greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency and renewable energy
exports and cooperative agreements with other countries. The funding
has been shifted to support Administration initiatives such as the
Energy Efficiency for Sustainable Development and the Global Village
Energy Partnership Initiatives announced at the World Summit for
Sustainable Development. DOE expects to leverage these investments with
loans and private investments. The goal is to attain significant energy
savings and environmental and quality-of-life improvements for the host
countries and their governments and citizens.
Electricity Reliability
Electricity Reliability provides funds for our Distributed Energy
and Electricity Reliability Program. This Program leads a national
effort to develop a flexible, smart, and secure energy system through
advanced technologies that improve capacity utilization of the
transmission and distribution system and through tools that provide
real-time information to system operators. This Program offers
solutions that bridge both the supply- and demand-side of the energy
equation and the need to upgrade our electric energy infrastructure.
The National Energy Policy and the follow-up National Transmission
Grid Study (NTGS) published in May 2002 identified critical needs to
modernize the nation's electric delivery system. This budget initiates
key responses to the 51 recommendations of the Grid Study including
bottleneck assessment, interaction with FERC on standard market design
and critical research and development needs. The fiscal year 2004
program consists of four main areas: High Temperature Superconductivity
(HTS), Transmission Reliability Research, Distribution and
Interconnection, Energy Storage Research, and Renewable Energy
Production Incentive.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $76,866,000 for Electricity
Reliability, $360,000 more than our fiscal year 2003 budget request.
For the HTS program, we request $47.838 million in fiscal year 2004
to develop applications of superconducting materials for the
electricity delivery system. High temperature superconducting materials
can be used to make wire conductors that are capable of carrying more
current than existing conductors while having virtually no electric
line losses of energy. The lack of electrical resistance of HTS
materials makes it possible to have super-efficient generators,
transformers, and transmission and distribution cables that reduce
energy losses by half while using equipment that is about one-half the
size of present electrical systems.
Transmission system operations have been made more complex by the
growing volume of wholesale power transactions. As a result, data
collection and visualization tools for utility planners and system
operators are required that boost diagnosis and response times and
increase the efficiency of market operations. The Transmission
Reliability activity has developed and installed prototype voltage and
frequency monitoring and visualization tools that allow transmission
operators to immediately recognize and correct system problems. Other
reliability tools are being installed, such as prototype satellite-
synchronized devices that afford operators a real-time view of system
conditions, provide information for reliable operation of the grid, and
enable more efficient operation of competitive electricity markets. In
fiscal year 2004, we request $10.720 million to expand R&D on grid
monitoring, data collection, and visualization tools.
The Transmission Reliability R&D subprogram request is proposing a
new initiative in fiscal year 2004--the National Transmission
Infrastructure (NTI) Initiative, with requested funding of $3.0
million. This initiative responds to the NTGS. The NTI Initiative
addresses the technical and market-related recommendations in the NTGS
that call specifically for DOE actions. Actions include ``national-
interest'' transmission lines assessment, and advanced technologies for
relief of transmission congestion, including sensors, monitoring and
control for real time operation, advanced conductors, analysis of new
system configurations and dynamics, and demand response. In addition,
increased emphasis will be placed on field validation and testing and
on providing more technical assistance to states and regions on topics
such as regional resource and transmission planning.
Interconnection, communications, and control systems are needed to
allow for a more ``plug & play'' design that can revolutionize energy
markets and create new products and services for industrial,
commercial, and governmental consumers who are interested in hassle-
free distributed energy solutions. The Distribution and Interconnection
(formerly DER Electric Systems Integration) activity is developing
standards, conducting tests, and performing analysis for the
interconnection and integration of distributed energy technologies for
customers and electric distribution systems. It includes activities to
develop the microgrid concept, to analyze the impact of high levels of
penetration of distributed energy devices on the distribution system,
and to address technical, institutional, and regulatory barriers to the
expanded use of distributed energy resources. In fiscal year 2004, we
request $7.249 million for this Subprogram.
The Energy Storage Research activity addresses important challenges
in the efficient operations of electric generation, transmission, and
distribution systems. As a peak shaving tool during times of
transmission overload, or during price peaks, energy storage allows
more efficient allocation of energy resources without necessarily
producing additional emissions. Energy storage systems can be used to
provide back-up power and power quality support to consumers,
potentially saving billions of dollars in downtime costs, damaged
equipment, and disrupted operations. In fiscal year 2004, we request
$5.0 million for Energy Storage Research activities to support higher
priority Transmission Reliability research and development, and take
advantage of potential synergies with expected developments under the
Vehicle Battery Program, which significantly increased its funding
request for fiscal year 2004.
The Renewable Energy Production Incentive Program stimulates
electricity production from renewable sources owned by States or
smaller private sector groups. In fiscal year 2004, we request $4.0
million, the same funding level as our fiscal year 2003 budget request.
Departmental Energy Management Program (DEMP)
DEMP targets services at DOE facilities to improve energy and water
efficiency, promote renewable energy use, and manage utility costs in
facilities and operations. In fiscal year 2004, we request $2.3 million
for DEMP activities, $700,000 less than our fiscal year 2003 budget
request. DEMP will audit facilities to identify energy conservation
opportunities; provide funding for best practices identification and
dissemination; and accomplish energy conservation retrofits through
direct funding and alternative financing.
National Climate Change Technology Initiative (NCCTI)
In response to the President's commitment of the United States to
develop a sensible, science-based approach to the issue of climate
change, facilitate progress toward achieving climate change goals,
near-term and long-term, and implement the President's National Climate
Change Technology Initiative, the Department has requested in fiscal
year 2004 a total of $40 million for the NCCTI Competitive Solicitation
program. Funding is requested in four R&D program accounts, as follows:
Energy and Water Development: EERE (Energy Supply--$15 million) and NE
(Energy Supply--$2.3 million); and Interior and Related Agencies: EERE
(Energy Conservation--$9.5 million) and FE (Fossil Energy R&D--$13.2
million).
These funds will be used to support a NCCTI competitive
solicitation aimed at exploring concepts, technologies and technical
approaches that could, if successful, contribute in significant ways
to: (a) future reductions in or avoidances of greenhouse gas emissions;
(b) greenhouse gas capture and sequestration (permanent storage); (c)
capture and conversion of greenhouse gases to beneficial use; or (d)
enhanced monitoring and measurement of greenhouse gas emissions,
inventories and fluxes in a variety of settings.
The NCCTI competitive solicitation is intended to spur innovation
and accelerate technical progress on climate change technology
development. The competitively selected research will complement DOE's
existing portfolio of climate change-related R&D activities, and will
be consistent with their missions, goals and objectives. The Climate
Change Technology Program will manage the NCCTI competitive
solicitation.
Facilities and Infrastructure
The Facilities and Infrastructure budget addresses capital
investments at two DOE laboratory sites: the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL), and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
NREL is the Nation's premier laboratory for renewable energy R&D.
It also works to improve energy efficiency, advance related science and
engineering, and facilities technology commercialization. In fiscal
year 2004, we request $4.2 million for operating expenses.
For ORNL in fiscal year 2004, we request $750,000 to complete the
design of a new multistory building of approximately 52,000 square feet
to provide facilities for EERE R&D activities. This building will be a
state-of-the-art facility designed to operate as a demonstration of
energy efficiency technology. Energy Star certification will be sought
for applicable portions of the building.
Fiscal year 2004 funding is requested to award the Architectural-
Engineering contract for the project design and to provide project
management. This budget provides half of the requested amount for
Project Engineering and Design. Because industry will directly benefit
from this facility, we are requiring 50 percent industry cost share for
all phases of the project, including building design, as recommended in
the National Transmission Grid Study. The project also is consistent
with the ORNL Strategic Facilities Plan and complementary to the
Facilities Revitalization Project of the DOE-ORNL Office of Science
initiative to modernize their national laboratories.
Program Direction
Program Direction provides the federal staffing resources as well
as associated properties, equipment, supplies and materials required
for supporting the responsive management and oversight of programs.
Program Direction also funds support service contractors, equipment,
travel, and crosscutting activities.
In fiscal year 2004, we request $16.577 million, $390,000 more than
our fiscal year 2003 budget request.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, we welcome the challenge
and the opportunity to play a vital role in this Nation's energy future
and to support our national security.
This completes my prepared statement. I would be happy to answer
any questions you may have.
Senator Domenici. Mr. Magwood, you are last, but not least.
Congratulations on the nuclear work. And we finally got some
good funding in some big areas this year. It took about 3
years, but we are there now. Proceed to give us a summary, and
your statement will be made a part of the record.
Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM D. MAGWOOD, IV, DIRECTOR
Mr. Magwood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is an exciting
year to be here before you speaking about the nuclear energy
program. As you have observed, we have gone through a difficult
time over the years. After many years of planning and many
years of talking to our stakeholders in the research community,
it is a pleasure to be here with a budget that really lays the
groundwork for the future.
The programs proposed in our budget reflect the
administration's commitment to nuclear energy and one that is
interested in doing what is necessary to get new nuclear
technologies deployed in the United States and around the
world. The salient change in our fiscal year 2004 budget
request from previous years is the fact that we are now in the
process, as Senator Craig mentioned, of integrating the Idaho
National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory as part of
our nuclear family. We are in the process of planning for the
future of this laboratory and working with other labs across
the country. I expect INEEL to become the center for our
overall efforts to develop advanced nuclear reactor and fuel
treatment technologies.
ADVANCED FUEL CYCLE INITIATIVE
One of the activities at INEEL, in association with many
other labs that we expect to see grow over the years, is our
budget proposal for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI)
that you mentioned earlier. With the $63 million proposed in
fiscal year 2004, this is one of the Secretary's capstone
initiatives. Through this major research program, we will
develop proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel treatment and
transmutation technologies that can reduce the volume and
toxicity of spent fuel. We think this is a very important
objective.
There are many unique aspects of this program. It involves
many of our national laboratories in a comprehensive and
integrated fashion. It brings universities, particularly the
University of Nevada-Las Vegas and Idaho State University, as
key R&D partners. Most importantly, it leverages the experience
and expertise of our international partners. Already, simply
through signing cooperative agreements, we have gained $100
million worth of research data.
Senator Domenici. What is this on and from whom?
Mr. Magwood. Working with our international partners
through agreements we signed with France and Korea and most
recently the European Union, we have gained access on----
Senator Domenici. On what subject?
Mr. Magwood. Advanced fuel cycles.
Senator Domenici. Good.
Mr. Magwood. Over $100 million worth of data has been
available. This is very important.
GENERATION IV NUCLEAR ENERGY SYSTEMS
For AFCI to be successful, however, it is important that we
move forward with Generation IV nuclear power systems. Two
years ago, when we launched the Generation IV program to
develop advanced reactor technologies, we were able to reach
out to the international community. We now have a total of 10
countries in the Generation IV international forum, including
the United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan,
Republic of Korea, Republic of South Africa, Switzerland and,
of course, the United States working together on advanced
technologies.
The work of the forum has been very intensive and very
cooperative. We are very pleased with what we have been able to
accomplish. The level of international cooperation has been
extraordinary. As an example, a French scientist was assigned
to the INEEL for a year to help formulate the Generation IV
technology road map. More recently, just this week, in fact,
the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry has assigned one of
its senior officials, Ms. Helen Wiser, to work at the
Department of Energy for the next 2 years. I am pleased to say
that she is here with me today to see her first Senate hearing
in the United States.
Last year, at a meeting in Japan, the Generation IV
National Forum presented Secretary Abraham and other senior
officials with the completed technology road map that
identifies six important technologies for the future. One of
these technologies, the Very High Temperature Reactor, is a
technology that we are very interested in exploring. We believe
that this technology could be the future source of cost-
effective, commercial-scale production of hydrogen, the power
of a growing economy, without emitting greenhouse gases and
other pollutants.
NUCLEAR HYDROGEN INITIATIVE
That brings me to our other major new initiative, the
Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative, which is part of the National
Hydrogen Fuel Initiative announced by President Bush. Through
this program, we expect to develop and demonstrate by 2007 new
technology that can produce hydrogen that could in the future
be coupled with Generation IV nuclear power systems. This is
very challenging work, but it is work that we believe can and
must be done.
NUCLEAR POWER 2010
Finally, it was around this time last year that Secretary
Abraham announced the Nuclear Power 2010 Program. This effort
is aimed at paving the way for the construction of new nuclear
power plants by the end of the decade. We have started
cooperative cost-share projects with three utility companies,
Entergy, Exelon, and Dominion Resources, to demonstrate the
early site-permitting process. We expect that this joint
government-industry effort will result in three applications to
the NRC this summer to obtain permits for sites operated by our
R&D industry partners.
In 2004, we will work with industry to respond to NRC
questions as these applications achieve successful conclusion
by 2005. While our tactical and regulatory demonstration work
is proceeding well, it is clear that the business and financial
issues facing prospective builders of nuclear power plants are
the biggest hurdles that need to be overcome. This was
highlighted by an independent study commission by the
Department from Scully Capital last year. This financial
advisory firm found that addressing key financial and business
risks associated with building new plants is essential if we
are going to see new plants in this country. We are continuing
to discuss these risks with industry and hope to make future
suggestions as to how those risks can be mitigated.
PREPARED STATEMENT
With that, I will keep my oral remarks brief and look
forward to your questions.
Senator Domenici. Thank you very much.
[The statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of William D. Magwood, IV
Mr. Chairman, Senator Reid, and Members of the Subcommittee, it is
a pleasure to be here to discuss the fiscal year 2004 budget submission
for DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology.
Over the last 30 years, nuclear power has risen to become the
second most important source of electric energy in the United States
and at the same time, the most operationally economic. The benefits of
nuclear power as a clean, reliable and affordable source of energy are
a key to the economic and environmental underpinnings of this Nation. A
central mission of the Department's nuclear energy research program is
to help enhance the basic technology and, through some of the most
advanced civilian technology research conducted today, chart a course
to the next leap in technology. In fiscal year 2004, we are proposing a
$388 million investment in nuclear research and development and for the
Nation's nuclear science, technology and education infrastructure, a 6
percent increase over the current year appropriation.
This budget request responds to the President's priorities to
deploy new generation capacity to fortify U.S. energy independence and
security while making significant improvements in environmental
quality. It builds on the important work started over the last 2 years
to deploy new nuclear plants in the United States by the end of the
decade, to develop advanced, next generation nuclear technology, to
strengthen our Nation's nuclear education infrastructure, and it
proposes exciting new priorities.
In fiscal year 2004, we propose to launch the Nuclear Hydrogen
Initiative to use high temperature nuclear energy systems for clean
hydrogen production as part of the President's Hydrogen Fuel
Initiative. We are also proposing the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative
with research aimed at developing proliferation-resistant fuel
treatment and fuel cycle technologies that can reduce the volume and
toxicity of commercial spent nuclear fuel and maximize energy from
nuclear fuel.
During fiscal year 2002, we pursued significant management reforms
in order to implement the President's Management Agenda (PMA),
including a major reorganization to better reflect the Administration's
priorities, improve overall management and reduce the number of primary
organizational units from eight to three. To assure overall
accountability, PMA performance measures were cascaded from the
Director through our Associate Directors to the staff. We also placed
great emphasis on developing meaningful R&D investment criteria and
applying the criteria to our nuclear research initiatives. The nuclear
program successfully recruited and hired new junior professional staff
and we are working to put to new senior management team in place at the
Idaho Operations Office, who will oversee the Department's activities
at the INEEL and lead the continuing transition of this laboratory back
to its nuclear research roots.
The NE budget request also supports the infrastructure for
production of medical research isotopes, space and national security
power systems, and the site and security infrastructure for Argonne
National Laboratory-West in Idaho. I will now provide you more detail
on our nuclear R&D initiatives and the linkages between them.
ADVANCED FUEL CYCLE INITIATIVE
Of the issues affecting future expansion of nuclear energy in the
United States and worldwide, none is more important or more difficult
than that of dealing effectively with spent nuclear fuel. After a long
and difficult process, the country is moving forward with a geologic
repository, and we are on schedule to submit a license application to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of 2004.
With these successes, we are able to pursue research that can
optimize the use of the first repository and possibly reduce the need
for future repositories. As one of the Secretary's capstones, the
fiscal year 2004 Budget proposes an aggressive research and
demonstration program--the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative--with an
investment of $63 million in fiscal year 2004 to explore advanced,
proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel treatment and transmutation
technologies that can reduce volume and toxicity of spent nuclear fuel
for a geologic repository. If successful, these same technologies offer
benefits of enhancing national security by reducing inventories of
commercially-generated plutonium and enhancing energy independence by
recovering the energy value contained in spent nuclear fuel.
The Department is proposing a research program leading to
demonstrate proliferation-resistant fuel treatment technologies to
reduce the volume and radioactivity of high level waste, and the
development of advanced fuels that would enable consumption of
plutonium using existing light water reactors or advanced reactors.
With the President's request, the Department will continue work toward
demonstration of proliferation-resistant fuel treatment technology and
continue design of transmutation fuels for future use with current
reactor technologies.
For the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative to be successful, advanced
fuel treatment and transmutation research and development must be
integrated with the development of Generation IV nuclear energy
systems, particularly with those reactor technologies that can produce
very high energy neutrons that would be needed to transmute a wide
variety of toxic radioactive species. To support this goal, the
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative will develop the advanced proliferation
resistant fuels and fuel cycle systems for Generation IV reactors.
GENERATION IV NUCLEAR ENERGY SYSTEMS
Two years ago, we launched the Generation IV program to develop
advanced reactor technologies for commercial deployment after 2010 but
before 2030. These advanced reactors offer significant advances in
sustainability, proliferation-resistance, physical protection, safety
and economics. Development of these reactors is being pursued by the
Generation IV International Forum, a group of ten leading nuclear
nations (United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan,
Republic of Korea, Republic of South Africa, Switzerland, and the
United States), which last year selected six promising technologies for
joint research, development, and demonstration. While the Department
has not yet decided upon which of these technologies it will eventually
focus, all of the technologies are of considerable interest. The six
innovative, next-generation technologies include two gas-cooled
reactors, one water-cooled reactor, two liquid-metal-cooled reactors,
and a molten salt-based reactor concept.
Key research objectives for these technologies will include such
activities as demonstrating advanced fuels and materials. The goal of
the initiative is to resolve the fundamental research and development
issues necessary to establish the viability of these concepts. By
successfully addressing the fundamental research and development
issues, the concepts are highly likely to attract future private sector
sponsorship and ultimate commercialization. In fiscal year 2003 and
fiscal year 2004, the Department will establish international
partnering agreements to guide joint research and begin research and
development on several of the reactor concepts, including very high
temperature reactors that would support cost-effective production of
hydrogen.
NUCLEAR HYDROGEN INITIATIVE
Generation IV is closely linked to our new Nuclear Hydrogen
Initiative, aimed at demonstrating economic commercial-scale hydrogen
production using nuclear energy. Today, through electrolysis, we can
convert water to hydrogen using electricity but we believe that for the
future, very high temperature reactors coupled with thermo-chemical
water splitting processes offer a more efficient technology for
production of large quantities of hydrogen, without release of
greenhouse gases.
The hydrogen initiative grew out of the success of our Nuclear
Energy Research Initiative, in particular, two investigator-initiated
projects that identified a number of advanced reactor concepts capable
of producing large quantities of hydrogen with high efficiency and low
cost. Since then, we have awarded three additional NERI projects to
study nuclear production of hydrogen. Beginning this year and under the
international component of NERI (I-NERI), we are working in cooperation
with Commissariat d'Energie Atomique (CEA) on a three-year effort to
develop laboratory scale demonstration of the thermo-chemical water
splitting process.
The funds provided in fiscal year 2003 will allow us to accelerate
the Nuclear Hydrogen Technology Roadmap so that by fiscal year 2004, we
would begin implementing the research and development that is defined
by the roadmap. We would also continue exploring laboratory scale
demonstration of some of the key processes involved in nuclear hydrogen
production, such as other thermo-chemical water splitting processes or
high temperature electrolysis as well as development of high
temperature heat exchangers.
NUCLEAR POWER 2010
The President's budget supports continuation of Nuclear Power 2010
in fiscal year 2004 to demonstrate, in cost-shared cooperation with
industry, key regulatory processes associated with licensing and
building new nuclear plants in the United States by the end of the
decade. As concluded in a business case study conducted in 2002 by
financial advisory firm Scully Capital, addressing key financial and
business risks associated with building and licensing the first few
nuclear plants is essential to proceeding with new nuclear plants in
the United States.
In fiscal year 2004, the requested funds will continue to support
the activities associated with submitting and achieving Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) approval of early site permits and
development of Combined Construction and Operating License
applications.
Last year, the Department initiated cooperative cost shared
projects with three generating companies--Entergy in Mississippi,
Dominion in Virginia, and Exelon in Illinois, to demonstrate the new
regulatory process for siting new nuclear power plants. These companies
are pursuing applications for Early Site Permits for new plants at
sites where they currently operate nuclear power plants--at Entergy's
Grand Gulf site, Dominion's North Anna site, and at Exelon's Clinton
site. The Early Site Permits will be submitted to the NRC by the end of
this fiscal year and in fiscal year 2004, we will continue our support
of these regulatory demonstration projects to achieve successful NRC
staff review and approval of the siting application in 2005.
Key to the deployment of new nuclear power plants, besides a viable
site, is selection of a nuclear power plant design and utility
application for a combined Construction and Operating License from the
NRC. In fiscal year 2003, the Department will solicit and award
industry cost-shared projects to implement activities to achieve
deployment of new nuclear power plants. This effort includes the
necessary analysis and planning for technology selection and project
cost determination, additional siting activities as appropriate,
advanced reactor development and certification, and demonstration of
the combined construction and operating licensing process.
UNIVERSITY REACTOR FUEL ASSISTANCE AND SUPPORT
The Department sponsors the University Reactor Fuel Assistance and
Support initiative, which supports the enhancement of the U.S. nuclear
science and technology educational infrastructure. The need for trained
and qualified nuclear scientists has not diminished over the years, and
in fact, because of increasing retirements in the nuclear field, demand
today exceeds supply.
We are very pleased that the President's budget includes $18.5
million for this program for fellowships, scholarships, nuclear
engineering research, and for critical support to university research
reactors. In fiscal year 2002, the Department launched the Innovations
in Nuclear Infrastructure and Education program, encouraging
universities to form ground-breaking partnerships with national labs,
the private sector, and other universities to strengthen nuclear
engineering education and optimize the use of research reactors. In
fiscal year 2002, DOE issued awards to four consortia of universities
and their partners. In fiscal year 2003, DOE will be able to support an
additional award and will continue support for this program in fiscal
year 2004.
RADIOLOGICAL FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
This budget request also includes $63 million in funds to maintain
critical research, isotope and space and national security power
systems facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Los Alamos
National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, and Brookhaven
National Laboratory in a safe, secure, and cost effective manner to
support national priorities.
The fiscal year 2004 budget request also includes $13 million in
funds transferred from the National Nuclear Security Administration to
continue the Uranium-233 project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This
project is aimed at stabilizing materials left over from the Cold War
to address a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board recommendation,
while extracting isotopes from the uranium that are needed for very
promising medical research.
INEEL--DOE'S COMMAND CENTER FOR NUCLEAR R&D
Finally, this budget supports the Secretary's realignment of the
mission of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
to focus the future of the site on nuclear research and development. As
the Department's leading center of nuclear research and development,
this laboratory is the ``command center'' for our efforts to develop
advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies, including development of
space nuclear power and propulsion technologies.
While the nuclear energy program involves the collective talents of
universities, the private sector, international partners, and our
national laboratories--Argonne, Los Alamos, Sandia, and Oak Ridge among
them--the rebuilding of the Departments' nuclear program underway today
would not be possible without the dedicated scientists, engineers and
supporting staff of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory.
Clearly, environmental cleanup will remain a major focus of the
Department for the near-term but real progress is being made that will
clear the way for expansion of nuclear research and development. With
this year's budget, $110 million has been transferred from the
environmental cleanup program to the Department's nuclear program to
manage laboratory infrastructure and security.
This year's budget request combines the infrastructure for the
INEEL previously funded by the Office of Environmental Management, for
the Test Reactor Area landlord, and for the infrastructure of Argonne
National Laboratory West under the Idaho Facilities Management program.
Similarly, the Safeguards and Security program, combines the security
funds INEEL and Argonne-West, into a single program. With significantly
challenges to security since September 11th, we are very pleased that
our current-year appropriation is substantially higher than last year
and that the fiscal year 2004 request, at $54 million, is about 13
percent higher than this year.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, this concludes my
prepared statement. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may
have.
Senator Domenici. I have a series of written questions
which we will submit. We would appreciate your answering them
as soon as you can.
And we would like to just talk with you for a little while
here. Dr. Orbach, about 5 years ago, a number of science
initiatives directed at the lagging activities of the United
States in nuclear energy and nuclear activities were started by
this subcommittee. One of the least noticed but most important
is the study, which you were in charge of, to evaluate the low-
level radiation and its actual effects rather than the formula-
extracted radiation expectations that have been in existence
for a long time using linear projections.
Can you talk about that study for a minute? How is it
going? And are you certain that it is moving ahead such that
when we are finished, those who have never wanted this done and
always thought we should stay stuck on that linear formula will
be satisfied that it is done neutrally by peer excellent
scientists?
LOW-LEVEL RADIATION
Dr. Orbach. Yes, we currently have 53 research projects at
laboratories and universities on low-level radiation. We have
learned already that your last comment is correct, namely that
the extrapolation from the high-end radiation to low doses
simply is not accurate, does not work, and misses the essential
biology. We found already in our probes and our research
programs that there are intercellular activities that take
place. One cell influences another. So the conventional idea
that radiation would act only on the DNA of a particular cell
simply does not hold up at these low levels. We have been able
to look at adaptive responses, how cells adapt to radiation,
bystander effects, how cells adjacent to cells that suffer
radiation damage are affected. Individual genetic responses to
radiation at this level are very different, and there may well
be a genetic difference among individuals. We are
mathematically modeling radiation risk, as well.
We have received about 50 proposals for new research that
will be peer reviewed later this spring. New emphasis for this
research is to look at whole systems, rather than single cells.
This peer review process will be done fairly and independently.
As a consequence, those projects selected will be on the basis
of scientific merit alone.
Senator Domenici. But, Doctor, while I appreciate your
knowledge on it and the fact that it is very widespread and
exciting, on the other hand, the importance of this is to
determine at a point in time, sometime, whether or not that
formula is the right one to be using for low-level radiation
doses.
As you know, that formula has supplied the information for
nigh on decades now as to what the negative effect might be of
a certain dosage of low level radiation. The consequence of
that might not seem like much, as we discuss here, but it is
generally perceived as dramatic in America.
It determines how much cement you have to put on a site
that has once been exposed to low level radiation, so there is
no fear on the other side of it. It establishes cleanup
standards for all of the waste sites, because there has been
such enormous fear that if that formula has been used and what
we have done by way of spending money and the like to assure
safety is rather extravagant even to an undisciplined eye and
ear and mind, and now we have to kind of prove it over the
years or we have the constant excessive costs that are
attributable to the residue of nuclear activity.
So where are we in that regard? Five more years? Ten more
years? Will we come to some finality, as I have described it
here?
Dr. Orbach. I believe we will achieve a finality. I would
like to provide for the record our best estimate of when we
might be able to achieve that. What we have already discovered
is what you have just stated, namely that the extrapolation is
not an accurate way of describing the effects of low-level
doses of radiation. To make that quantitative into standards of
the sort you described, I would----
Senator Domenici. It would be awhile.
Dr. Orbach [continuing]. Need to look at it, and I will
respond back to you with that.
[The information follows:]
Low Dose Radiation Research Program
The Low Dose Radiation Research Program has the challenge of
conducting research that will inform the development of future national
radiation risk policy for the public and the workplace. The Program has
challenged scientists to quantify and understand the mechanisms of
molecular and cellular responses to low dose exposures to radiation,
currently 0.1 Gee (10 rads) or less, doses well below those previously
studied using older, less sensitive research tools. Indeed, for the
first time, some of our scientists have actually been conducting
research at radiation doses that overlap or approach the maximum
allowable radiation doses above background for the public (100 mrem/
year above background) or for nuclear workers (500 mrem/year above
background).
Mathematical models are, and will continue to be, used to predict
health risks from low doses of radiation by ``integrating'' information
obtained from human epidemiologic studies and from laboratory research.
Beginning in 1999, we asked an initially skeptical research community
to study biological effects at very low doses. They have risen to the
challenge with increasingly important and relevant ideas submitted and
progress made each year. Most scientists in the field believe that we
still do not know enough about the biological consequences of low dose
radiation exposure to be able to completely model human health risk.
However, this year the Low Dose Program is challenging scientists in
the risk modeling community to begin a systematic evaluation of how the
new data from research in this program can (or cannot) be used in new
mathematical models that estimate the health risks of low dose
radiation exposure. The program issued a call for new research, DOE
Notice 03-20, on February 19, 2003, that builds on our previous
research and is designed to jump start this process of biologically-
based risk modeling. This exciting new research opportunity will also
provide valuable feedback on additional laboratory research that is
needed to make biologically-based risk modeling a reality.
Our best estimate of the time required to reach sufficient
understanding of the biological consequences of low dose radiation
exposures to resolve the uncertainty and controversy surrounding the
use of the linear no-threshold model is based on current budget levels,
progress we have made to date, and the anticipated progress of current
and future research. The new modeling research that will be funded
later this year will require approximately 1\1/2\ to 2 years to
complete. The results of this research will lead to new laboratory-
based research aimed to fill remaining critical gaps in the information
needed to develop the new biologically-based risk models for radiation
exposure, a process that typically takes 3 years. Finally, results of
this research will again be used to develop improved biologically-based
risk models. Under current levels of funding, we estimate a total of 6
to 7 years is required to accomplish the research described above.
Given budget uncertainties as well as the uncertainties of
research, progress could be somewhat faster or slower. As scientists,
we never know if the next experiment will yield an unexpected
breakthrough. If one or more critical breakthroughs occur over the next
few years, progress could certainly be faster. At the same time, we
cannot know for certain prior to the completion of ongoing and planned
research if additional research will be necessary. If another round of
laboratory research and modeling is required at the end of the process
described above, it could, instead, be closer to 10 years before we
have a definitive answer. We are certainly encouraged by progress that
has been made to date and anxiously await the research results that
will be forthcoming in the future.
Senator Domenici. I would like to know that. And, sir, I
would also like to know that for those who have complained
about it not being the right way to do it--and I would like to
hope that every step of the way you have gone to the scientific
community and attempted to get the right answer. See, this is
the real Achilles heel for the anti-nuclear people. The anti-
nuclear people do not want this study to succeed, because so
long as that formula is used, it is enormously expensive to do
anything that has low-level radiation.
And if it is wrong, which most scientists say it is, we
ought to conclude that it is. So some would like you not to
succeed. And I urge you, as the head person, to be aware of
that and make sure that it is succeeding.
Dr. Orbach. I commit myself to that. This is a study based
solely on the science, on the quality of the science. And the
judgments will be on that basis alone.
Senator Domenici. Now you have another part of the
science--Senator, would you like to participate? Do you want to
make an opening statement or ask questions?
Senator Dorgan. No. I am just listening to you. As soon as
you are finished, I will ask some questions. But why do you not
proceed?
Senator Domenici. Thank you.
NANOSCIENCES
You have another very exciting activity within your domain
of the nanoscience centers. Now there is no question that
scientists that know, obviously including the great Dr. Davis
who you have alluded to from Rice University, I believe, that
got the Nobel because of research on nanoscience--and that was
in the very early stages, very early determinations. But they
have all concluded that this is something very fundamental in
terms of its capacity to offer new and exciting things to be
done and ways to do things going beyond the atomic structure
that we currently assume is part of everything. We go inside of
it, which is the nano part.
Now we have five centers. One is in my State, a combination
of Sandia, Los Alamos, an Air Force laboratory? Then you have
four more?
Dr. Orbach. Yes.
Senator Domenici. Now are you in charge of those centers,
or how are they being managed?
Dr. Orbach. Yes, my office is in charge of those centers.
They are administered through the Basic Energy Sciences Program
within the Office of Science. All five of those centers were
accomplished through, again, a peer review process. Each of
them have held open workshops of the order of 400 scientists
coming to each of the workshops. We have just had a very large
meeting last week in Washington to talk about the initiatives.
Each of the five, although, obviously, there has to be
overlap, because some of the fundamentals are similar, choose
their own areas of expertise where they can make the greatest
contribution. The two laboratories in your State, for example,
will be looking at the nano electronics area. This is because
of the extraordinary expertise that both Los Alamos and Sandia
have in that area. They will be looking not only at
electronics, but also photonics, at the nano scale.
So what we do is to build on the local strength of the
laboratories to focus on specific areas of interest. The Luhan
Center at Los Alamos is now the largest spallation source for
neutrons in the United States, and that is closely coupled to
the nanotechnology initiative. So we can do, not only
statistics, but also dynamics in situ while the materials are
being grown.
We also are pursuing similar approaches using our light
sources, or the spallation neutron source that is under
construction at Oak Ridge.
So each of the centers has its own flavor and its own
focus. This will give the United States leverage over any other
country in the world because, where it is true that each
country is investing in what I call table-top nanotechnology,
the United States is using very large facilities in intimate
relationship to the nanotechnology growth and determination,
physical property determination, centers so that, as we grow
them, we can study their properties.
This is something that no other country will have access to
on their own soil and will give, we believe, American
scientists and engineers and our companies a great advantage.
Senator Domenici. And those centers are funded, albeit in
small amounts, in this budget.
Dr. Orbach. Yes, the three centers are funded for
construction, including the one in New Mexico. The other two
centers are either in the engineering design stage at
Brookhaven National Laboratory, or we have an arrangement with
the State of Illinois where they will build a building at
Argonne and we will provide the equipment.
So the latter two are in the initial stages. By 2008 all
five laboratories are expected to be up and running.
Senator Domenici. They had a meeting here, did they not,
pretty recently, the nanoscientists?
Dr. Orbach. Yes, indeed.
Senator Domenici. I was there.
Dr. Orbach. I think you were one of the principal
spokesmen.
Senator Domenici. Let me ask, on the other part of little
things, microengineering, is that a specialty within the
Department, or are those things being done just by the
laboratories on microengineering or micromachines?
MICROMACHINING
Dr. Orbach. The micromachining is an integral part of this.
It is a way of getting down to the nano scale.
Senator Domenici. Yes. I understand.
Dr. Orbach. It is being funded by ourselves, as well, yes.
Senator Domenici. Have you seen a micromachine put on a
chip?
Dr. Orbach. I have seen the micromachines producing chips.
I do not think I have seen one on a chip. That is wonderful.
Senator Domenici. Have you seen--you have not seen a micro
engine working on a chip?
Dr. Orbach. Oh, yes, indeed. You can produce little motors
now at the micron level or submicron level, which is very
exciting.
Senator Domenici. And you know how you have a chip now that
has all the different things we talk about being on there?
Micromachines are now so small and so controlled that you take
a piece of material, much like the foundation of a chip, and
you put on it scores and scores of little, tiny engines. And
they are called microengines. And when they put the proper
machinery on it to expand the size, you can actually watch
these little, tiny, tiny machines work. They work just like a
turbine, in and out. And they are trying to figure out in due
course what you will use them for.
Dr. Orbach. Oh, these have phenomenal applications. For
example, in medicine----
Senator Domenici. Right.
Dr. Orbach [continuing]. These machines can be placed
inside the body at the cellular level.
Senator Domenici. Right.
Dr. Orbach. Very exciting.
Senator Domenici. And you may properly instruct the machine
so that, for instance, they will remove the plaque in your
heart instead of having surgery. At least they are thinking
about that kind of thing.
Let me complete just two more questions, and then move to
nuclear. And then I will yield to the Senator.
Let us talk about nuclear for a minute, one more with you.
Who is in charge more or less of moving ahead to see that the
United States is not, on the one hand, moving with a hydrogen
engine and on the other hand leaving us without a way to make
hydrogen in large quantities? We do not find hydrogen around.
We have to go make it.
And my understanding is, right now, there are only a couple
ways to make it. One is natural gas. And we surely would not
want to do that, I would not think. By creating huge new uses,
there is going to be a shortage of natural gas soon. And the
other would be some kind of nuclear reactors. Is that your
area, or your area, or whose?
HYDROGEN
Mr. Garman. Actually, we are working on it together.
Senator Domenici. Who is together?
Mr. Garman. In the Department of Energy, the Office of
Science, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,
the Office of Nuclear Energy, and the Office of Fossil Energy
are all working together in a coordinated way. We have, in
fact, been producing what we call our hydrogen posture plan,
which is a way to describe to the Congress and the world
precisely how we are working together to tackle some of the
daunting technological challenges that we face, not only in
production, but in storage.
There is no one entity in the Department that should do
that. We do hydrogen, but we depend on the work in his lab, for
instance, to find a breakthrough in a hydride material to solve
a storage problem. So we are going to work very closely
together on all of these issues.
Senator Domenici. Well, it should not surprise you, if we
do an energy bill, and we are well on the way to having one
written, we are surely going to have a major section on the
research and development of the car engine and whatever the
United States is going to need to produce the hydrogen in the
future.
Senator Dorgan. Senator, would you mind if I could ask a
question about that?
Senator Domenici. Go ahead.
Senator Dorgan. I have to be upstairs at 3:30.
Senator Domenici. Sure.
Senator Dorgan. If I would be able to ask a question
following up on the one you just asked----
Senator Domenici. Go ahead.
Senator Dorgan [continuing]. And then perhaps one of Dr.
Orbach, as well.
The issue of hydrogen production is one in which you can
produce hydrogen from natural gas. You can also produce
hydrogen from nuclear. But hydrogen is ubiquitous. It is
everywhere. You can produce hydrogen through electrolysis by
separating the hydrogen and oxygen in water. In fact, this past
weekend I rode on a commercial bus that was on the city streets
of a city out west that was a fuel cell bus being powered by
hydrogen. The supply of hydrogen on a demonstration basis came
from several different sources; one from solar energy, second
from electrolysis, third from natural gas. And there are many
other ways to produce hydrogen, as well.
But Mr. Garman is quite correct, that we need to evaluate
both production, transportation, and storage, all of which are
important in moving towards this area.
And I agree with you, Mr. Chairman, that stationary engines
are important, as well as the issue of how to use fuel cells to
power vehicles. And I am really anxious to work with you on
this. I think we can make a real difference, both on the Energy
Committee and also on the Appropriations Subcommittee dealing
with these issues.
Senator Domenici. We will.
Senator Dorgan. The President has put his administration on
course in support of this, which I think is very important. I
have indicated I think it is timid in terms of funding, but I
do not mean that as a heavy criticism, because it is no small
feat to have this administration say, ``Let us move in this
direction.'' I just want to make that point, because I am very
excited about this and want to work with Mr. Garman and you and
others on it.
Can I just ask a question about the funding of other
renewables? I asked you the question the other day, Mr. Garman,
and indicated my concern about reduction in funding of biomass,
level funding or slightly reduced funding in solar, wind, and
some other areas. Has the decision to move toward fuel cells or
a hydrogen-based economy meant that you have had to reduce what
otherwise would have been provided for other renewables?
OTHER RENEWABLES
Mr. Garman. No, sir. I do not believe it has. We looked at
each of these programs independently. After you apply the
congressionally-mandated reductions to the 2003 levels, funding
for solar is down $4.1 million. But we still have $80 million
to work with. Funding for wind is down $700,000. So we still
have a very robust request in this area. In hydropower, funding
is actually up a couple million dollars. And in geothermal
funding, it is down $3.4 million. But again, we still have a
robust $25.5 million program to work with.
We do have a significant reduction in the biomass program
of some $17 million in this account. That is substantial. We
think that with the availability of the Department of
Agriculture money, which was not available to us before, and
the fact that we are revamping and restructuring this program
to achieve greater results with the money we have, we have a
very strong and vibrant biomass program. The biomass program is
emerging to be the strongest it has been in years.
Senator Dorgan. Well, some of us want to watch those
renewable programs carefully. I am pleased you are there. I
have a lot of confidence in your ability.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Garman came out to North Dakota and spoke
to a wind energy conference. Seven hundred and fifty people
showed up at a wind energy conference. They are very, very
interested in the possibilities there.
So, Mr. Garman, I look forward to working with you on a
range of these issues.
I would like to ask Dr. Orbach, you were at Riverside, as I
recall----
Dr. Orbach. Yes.
Senator Dorgan [continuing]. Prior to this appointment. And
we have talked previously about micro and nanotechnologies. I
note the five centers. And I note the granting process that you
are involved in with grant funds. You are well aware of my
concern about where the grants in this country go from the
Federal Government. We have a process that is kind of a
perpetual process of renewal. Those large institutions that get
the grants will always get the grants, because they are the
major part of the peer review of who is going to get grants in
the future.
If you take California, Texas, Massachusetts, and New York
and take a look at the amount of research money that goes from
the largest researcher in the world, that is, the Federal
Government, to those States, it predicts where future economic
opportunities and future centers of excellence will be. And so
I am very concerned about making sure that the great talents in
the rest of the country are put to use on micro and
nanotechnologies, as we proceed. And I know you are familiar
with that, given the work that you were interested in at
Riverside. I hope that you will keep that in mind in your
current position as well.
In your testimony, you say the two major achievements for
2002, and you talk about them. Can you give me a notion of what
you think you might be telling the committee next year about
the two major achievements for 2003? What is out there that you
think is really fascinating, right on the edge, that is going
to be something that represents significant breakthroughs?
SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENTS
Dr. Orbach. Well, if I could address the first part of your
question, because I feel very strongly about it. Our
responsibility in our office is to our Nation. If we are not
careful, we are going to leave States behind in economic
development. I have been working very hard through EPSCoR
through the other programs we have in the Federal Government,
to encourage economic development for every State.
Your State has some absolutely first-class people and
investments. The investment that I visited personally at North
Dakota State University was impressive. Your Caterpillar
relationships up there already show that you can work and work
well.
The program I was involved in was a sharing program between
the North Dakota State University and the University of
California Riverside. That program is underway. We are
encouraging in the nanotechnology area scientists from all over
the country to participate. And it is hard when the facilities
are not available immediately and locally. So we are
encouraging partnerships to enable that to happen. You will see
me work very assiduously on the spreading of economic
development opportunities across this Nation. Otherwise, we
will leave States behind, and that is not acceptable.
If you ask a scientist what is going to happen in a couple
of years, it is always with some trepidation that they will
respond, because we have been wrong so often in our
expectations.
I can say that there will be something exciting at this
hearing next year. My guess is that it will be in the
biological area, for example, Genomes to Life. The work there
on hydrogen production, carbon sequestration, the new
initiatives that we are looking at in the nanotechnology area
in biology are going to be extraordinary.
Some of our large machine designs are also coming along.
The light source at Stanford, which is a free electron laser,
will increase the intensity in the X-ray, hard X-ray region by
10 orders of magnitude. We may enable biologists to be able to
look at a single molecule and determine structure, rather than
having to grow a single crystal, as they do now.
Senator Dorgan. Do you have one publication, Dr. Orbach,
that describes some of the really interesting areas of
research?
Dr. Orbach. Yes, we do. I would be delighted to provide
that to you. Thank you.
[The information follows:]
Accomplishments and Awards
BASIC RESEARCH WITH HISTORIC RESULTS
The Office of Science maintains our Nation's scientific
infrastructure and ensures U.S. world leadership across a broad range
of scientific disciplines. It supports research and development
programs enabling the Department of Energy to accomplish its missions
in energy security, national security, environmental restoration, and
science.
Office of Science research investments have yielded a wealth of
dividends, including significant technological innovations, medical and
health advances, new intellectual capital, enhanced economic
competitiveness, and improved quality of life for the American people.
Research supported by the Office of Science has made major
contributions to development of the Internet; magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) and medical isotopes; composite materials used in
military hardware and motor vehicles; and x-ray diagnostics of computer
chips and other high-tech materials.
Office of Science research investments also have led to such
innovations as the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of new forms of
carbon, non-invasive detection of cancers and other diseases, improved
computer models for understanding global climate change and new
insights on the fundamental nature of matter and energy.
Research sponsored by the Office of Science has produced many key
scientific breakthroughs and contributed to this Nation's well-being:
--Helping to Develop the Internet
--Computing for Science's Sake
--Pioneering the Human Genome Project
--Expanding the Frontiers of Discovery
--Improving the Science of Climate Change Research
--Enhancing National Security
--Improving Energy Security
--Medical Imaging
--Restoring Sight to the Blind
--Enabling World-Class R&D
HELPING TO DEVELOP THE INTERNET
The Office of Science helped develop the Internet. Really!
In 1974, the Office of Science first connected its geographically
dispersed researchers through a single network, a revolutionary, cost-
effective mechanism that provided supercomputing power to civilian
researchers and established a network model adopted by other Federal
Government agencies and States for their researchers.
Later, the Office of Science collaborated with DARPA, NSF and NASA
to transform the many independent networks of the 1980's into a single
integrated communications network that was the basis for today's
commercial Internet.
More recently, the Office of Science created the multicast backbone
(M-Bone), the Internet videoconferencing virtual network that launched
a new era in scientific collaboration in the early 1990's by linking
anyone with a workstation with audiovisual capabilities and a high-
speed connection to the Internet.
COMPUTING FOR SCIENCE'S SAKE
The Office of Science long has been respected as the world leader
in developing and using advanced computers as tools for scientific
discovery and to achieve breakthroughs in targeted applications
disciplines.
It pioneered the transition to massively parallel supercomputing
(involving 1,000 or more processors), producing the software, scalable
operating systems and other technologies needed and demonstrating its
value in fields ranging from seismic imaging to materials modeling.
The Office of Science also installed the first supercomputer
available to the civilian research community that broke the peak
performance barrier of 1 teraflop--or a trillion operations per
second--and developed the first civilian scientific application to
achieve actual performance over 1 teraflop.
PIONEERING THE HUMAN GENOME PROJECT
The Office of Science initiated the Human Genome Project in 1986.
It also developed DNA sequencing and computational technologies
that made possible the unraveling of the human genetic code and
published a complete draft of the DNA sequence of the human genome in
2001.
This historic undertaking to discover the genetic blueprint of
human beings will enable scientists to identify more genes responsible
for diseases and develop new and diagnostic and treatment
possibilities.
Now the Office of Science is harnessing the biotechnology
revolution to develop clean energy and repair damage to our environment
through the Genomes to Life Initiative.
EXPANDING THE FRONTIERS OF DISCOVERY
The Office of Science funded the research that led to one of the
great intellectual achievements of the 20th century: the discovery of
all but one (the electron) of the most fundamental constituents of
matter, namely quarks and leptons, which confirmed the Standard Model--
physicists' current theory of matter and the forces of nature--and led
to 13 Nobel Prizes.
The Office of Science supported the 1996 Nobel Prize-winning
discovery of a new form of carbon, known as ``Bucky Ball,'' which is
spurring a revolution in carbon chemistry and may lead to a profusion
of new materials, polymers, catalysts, and drug delivery systems.
Now the Office of Science is underwriting research to solve the
mystery of ``dark energy,'' perhaps responsible for the remarkable
recent finding that the expansion of the universe is accelerating,
rather than slowing due to gravity as expected.
IMPROVING THE SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH
The Office of Science initiated the Climate Change Research Program
in 1978 to evaluate the environmental and health consequences of long-
term energy solutions. This was the first research program in the U.S.
to investigate the effect of energy-related emissions of greenhouse
gases, especially carbon dioxide, on climate and the environment.
The Office of Science also has developed software and computer
systems to model and simulate environmental conditions and project
climate change under varying emissions scenarios.
The Office of Science's climate change research program is the
third largest in the United States--and the only one that is focused
specifically on improving the scientific basis to understand, predict,
and assess the effect of energy-related emissions on climate and the
environment.
ENHANCING NATIONAL SECURITY
The Office of Science has funded research leading to technologies
that make our lives safer in many ways. These include:
--neutron detectors that can identify concealed nuclear weapons and
land mines and are used for arms control and nonproliferation
verification;
--new holographic computerized imaging technology that identifies
hidden weapons, even non-metallic ones, through the clothing of
airline passengers;
--smoke detectors that sense smoke by detecting changes in the
ionization of the air; and
--advanced sensors that can detect explosives, narcotics, and
chemical and biological agents--and many other innovations that
will contribute to homeland security.
IMPROVING ENERGY SECURITY
The Office of Science has contributed to improved energy savings
through several discoveries, including:
--lithium batteries that offer high-energy storage capacity and an
environmentally benign alternative to the harmful lead used in
conventional batteries;
--new and improved metals, plastics and other composite materials
used in military hardware and motor vehicles; and
--superconducting wires that can lead to more efficient types of
power generation, transmission, and electrical devices--and
thereby save energy and reduce emissions.
In addition, the Office of Science's research into fusion energy is
poised to pay big dividends. Scientists are figuring out the way the
sun and stars produce their energy--and that can have broad
applications for mankind, since fusion power holds important promise as
a clean, inexhaustible energy source.
MEDICAL IMAGING
The Office of Science is responsible for key advances in positron
emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which
permit non-invasive and improved detection and diagnosis of medical
conditions.
RESTORING SIGHT TO THE BLIND
The Office of Science is now sponsoring research and development of
an artificial retina, which can restore sight in blind patients with
macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosum, and other eye diseases.
A microelectronic chip implanted in the eye captures light signals
and visual information, bypasses damaged photoreceptors, and
electrically stimulates viable layers of the retina, thereby enabling
the blind to see.
ENABLING WORLD-CLASS R&D
Throughout its history, the Office of Science Development has
designed, constructed and operated many of the most advanced research
and development facilities in the world, which keep the United States
in the forefront of scientific discovery and technological innovation.
These include neutron scattering facilities, synchrotron radiation
light sources, the superconducting Tevatron high-energy particle
accelerator, the world's first linear collider, the continuous electron
beam accelerator, the relativistic heavy ion collider (the highest-
energy ``atom smasher'' in the world) and a Tokamak fusion test
reactor.
[Clerk's Note.--Attachments included with the preceding
information have been retained in subcommittee files.]
Senator Dorgan. Well, let me again say I will be anxious to
work with you.
And, Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me the
opportunity to----
Senator Domenici. You are welcome.
I noticed when you mentioned the location of these science
facilities, you mentioned the four big States. One little State
does all right, New Mexico.
Senator Dorgan. I just did not want to advertise it.
But I know how well New Mexico does, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Domenici. That is because we have those big nuclear
laboratories and have to put up with all that nuclear stuff for
so long. Such a terrible burden; that is what some people
think. They want to close them up. If they have any more Los
Alamoses or Sandias, open them up in our State. That would be
fine.
I am just kidding, you understand.
Let me just say to all of you that I am very, very pleased
with the way the whole Department is growing in terms of
science. I am somewhat concerned that we move ahead as quickly
as possible in the nuclear research areas, because there seems
to me to be no way out for us and for the world but to find a
new generation of nuclear power plants.
And, Mr. Magwood, I know that you are charged with that.
And we will try in our new energy bill to even broaden that
authority and move on with it. You are charged under the Energy
Department to move ahead with the next generation. You call it
nuclear power IV. What does that phrase mean in terms of moving
ahead with that research?
GENERATION IV NUCLEAR ENERGY
Mr. Magwood. I think you are referring to the Generation IV
Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative.
Senator Domenici. Correct.
Mr. Magwood. While we have very good technologies available
today that are available to the market, the technologies such
as the AP 1000, the ABWR from U.S. companies, and others that
are available internationally, there is a prospect that we
might be able to develop new advanced technologies that deliver
on the original promises of nuclear energy, that is,
technologies that are incredibly safe and present no
conceivable hazard to people outside of the plant site,
technologies that are extraordinarily economic and competitive
even with natural gas, and technologies that eliminate the
issues about proliferation.
We believe this is possible in a new generation of
technologies. What we have accomplished so far is that the
international community has agreed on what those technologies
might be. Now is the time, as you have mentioned, to move from
the planning stage, now that we have decided what those
technologies could be, to the laboratory and ultimately to the
field to prove that these technologies work.
Senator Domenici. Well, do you feel comfortable with the
level of funding in the budget? Are there one or two items that
you would like to share with us, either on the record or later,
that are of importance to you with reference to being
underfunded, as far as moving us forward in the nuclear area?
Mr. Magwood. We really are on the very beginning of what I
think is a very exciting time for our activities. There are
things that we will be able to do as time goes on that will
require more funding. For where we are right now, I think we
are doing okay. I am very pleased with the budget request that
we have put forth. I believe that as our plans become public,
there will be opportunities in the future that will require
additional resources, but I think well-deserved resources.
DOMESTIC ENRICHMENT
Senator Domenici. Let me just stay with you for a minute.
The Department has commented on the need for a new domestic
enrichment capacity as a means of maintaining a reliable and
economical U.S. enrichment industry. One of the ventures that
is being bantered around as an opportunity to accomplish this
is led by the European consortium of Urenco, a company with a
proven record in centrifuge enrichment technology. I know that
you are familiar with that company and with that process, are
you not?
Mr. Magwood. Yes, I am.
Senator Domenici. Do you have any concern that the efforts
of Urenco to build a new facility in the United States would in
any way pose a national security concern?
Mr. Magwood. No, none at all.
Senator Domenici. Do you believe that the development of
new enrichment capacity is sufficiently important to the United
States, as far as our energy security, that the development of
this facility by Urenco should be encouraged and facilitated by
the Department of Energy?
Mr. Magwood. Absolutely. We are doing everything we can to
help at this stage.
Senator Domenici. That is already happening.
Mr. Magwood. Yes.
ADDITIONAL COMMITTEE QUESTIONS
Senator Domenici. I thank you. And I thank all of you. And
the questions we give you, please answer them as soon as you
can.
[The following questions were not asked at the hearing, but
were submitted to the Department for response subsequent to the
hearing:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Pete V. Domenici
INTERNATIONAL THERMONUCLEAR EXPERIMENTAL REACTOR PROJECT WITHIN FUSION
Question. Dr. Orbach, each of the sub-programs funded under your
office are looking and planning towards substantial new research
investments or construction of the ``next big user facility'' that will
occupy the construction wedge that has been filled in recent years by
the SNS construction project, and will be filled in the next few with
the construction of the nanoscale science centers. Almost all of these
projected expenditures are beyond what is contemplated in the projected
baseline for the Office of Science. I would like to go over some of
those with you.
Dr. Orbach, you've outlined the Administration's recommendation for
the United States to rejoin the international fusion energy
experimental program, called ITER (for the International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor.) Our participation in ITER will cost $1 to $1.5
billion over the next 10 years. The Administration has proposed taking
a very timid step down that path by requesting only $2 million for
fiscal year 2004. When will the big expenditures come?
Answer. Assuming that the negotiations proceed as planned,
construction of ITER is currently planned to start in 2006, so we would
expect to request construction funding in our fiscal year 2006 budget
proposal. Also, the Administration has requested $12 million for fiscal
year 2004.
Question. Why should the Congress or our international partners for
that matter, believe the Department will secure the resources to both
make our international contributions and maintain a healthy program
here in the United States?
Answer. Secretary Abraham has stated publicly his intention to
request additional funds for the construction of ITER as well as for
the maintenance of a robust domestic fusion program. Further, President
Bush said on February 6, in the context of the Hydrogen Fuel
Initiative, that he looked forward to working with you on a successful
effort on the ITER project.
Question. Is the Administration prepared to request the increased
budgets in future years to meet this large commitment without
negatively impacting other Science programs?
Answer. The Administration will continue to request budgets that
honor our commitment to the ITER project while maintaining a strong
research program across the Office of Science.
Question. Since ITER represents only one of several promising
fusion research directions, will the Department continue to fund
alternatives to the ``tokamak'' path towards fusion that is the focus
for ITER?
Answer. Yes, the Secretary restated his commitment to a robust
domestic program as he announced the President's decision to join the
ITER negotiations. Part of that robustness is the continuation of our
program in innovative confinement concepts as we strive to prepare for
the most attractive energy embodiment of fusion in the future.
ADVANCED COMPUTING
Question. Last year, Japan raced ahead of the United States in the
high-performance computing wars when it completed the world's fastest
computer--the 40 teraflop Earth Simulator. As you are aware, the
Japanese Earth Simulator was based on vector architecture that the U.S.
supercomputing industry had largely abandoned. What does the United
States need to do to catch up?
Answer. As you may know, much of the U.S. computer industry takes
exception to premise that we have lost leadership (broadly defined) in
high-performance computing because of a single Earth Simulator.
Nevertheless, I take your question as addressing leadership in the
areas of computational science for which the Earth Simulator has been
designed, such as climate change. To revitalize and/or ensure ongoing
U.S. leadership in strategic areas of computational science, we need to
initiate an aggressive R&D program based on a strategy to deliver world
class supercomputers for scientific applications. The program must be
coordinated with DOE-NNSA and other Federal agencies with high-
performance computing missions, to leverage existing investments in
high performance computing and to establish a single, inter-agency
strategy for high-performance computing. We expect to participate in
this endeavor by supporting academic researchers, national laboratory
scientists and engineers in partnerships with the U.S. computer
industry to tailor computer designs and to provide the software
programming infrastructure needed to ensure maximum performance of
codes on complex scientific systems. We need to establish a computing
capability to solve key DOE civilian science mission problems that is
at least a factor of 50 greater than the present.
Question. What kind of supercomputing platforms do you need for the
types of problems you are challenged with in the Office of Science?
Answer. Our computational scientists need supercomputing platforms
that are easy to use and are free of the bottlenecks that presently
constrain the performance of their codes on scientific applications.
Due to the breadth of the Office of Science research portfolio, we
envision our high-performance computational needs will be met by a
suite of super computer architectures and software programming
environments. We expect this suite of architectures will consist of
high-performance variations of scalar systems, vector architectures and
approaches that are currently considered novel.
Question. How will you get them and how much will it cost?
Answer. We will foster the development of these systems by working
with all interested U.S. vendors to influence future offerings to meet
the needs of our computational scientists. Supercomputer platforms will
be acquired based on a competitive evaluation and review of systems
offered by vendors. Performance on actual scientific applications will
be one of several review criteria. Before we are in a position to
evaluate prospective systems, we need to embark on a long-term
commitment of establishing research partnerships between application
scientists, computer scientists and supercomputer designers.
Although we expect to take advantage of commercial market drivers
whenever feasible, we do recognize that these supercomputing platforms
are likely to be in the specialty category of vendor offerings.
Therefore, it is conceivable that each supercomputer platform could
cost several hundred million dollars. Future special purpose
architectures targeting certain applications might be cheaper if the
full suite of partnerships mentioned above were supported.
Question. Credible experts argue that we will need to spend an
additional $500 million over what we have planned for the next 4 years
in order to catch-up. Do you agree?
Answer. The Administration is still in the process of developing a
government-wide strategy for high-end computational science, so it is
premature to directly answer your question.
NANOSCALE RESEARCH
Question. In fiscal year 2003, the Congress added $4.5 million to
begin construction of the Center for Integrated Nanotechnology in my
home State of New Mexico. This year, I am pleased to see the Department
request $30 million more for the construction of this $75 million
facility. The Department is also proceeding with construction of four
other centers around the country. I am concerned that the current
Science baseline budget does not include sufficient research dollars to
effectively utilize the five nanoscale centers that will be constructed
over the next few years--requiring an additional $350 million over the
next 3 years. Are we building too many centers, too fast, without
planning for the resources to utilize them?
Answer. The five Nanoscale Science Research Centers that are under
construction (one joint with the State of Illinois) as well as their
subsequent operations funding which includes user support and research
support are all accommodated within the Science baseline budget
presented in the President's Budget Request. These Centers are a high
priority for the Administration and the Department, because they offer
unique capabilities and build on the investments in the major
synchrotron radiation light sources and neutron scattering facilities
that are already in place at the Department's laboratories.
GENOMES TO LIFE AND OTHER FUNDING SHORTFALLS
Question. The Department wants to grow the ``Genomes to Life''
program in a way that will realize the promises of the Human Genome
Project, but that will require $850 million to build the necessary
research facilities. In addition, you have expressed your desire to
grow the Science Teacher Workforce Development program. Furthermore, we
are always under pressure to provide additional money for better
utilization of our existing science facilities. So, my questions to you
are as follows. How do we find the resources to do all of these things?
Or have we ``bitten off more than we can chew''?
Answer. The President's budget request before the Congress
represents a substantial step in allowing us to exploit the scientific
opportunities before us. The programs that you mention are multi-year
efforts, and we have to continue to prioritize and make tough choices
in these times of constrained budgets. The completion of some projects,
along with reduced funding requirements for the Spallation Neutron
Source effectively provides a 5 percent increase in funding for
science, allowing us to strengthen our research programs while also
increasing operating times at our user facilities, and beginning a new
pilot program at Argonne National Laboratory to train K-14 science and
math teachers.
SCIENCE EDUCATION
Question. Dr. Orbach, I appreciate the emphasis in your testimony
on a $1 million pilot program for improving the science and math
qualifications of teachers in our K-14 educational system in answer to
the President's call for ``qualified teachers in the classrooms.'' As
you know, such programs were conducted some years ago by the DOE. I
know from many personal testimonies that these programs were highly
successful in New Mexico. I really question whether you need any pilot
program at all. My recommendation is that you simply restart the
successful programs of a few years ago at levels far higher than $1
million. Would you be willing to provide an estimate of how large a
program the Department could undertake in fiscal year 2004 in this
vital area?
Answer. Our National laboratories have continued to support
fellowship and internship opportunities through their education and
workforce development offices. In most respects, these offices have
dramatically improved in their quality assurance and efficiency. Our
entire application, placement, tracking and evaluation system is
online. The President's fiscal year 2004 request allows for a robust
pilot program.
FUNDING OF SCIENCE PROGRAMS
Question. Dr. Orbach, fiscal year 2004 is the third year of
basically flat budget requests for the Office of Science. I think the
Department and Administration must start requesting significant
increases in the budgets for the Office of Science. Since that office
is the largest supporter of research in most physical sciences, I fear
that we are seriously jeopardizing the competitiveness of our Nation by
short-changing developments in these areas. In fact, our rush to fund
health sciences through the NIH, without comparable funding to the
Office of Science, may prevent us from realizing our goals in the
health sciences. After all, many developments in health sciences also
require advances in the physical sciences, we need strong health and
physical sciences to truly enable advances. Do you share my concern
that we must do more to increase the Nation's talent pool in the
physical sciences and that increased budgets for the Office of Science
are critically important in future years?
Answer. Senator, before answering, let me thank you for your strong
support for science and education. I do share your concern. I believe
that we need to do whatever we can to encourage U.S. students to choose
careers in mathematics, science and engineering. It is for that reason
that our budget request proposes a pilot program for training of K-14
mathematics and science teachers. I would point out, however, that when
a combination of reduced requirements for funding in one time programs
and large construction projects are taken into account, funding for the
Office of Science in the President's budget requests for fiscal year
2003 and fiscal year 2004 represented increases for science well above
the rate of inflation.
Question. Do you believe the United States is in danger of losing
its global competitive edge to the Japanese or the Germans or the
French because the Federal Government has ignored basic research
funding for the physical sciences?
Answer. A strong program of basic research in the physical sciences
and a scientifically literate workforce are essential to the continued
innovation that underpins our global competitiveness, and I believe
that the President's budget request for science will fund a strong and
balanced program of scientific research for the Nation.
LOW DOSE RADIATION RESEARCH
Question. I helped initiate your important program in low dose
radiation research a few years ago, to try to better determine health
risks from exposures to low levels of ionizing radiation. This research
could have far-reaching implications, from improved cleanup standards
for DOE sites to better appreciation of the risks associated with
operations involving radioactive materials. With the National Academy's
seventh study on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (called BEIR
VII) nearing a conclusion, results from this program are especially
timely. In past years, this budget has been reduced in budget requests,
only to be restored by Congress. I appreciate that this year the
request of $17.5 million is close to the current year level of $17.8
million. But it's my understanding that the DOE's own program plan for
this study calls for budgets of about $25 million. Is this work
advancing the state of knowledge in this critical area at a pace to
impact the BEIR VII study?
Answer. Yes, while the Low Dose Radiation Research program is
effectively in its fourth year of funding and, as you correctly note,
funding has always been at a level $4 to $8 million below that
recommended by the Advisory Committee for the Biological and
Environmental Research program, the low dose program is already having
a substantial scientific impact. Building on decades of radiation
biology research we can now study the biological effects of radiation
with research approaches that are 10, 100, or even 1,000 times more
sensitive than those previously used. Progress has been made in our
ability to study lower, more realistic doses of radiation by a
combination of knowledge from past research, from new, more sensitive
technology, and from advances such as those provided by the Human
Genome Project. Today, for the first time, scientists have actually
been conducting research that overlaps or approaches the maximum
allowable radiation doses above background for the public (100 mrem/
year above background) or for nuclear workers (500 mrem/year above
background). The BEIR VII committee bases their report on information
received from expert scientific testimony and from peer reviewed
scientific publication. To date, the Low Dose Radiation Research
Program has resulted in over 190 new papers in the scientific
literature. The director at the National Academies for BEIR VII is well
aware of the Low Dose Radiation Research Program and has been given a
list of publications resulting from the program. Thus, the BEIR VII
will certainly consider the results of this research program in their
deliberations.
Question. And is it resource constrained in its progress?
Answer. We believe that the original estimate made by the
Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee for a 10-year,
approximately $220 million research program, while unconstrained by the
realities of tight budgets, is still a reasonable estimate to optimize
progress through the normal, iterative process of scientific discovery.
To date, including the current fiscal year (fiscal year 2003), the
program has invested approximately $82 million in new low dose
radiation research.
SCIENCE IN AN UNDERGROUND LABORATORY
Question. Last year there was a review by NSF to explore deep
underground sites for sensitive nuclear experiments. As part of their
review, there was strong recognition that some experiments require the
deepest location--like the Homestake mine--and others benefit more from
the ultra-low background, ultra-clean conditions, and superb
infrastructure associated with the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant at
Carlsbad. I provided funding within the EM budget this year to start a
neutrino experiment at WIPP. But logically, these experiments should be
championed within the Office of Science. Will the Office of Science
seriously evaluate and champion opportunities for key experiments in
the environment provided by WIPP?
Answer. The Office of Science endeavors to support the most
interesting and promising experiments in all fields of basic research
consistent with its mission. We are aware of scientific opportunities
presented by a wide range of possible underground experiments, though
we have not received any formal proposals for such experiments. We are
also aware that there is an ongoing scientific debate about the
technical criteria for an underground site that is dependent upon the
needs the various experiments. Nevertheless, the Office of Science is
keenly aware of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant's (WIPP) mission to
dispose of defense-related transuranic waste to protect human health
and the environment. WIPP is a critical facility for the Office of
Environmental Management's (EM) efforts to accelerate cleanup at sites
across the DOE complex.
Last year, as ordered by Secretary Abraham, EM completed a top-to-
bottom review of its cleanup program and concluded that significant
change was required in how the Department attacked risk reduction and
cleanup of its sites. A major finding of the review was the need to
realign the EM program so its scope is consistent with an accelerated,
risk-based cleanup and closure mission. The review team underscored the
necessity that EM should redirect, streamline, or cease activities not
appropriate for accelerated cleanup and closure.
Utilizing WIPP to conduct science experiments, no matter how
meritorious, would represent a major commitment of EM financial and
administrative resources for implementation and oversight of these
activities, which would not be consistent with the Administration's
accelerated cleanup initiative. A laser-like focus on EM's core mission
is needed to realize the cleanup of the Cold War legacy in our
lifetime.
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH
Question. The Department of Energy has had a long-standing role in
the Global Climate Change research agenda. The White House just
recently announced a new Global Climate Change strategy. Can you
describe for me the role that the Department of Energy will have in the
new White House agenda and the need for enhanced research on Global
Climate Change that would take advantage of the assets in DOE's
laboratories?
Answer. The Department's role in the new White House agenda for
climate change Research will focus on improving climate models by
resolving major uncertainties in estimates of the sensitivity of the
climate system to various factors such as clouds and aerosols. Climate
change research supported by the Department will also help resolve the
magnitude and location of the North American carbon sink, and provide
improved methods and models for assessing the environmental and
economic costs and benefits of climate change, and of different options
and strategies for mitigating the change. Enhancements of Global
Climate Change Research that would take advantage of assets at DOE
laboratories include climate modeling and ecological processes.
Enhanced climate modeling research would enable researchers to take
greater advantage of computing facilities and computer science
capabilities at DOE laboratories, and to allow climate and carbon cycle
modelers at DOE laboratories to more fully utilize the data and
information coming from other DOE climate change research programs such
as the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program and Ocean and
Terrestrial Carbon Cycle Research programs to develop, test, and
improve fully-coupled climate models. Enhancement of research on
ecological processes would provide the opportunity to more fully
utilize the unique interdisciplinary capabilities and facilities at DOE
laboratories in molecular biology, ecological genomics, ecology, and
computer modeling and simulation. The research would investigate how
complex ecological systems respond to climate and atmospheric changes
and how their capacity to, for example, sequester carbon from the
atmosphere and adapt to or recover from potential adverse impacts of
such changes can be enhanced.
SCIENCE LAB INFRASTRUCTURE
Question. Dr. Orbach, the Office of Science manages 10 science labs
that represent a Federal investment of tens of billions of dollars in
the most advanced scientific user facilities in the world. The annual
budget process seems to rarely reward the prudent and responsible
program manager who reinvests in infrastructure to maintain the
facilities. Two years ago this Committee initiated a Facilities and
Infrastructure program for the NNSA to reinvigorate the NNSA weapons
complex and it is starting to make a significant difference. Dr.
Orbach, do you believe the Science facilities that you oversee need a
significant infrastructure reinvestment to revitalize the Science Labs
research facilities and would you be willing to budget for such an
initiative?
Answer. The Office of Science has identified over $1.5 billion of
line item projects to renovate, modernize and replace existing
buildings and support facilities at the SC laboratories to better
support our research missions. A complete listing and description of
the projects can be found at the SC web site: http://
www.science.doe.gov/SC-80/sc-82 under ``Infrastructure Needs
Assessment.'' I am working with the laboratories to develop a strategy
for funding infrastructure improvements.
FUTURE NUCLEAR ENERGY BUDGET REQUIREMENTS
Question. Mr. Magwood, as I indicated in my opening statement, I am
generally encouraged with the progress in nuclear R&D. The Department
now has in place the structure of a well-thought-out nuclear R&D
program that addresses the near-term goal of bringing a new plant on
line through the Nuclear Power 2010 program; while performing the R&D
necessary for nuclear power to support the growing demand for
electricity world-wide over the next 50 years through the Generation IV
Program and the Advanced Fuel Cycles Initiative. All of these
initiatives require funding well in excess of what is provided in the
current baseline?
Answer. We are confident that the fiscal year 2004 budget request
for these programs will meet the near-term needs of these programs,
most of which are at the early stages of development. We will evaluate
future funding needs as we more precisely define the areas of work and
implement these initiatives. Clearly, significant resources would be
needed to support the development, design, and deployment of innovative
technologies to achieve the economic and energy security benefits of
the programs. Whatever course our activities take, we expect the
funding the Department requests to be highly leveraged with our
international and U.S. industry partners.
Question. What level of resources will be required to achieve the
stated goals of each of these initiatives over the next 10 years?
Answer. The Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative is in
an early stage of development. The highest priority Generation IV
project is pursuing advanced nuclear technology that can produce both
cost-effective hydrogen and very efficient electricity production. The
out-year funding plan for Generation IV activities is currently being
developed. Discussions with potential collaborating partners are
underway and we anticipate substantial cost-sharing with both industry
and the international community. The estimated costs for AFCI research
and development over the next 10 years are presently under review by
the Administration and have not been finalized.
Question. What is the Department's funding strategy?
Answer. The Department is in the early stages of implementing the
Generation IV nuclear energy systems initiative and the Advanced Fuel
Cycle Initiative. Regardless, the Department intends to leverage a
modest Federal investment with collaboration with our international
partners.
Question. What kind of resources can we reasonably expect from
international or industry collaborators?
Answer. We are currently exploring cost-sharing arrangements for
the design, licensing, construction, and startup of the Very-High-
Temperature Reactor (VHTR) with potential domestic and international
partners, both private and government. Substantial cost-sharing is
expected. Over the past 3 years, the AFCI program has established two
major international collaborative agreements which have provided over
$100 million worth of analytical and experimental data to the program.
One agreement is with the French Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, and
the other agreement is with the Paul Sherrer Institute in Switzerland.
Also, the Secretary of Energy recently signed an agreement with the
European Commission, which provides for collaborative AFCI research and
development with European countries.
NUCLEAR HYDROGEN INITIATIVE
Question. Hydrogen technologies will only allow us to free
ourselves from dependence on foreign oil if we can economically produce
it in a manner that does not harm the environment. Current methods of
producing hydrogen based on fossil-fuels are far too costly. I am
hopeful that one or more of the Generation IV reactor technologies
would allow us to generate hydrogen on a scale that would support a
future hydrogen based economy. I commend the Department for requesting
$4 million specifically for the nuclear hydrogen initiative. What level
of resources would the Department need to develop and demonstrate on a
pilot scale a nuclear reactor for hydrogen production?
Answer. The Department's new Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative is
designed to develop and demonstrate advanced technology hydrogen
production systems using nuclear energy. The Department plans to
achieve this goal by constructing progressively larger scale
demonstrations using non-nuclear heat sources, designed and optimized
to be eventually driven by heat from a high temperature nuclear system.
The Department is also exploring partnerships with industry and the
international community that could support a full-scale prototypical
system to demonstrate the commercial scale production of hydrogen. With
funds provided by Congress in fiscal year 2003, we are currently
developing a hydrogen technology roadmap which will define the
development program leading to a pilot scale experiment. The funding
estimates for a pilot scale facility will be developed over the next
several months.
Question. Can we do it on the time-scale of the President's broader
hydrogen timeline of 2015 to 2020?
Answer. We believe nuclear-based production of hydrogen could be
deployed on the time-scale of the President's 2015-2020 hydrogen
timeline.
NUCLEAR POWER 2010 INITIATIVE
Question. Three years ago, this Subcommittee led the way in
creating a new R&D program in Nuclear Energy Technologies. The effort
has been focused on both near-term and longer-term development of next
generation power reactors. There are great opportunities to deploy new
reactors that would have superior economics, no possibility of a core-
meltdown, reduced waste, and more proliferation resistant. I commend
the Department for providing $35 million to support a near-term effort
with the goal of having new advanced reactors operating in the United
States by 2010. Can you elaborate on this program in greater detail and
provide an update?
Answer. The Department believes it is in the Nation's interest to
deploy new baseload nuclear generating capacity within the decade to
achieve the National Energy Policy objectives of energy supply
diversity and security while minimizing the impact on the environment.
To enable the deployment and operation of new, advanced nuclear power
plants in the United States by the end of the decade, it is essential
to demonstrate the new, untested Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
regulatory and licensing processes for the siting, construction, and
operation of new plant designs. In addition, research and development
on near-term advanced reactor concepts that offer enhancements to
safety and economics is needed to enable these new technologies to come
to market.
In fiscal year 2002, the Department initiated the Nuclear Power
2010 program. This program is a joint government and industry cost-
shared effort to identify sites for new nuclear power plants, develop
advanced nuclear plant technologies, and demonstrate new regulatory
processes that support a private sector decision by 2005 to order new
nuclear power plants for deployment in the United States within the
decade.
As an initial step in the Nuclear Power 2010 program to demonstrate
untested regulatory processes, the Department is cooperating with three
power generation companies--Exelon, Entergy and Dominion Resources--to
demonstrate the Early Site Permit (ESP) process at sites where these
companies currently operate nuclear power plants (Clinton Nuclear Power
Station, Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station, and North Anna Nuclear Power
Station, respectively). This regulatory process is intended to approve
sites for the construction of new nuclear power plants in advance of a
utility commitment and order for the nuclear plant. Within the scope of
these 50/50 cost-shared industry cooperative projects, the three power
generation companies will develop and submit formal ESP applications to
the NRC by fall of 2003. NRC's approval of the then-submitted ESP
applications is expected in early 2006.
In 2003, the Department plans to expand its cooperation with the
nuclear industry by soliciting additional cooperative projects with
power companies or consortia of power and industry companies that
implement power company plans to deploy new nuclear plants. Cooperative
projects would include activities to demonstrate the combined
Construction and Operating License (COL) process and develop a
standardized advanced nuclear plant designs.
The Department has also initiated in fiscal year 2003 a cost-shared
project with industry to assess the construction schedule, manpower,
and cost requirements of the new advanced nuclear plant designs being
considered by power companies for near-term deployment and to identify
promising improvements in construction methods and techniques to
shorten the construction durations for these next new nuclear power
plants.
Question. Does the Department still plan on initiating a cost-
shared project with a utility to demonstrate the ``Construction and
Operating License'' process?
Answer. The Department believes that demonstration of the combined
Construction and Operating License (COL) process is essential to
achieve near-term deployment of advanced nuclear power plants in the
United States. In fiscal year 2003, the Department plans to issue a
solicitation to seek proposals from power companies or consortia of
power and industry companies for projects that enable a new nuclear
power plant to be ordered and licensed for deployment in the United
States within the decade. This project will provide for design
completion of a standardized advanced reactor plant, preparation and
submission of a COL application and support of NRC review, and hearings
associated with the application.
Question. What recommendations can you provide to this committee as
to how the government can address the financial and business risk
associated with building and licensing new nuclear plants?
Answer. There are currently three ways that an electric generating
company could finance a new nuclear plant: by obtaining commercial debt
financing, through equity financing, or a combination of both. These
options are not currently attractive because of significant financial
barriers and risks associated with building the first few new nuclear
plants. Last year, Sculley Capital, an independent financial advisory
firm, conducted a study for DOE of barriers to new nuclear plant
deployments and identified a range of financial assistance mechanisms
that could address the financial risks associated with building the
first few new nuclear plants. The study concludes that substantial cost
improvements in the cost per kilowatt-hour would be realized following
deployment of the first few plants, thereby allowing future builds to
be fully competitive in the electricity marketplace. This study has
sparked an ongoing discussion both inside the government and in the
private sector, but no conclusions have yet been reached in either.
NASA'S NUCLEAR SYSTEMS INITIATIVE
Question. The fiscal year 2003 NASA budget proposed a ``nuclear
systems initiative'' to develop new radioisotope power systems for on-
board electric power on future space platforms. It would also conduct
research and development on nuclear electric propulsion systems that
would allow future space craft to speed throughout the outer reaches of
the solar system. NASA has proposed spending up to $1 billion in the
next 5 years. What has transpired over the last year?
Answer. A significant amount of planning and coordination between
NASA and the DOE has taken place in preparation for NASA's Nuclear
Systems Initiative, now named ``Project Prometheus.'' Activities
conducted under existing programs at DOE were focused to help prepare
for the initiation of the effort. For example, with regards to the
radioisotope power systems, a DOE contract was awarded to Lockheed
Martin Astronautics for a Stirling Radioisotope Generator, and industry
proposals for a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator are
now being evaluated by the Department. Also, the purchase of 1 kilogram
of Pu-238 from Russia is underway.
With regard to the nuclear electric propulsion part of Project
Prometheus, NASA Research Announcements (NRA's) were issued for power
conversion and electric propulsion technology contracts. Initial space
reactor power system screening activities were completed using an
integrated team of specialists from DOE laboratories and NASA centers
to assess combinations of reactor and power conversion technologies and
a briefing on these screening activities was provided to industry. DOE
labs have also supported definition of three reactor concepts for
future consideration. A draft RFP was also developed by NASA with
support from DOE for mission and technology trade studies associated
with a Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter Mission (JIMO) in order to prepare for
possible future industry engagement.
These activities have helped to prepare for initiation of a
coordinated effort between NASA and DOE as Project Prometheus now
commences its first year.
Question. What role will be DOE's role in this exciting new effort?
Answer. DOE will continue as the executing agent for the
development of Radioisotope Power Systems. These efforts will include
the Stirling Radioisotope Generator (SRG), the Multi-Mission
Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG), the performance of
safety analyses, and the procurement of additional Plutonium-238 as
needed in support of the radioisotope program and potential future
missions. For the development of space fission reactor technology, or
the nuclear electric propulsion part of Project Prometheus, NASA and
DOE are currently examining the best approach for management of the
development effort within the Department. These reviews are ongoing and
include consideration of possible participation by DOE's Offices
Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology and Naval Reactors.
ADVANCED NUCLEAR MEDICINE INITIATIVE
Question. The Advanced Nuclear Medicine Initiative (ANMI) provides
basic research and educational grants in the field of nuclear medicine.
These R&D grants have yielded exciting results for the development of
new radiopharmaceuticals, insights in radiobiology, and possible new
methods of treating cancer. In recent years, the program has been
funded at the level of $2.5 million per year. In fiscal year 2003,
funding was dropped to zero. The Department has also proposed changing
the manner in which it provides radioisotopes to the research
community. The Department proposed this on the theory that it could
reach agreement with other sources (most likely NIH) to support this
important mission. Has the Department secured such an agreement? If
not, what are the prospects?
Answer. Department of Energy officials are at the beginning stages
of discussion with officials of the Department of Health and Human
Services, including the National Institutes of Health on the subject of
obtaining support from NIH for production of isotopes associated with
medical research sponsored by NIH. There is broad support for medical
research in development of new radiopharmaceuticals both within the
government and the private sector, and we are confident that as the
benefit for this research is demonstrated that there will be increased
support for offsetting the costs associated with the production of
medical research isotopes.
Question. Would you comment on the record how a DOE sponsored
revolving fund might be used to support this mission?
Answer. As was done with the Advanced Nuclear Medicine Initiative
in fiscal year 2000, the revolving fund could be a suitable vehicle for
supporting medical isotope research, including production of isotopes
for such research.
ADVANCED FUEL CYCLE INITIATIVE
Question. I commend the Department for supporting the Advanced Fuel
Cycle work that this committee has strongly supported over the last few
years. Will you describe for the committee some of the successes of the
AFCI program, its relationship to the Generation IV reactor program,
and what your expectations are for the next few years?
Answer. The goals of the Advance Fuel Cycle Initiative are to
develop fuels and fuel cycle technologies required for the Generation
IV Nuclear Energy Systems Initiative and to develop advanced spent fuel
treatment and transmutation fuel technologies to optimize the
performance of the Yucca Mountain repository and delay or eliminate the
technical need for a second repository.
In fiscal year 2002, the program had several important
accomplishments. In the area of spent fuel treatment, the Department
developed UREX+ technology and successfully demonstrated the separation
of uranium from commercial spent fuel at a purity level of over 99.99
percent, which is equivalent to low-level Class C waste. Since spent
fuel is made up of 95.6 percent uranium, this is clearly a major
demonstration of the potential for reducing the volume of spent fuel
destined for a geologic repository. Other major successes include the
development and manufacture of advanced non-fertile fuels (i.e., fuel
which does not produce plutonium during the fission process). Both
nitride and metal advanced non-fertile fuels have been manufactured and
have passed quality assurance standards necessary to qualify for
irradiation testing in the Advanced Test Reactor. This activity
directly supports Generation IV fast-spectrum reactor fuel development.
As described in the AFCI Report to Congress, issued in January
2003, the AFCI program is pursuing parallel paths, AFCI Series One and
AFCI Series Two, to develop technologies both in support of the
Generation IV program and spent fuel treatment and transmutation. AFCI
Series One technology development is an intermediate term activity
which is focused on the developing advanced spent fuel treatment
technologies. Specifically, this technology separates various isotopic
components from commercial spent nuclear fuel, including the extraction
of uranium at a purity of greater than 99.99 percent for potential
reuse, or storage as low-level waste. In addition, the program is
developing proliferation-resistant fuel that can be recycled in
existing light water reactors to extract energy and reduce the
plutonium inventory in the spent fuel. In fiscal year 2003, AFCI plans
to demonstrate the separation of a plutonium-neptunium and cesium-
strontium on a laboratory scale. The successful demonstration of
cesium-strontium, at a high purity, can provide a unique advantage to
the repository program because it will allow the repository to be
operated in a cold condition, by isolating all the short-term heat long
in one drift, or above ground. The program is also in the process of
fabricating several specimens of oxide fuels containing various
combinations of uranium, plutonium, and neptunium for potential use in
existing light water reactors as a means extending the energy resource
of spent fuel and to reduce the inventories of plutonium. These
advanced oxide fuels are planned for irradiation testing in the
Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) in fiscal year 2004.
AFCI Series Two technology development is a longer term activity
(2020-2030 time frame). The main focus of AFCI Series Two is to develop
advanced, non-aqueous technologies which are cost effective,
environmentally sound, and capable of handling large volumes of fast
reactor spent fuel. AFCI Series Two technology development also
includes the development of advanced fuels for fast spectrum reactors--
Generation IV reactors including the capability of these reactors for
handling the transmutation mission. Application of AFCI Series Two
transmutation technology can significantly reduce the long-term
radiotoxicity and long-term heat load in the geologic repository.
The research and development being conducted in the AFCI program is
focused on producing results that will provide decision makers
sufficient information on cost, schedule, and waste streams to inform
decisions in fiscal year 2007 regarding the need for a second
repository.
CUTS TO NERI AND NEPO
Question. Mr. Magwood, I appreciate the significant increase in
budgets requested for Nuclear Energy. But I'm surprised that a program
like the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative or NERI, that is the
largest supporter of university-based research in this vital field, is
targeted for a cut of 50 percent. I am also concerned that the Nuclear
Energy Plant Optimization or NEPO program is targeted for no funding,
when the Nation depends strongly on our existing nuclear plants to
avoid having to replace them with more polluting alternatives. Can you
please discuss the rationale for halving the NERI budget and killing
the NEPO budget just when we are undertaking other important ventures
to secure a future for nuclear energy in the Nation?
Answer. First, I think it is important to make clear that we
believe both the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative (NERI) and the
Nuclear Energy Plant Optimization (NEPO) program are important and very
successful programs. The programs have attracted significant
international and private sector co-funding. Moreover, the important
initiatives that we believe will form the base for our nuclear energy
research program in the future--the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative, the
Generation IV nuclear energy systems initiative, the Advanced Fuel
Cycle Initiative--all grew out of the success of innovative NERI
research and development.
While the funds requested for NERI in fiscal year 2004 represent a
reduction from previous years, the budget request will allow us to
support those projects that are continuing in the NERI and
International NERI programs. During the coming year, we will refine and
detail our plans for the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative, Generation IV,
and the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. Once this is done, the
Department will be in a position to evaluate NERI in fiscal year 2005
in the context of our entire research portfolio.
Regarding the NEPO program, we have successfully leveraged a small
Federal investment with industry to address technical issues associated
with the long-term operation of the Nation's existing 103 operating
nuclear power plants. The program has funded a total of 33 projects
during its first 3 years, addressing issues such as plant aging and
electrical generation optimization. Thus, it is our hope that industry,
who invests between $80 and $90 million dollars annually on research,
will choose to continue some of these projects.
UNIVERSITY REACTOR FUEL ASSISTANCE AND SUPPORT
Question. For the current year, the Congress provided $18.5 million
for the University Reactor support program. Can you give me an update
on this effort?
Answer. All current university programs efforts will be continued,
including providing fuel to university research and training reactors,
assisting university reactors to share their reactors with other
universities and secondary schools for educational and training
purposes, improving equipment and instrumentation at university
reactors, and providing research grants to university nuclear
engineering departments.
The Department continues to award numerous fellowships and
scholarships to students pursuing a nuclear engineering or a health
physics degree and assisting students at minority universities to
achieve a degree in nuclear engineering by partnering with a majority
nuclear engineering institution; helping to reinvigorate the
radiochemistry educational program through assistance to graduates,
post-doctorates, and faculty; and conducting outreach to college
freshman and secondary school students and teachers through the
American Nuclear Society by providing teacher workshops in the basics
of nuclear energy and engineering.
Lastly, the Innovations in Nuclear Infrastructure and Education
(INIE) initiative continues to maintain the Nation's university
research reactor infrastructure by awarding the fifth INIE grant. The
INIE program focus is to help strengthen the nuclear engineering
infrastructure which is vital to producing the nuclear engineers the
Nation requires for operation of its nuclear facilities, national
laboratories, and universities.
Question. Will this budget request allow the Department to expand
its support to the regional reactor consortiums?
Answer. The fiscal year 2004 budget request will enable the
Department to continue support for five regional reactor consortiums.
Four awards were made in fiscal year 2002, with the additional funds
appropriated in fiscal year 2003; one additional award will be made.
Two additional consortia have been selected for future award.
URANIUM-233
Question. The Congress has urged the Department to proceed with a
Request for Proposal on a project to extract medically valuable
isotopes from the excess uranium-233 stored at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory. This is potentially a very exciting effort. Can you provide
an update on this effort and tell when you expect the RFP will be out?
Answer. The Department's project to treat its inventory of U233
will greatly reduce the high cost associated with the storage of this
material and demonstrate the Nation's leadership in the effective and
responsible management of fissile materials. Perhaps more importantly,
this project will provide researchers all over the country with ready
access to isotopes that have shown considerable promise in treatment of
various forms of cancer.
The RFP was issued on June 13, 2002, and proposals were received on
September 26, 2002. On February 14, 2003, the Department notified the
bidders that were found to be in the competitive range required for the
contract that their proposals would be evaluated for final selection.
The evaluation process continues and we anticipate an award this
summer.
LES
Question. Mr. Magwood, the Department has previously commented on
the need for new domestic enrichment capacity as a means of maintaining
a reliable and economical U.S. enrichment industry. One of the ventures
to accomplish this is led by the European consortium Urenco, a company
with proven centrifuge technology. I know you are quite familiar with
the company and their technology. Do you have any concern on your part
that the efforts of Urenco to build a new facility in the United States
would in any way pose a national security concern?
Answer. The Administration places a high priority on ensuring
nuclear nonproliferation safeguards are in place and that access to
sensitive technology is controlled. The information available to the
Department indicates that URENCO has acted responsibly with regard to
the control of sensitive technology and the employment of non-
proliferation safeguards.
The Department of Energy believes that LES's plans for the
deployment of centrifuge technology in the United States are of
considerable national benefit. Deployment of an LES plant will help
assure the important energy security objective of maintaining a
reliable and economical U.S. uranium enrichment industry.
Question. Do you believe that the development of new enrichment
capacity is sufficiently important to U.S. energy security objectives
that the development of a domestic facility by Urenco should therefore
be encouraged and facilitated in some manner by DOE? If so, how?
Answer. The Department believes there is sufficient domestic demand
to support multiple commercial uranium enrichment plant operators in
the United States and that competition is important to maintain a
viable, competitive domestic uranium enrichment industry for the
foreseeable future. The U.S. Government has encouraged the three Allied
government partners in Urenco (Great Britain, the Netherlands and
Germany) to continue its plans to deploy a new commercial uranium
enrichment plant in the United States.
COST OF DEPLETED TAILS DISPOSAL
Question. Pursuant to section 3113 of the 1996 USEC Privatization
Act, DOE is obligated to accept depleted tails for disposal from
domestic commercial enrichers, if the tails are declared low-level
waste, and subject to the generator paying the cost of disposal. DOE
has already agreed to accept post-privatization tails from USEC for
disposal. Is this same option available for the depleted tails of any
other commercial enrichment facility operating in the United States?
Answer. The NRC has not characterized depleted uranium tails as
low-level radioactive waste; therefore, Section 3113 of the
Privatization Act does not obligate the Department to accept
commercially generated depleted uranium tails for disposal. The
Department agrees with the NRC, and would not support an initiative to
declare depleted uranium tails as low-level radioactive waste.
Nevertheless, in view of the Department's plan to build DUF6
disposition facilities and the critical importance the Department
places on maintaining a viable domestic uranium enrichment industry,
the Department acknowledges that Section 3113 may constitute a
``plausible strategy'' for the disposal of DUF6 from the private sector
domestic uranium enrichment plant license applicants and operators.
The Department has two agreements to accept depleted uranium
generated by USEC. In the first case, the government received $50
million to accept 16,674 metric tons of depleted uranium generated by
USEC during the privatization process. The second case is the June 2002
agreement between USEC and DOE. While DOE agreed to accept title (but
not custody until the Department is ready to disposition) to 23,300
metric tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride as part of the agreement's
consideration, USEC agreed to a range of important actions, including
commitments to operate Paducah gaseous diffusion plant until replaced
and to deploy advanced enrichment technology employing DOE technology.
Question. Would one or both of the two conversion facilities under
construction be available on the same terms and conditions to any other
commercial enricher?
Answer. No authority, procedures, or cost for such a service has
been established. Were a commercial enricher to request such a service,
the Department would give the request its full consideration.
Question. What do you project to be the per kilogram cost of
accepting for processing and ultimate disposal depleted tails from
commercial generators?
Answer. I note that Section 3113(3) of the USEC Privatization Act
provides for reimbursement in an ``amount equal to the Secretary's
cost, including a pro rata share of any capital costs.'' As full costs
of providing such a service have not been established, and the
procedures to implement a service of processing DUF6 for ultimate
disposition have not been created, it is not possible to project a
meaningful cost estimate at this time. However, should a commercial
company request such a service, the Department would fully consider its
request.
Question. What is the per kilogram cost for the processing and
disposal of the commercial tails that DOE has agreed to accept to date?
Answer. The actual marginal cost of processing and disposal of the
depleted uranium hexafluoride generated by USEC has not been
determined. Once the Department's conversion facilities have been built
and are operational, a reasonable estimation of the marginal cost to
process commercial tails can be calculated. These tails will be
converted and dispositioned as part of the Department's inventories. It
is expected to take 25 years to completely disposition the Department's
depleted uranium stockpile. It should be noted that USEC will maintain
custody of the tails the Department has agreed to accept under last
year's Memorandum of Agreement until such time that they are accepted
for processing.
HYDROGEN
Question. Mr. Garman, the grand promise in the President's vision
of a hydrogen economy is dependent upon us finding a way to produce
hydrogen economically and cleanly. Today, the primary method for
hydrogen production is methane reformation, which results in
significant releases of greenhouse gases. Options for future production
will be built around either high temperature chemical processes, or
high-temperature electrolysis. I know you are also looking to reduce
the cost of producing hydrogen from renewable energy technologies. But,
as I look at the issue, I am once again forced to the conclusion that
nuclear power remains the most likely technology that will allow us to
produce hydrogen in large quantities, economically and cleanly. What
renewable technologies are most promising for the production of
hydrogen?
Answer. As part of the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, research underway
in renewable hydrogen production technologies includes gasification and
pyrolysis of biomass from forest, crop, and urban residues. Wind-
powered electrolysis is another high potential pathway being
researched, recognizing that 40 million tons of hydrogen per year
(about half the U.S. light duty fleet energy requirement) could be
produced using the wind resources of North Dakota alone, based on
calculations by scientists at the lab. Water splitting through
photolysis is being researched as well as solar-concentrated high
temperature water splitting chemical cycles. Many of the aspects of
solar-concentrated high temperature water splitting chemical cycles
would be similar to methods using high temperature nuclear.
Finally, while hydrogen production from methane reformation
(without sequestration) would result in carbon releases to the
atmosphere, fuel cell vehicles using compressed hydrogen produced from
natural gas would still use 50 percent less energy and emit 60 percent
less carbon dioxide on a ``well-to-wheels'' basis compared to a
gasoline-powered vehicle.
Question. How do they compare and contrast to the nuclear option?
Answer. Producing hydrogen from renewable energy sources or using
the nuclear option can both potentially eliminate associated greenhouse
gases. Nuclear-enabled high temperature chemical cycle water splitting
is a promising route to hydrogen production with near-zero greenhouse
gas emissions. This approach relies on the success of the next
generation nuclear energy technology, i.e., Generation IV (GenIV). The
GenIV nuclear reactor, would be the heat source for the high
temperature cycle needed to produce hydrogen. This technology will
require large central facilities and a hydrogen distribution network.
National energy security is assured through energy diversity. The
renewable energy options being researched can support energy security
through a diversity of feedstocks and processes. Renewable technologies
such as biomass gasification or pyrolysis, ethanol reforming, wind
powered electrolysis, and photo-electrochemial water splitting
potentially offer the ability to provide distributed production at the
point of use without an extensive hydrogen delivery infrastructure. In
addition, renewable technologies such as high temperature chemical
cycles using solar collectors as the energy source can help leverage
the research being performed to develop the Generation IV nuclear
technology.
BIOMASS R&D
Question. Mr. Garman, I note the 21 percent reduction the
Department has proposed for biomass R&D. Among the renewable
technologies under your purview, only biomass and hydrogen offer great
promise in helping the country to wean itself off our dependence of
foreign oil. As gasoline prices are projected to peak well in excess of
$2 per gallon this spring, I find it odd that biomass took such a large
hit. Can you explain your rationale?
Answer. The Department recognizes the tremendous potential of a
well-focused biomass R&D program to develop biorefinery technologies
that can produce fuels, power, and high-value chemicals and other
products. Nevertheless, Congressionally-directed activities reduced the
coherence of this program and significantly constrained the ability of
our scientists and engineers to move these important technologies
forward. Thus, when we made the tough choices about funding the most
important research for our Nation's energy security, environmental, and
economic goals, we decided to shift funds from the biomass program
where the effectiveness of our R&D work was already reduced into other
areas, particularly our longer-term hydrogen and fuel cell R&D.
EERE's budget reflects numerous factors: Administration priorities,
efficiencies realized by combining all biomass research under one
program, alignment with the Administration's R&D investment criteria,
program performance, expected public benefits, and bringing to
completion research on some technology applications that are ready to
be commercialized. It is also important to recognize that in fiscal
year 2004, DOE will continue collaborating with USDA in order to
leverage both agencies' resources as we are doing in fiscal year 2003.
In fiscal year 2003, under a joint solicitation required by the Biomass
R&D Act of 2000, USDA will award $14 million and DOE $5 million for
cost-shared R&D work identified in the Act.
Question. I also understand government-wide investment in biomass
technologies is increasing in other departments, particularly USDA. But
I do not believe Energy should cede its leadership role in technology
development to another agency. Will you elaborate on the government-
wide effort and Energy's role in that?
Answer. In fiscal year 2003, under a joint solicitation required by
the Biomass R&D Act of 2000, USDA will award $14 million and DOE $5
million for cost-shared R&D work identified in the Act. USDA's focus is
on environmental performance, economic viability, and feedstock
production. DOE's focus is on faster and cheaper conversion of biomass
to fuels and other bio-based products, and on syngas clean-up and
conditioning. DOE plays a lead role in seeking to reduce the production
costs of sugars and syngas (sugars platform and syngas platform),
intermediates needed in the production of several chemicals and fuels.
In addition, DOE funds R&D on conversion processes for producing fuels,
materials and chemicals that will leverage the two platforms.
HIGH TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTIVITY CENTER
Question. Mr. Garman, I note that funding requests for Electric
Reliability and High Temperature Superconductivity remain flat between
fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2004. That surprises me a little,
given the importance to the Nation of maintaining and improving
reliability of our electricity supplies, and the potential immense
impact that high temperature superconductivity can make to increase
efficiency of many electrical processes. Are you confident that we are
doing as much as we can do to improve our electric reliability and to
utilize high temperature conductors as quickly as possible?
Answer. Yes, I am confident that we are doing as much as we should
do. I agree that maintaining and improving the reliability of our
electric supplies is a priority. The Electricity Reliability budget was
increased by $360,000 in the fiscal year 2004 request, to $76.9
million. Within this budget, High Temperature Superconductivity R&D is
$47.8 million, the same as our fiscal year 2003 request and $15.5
million (+48 percent) above the fiscal year 2002 level. We have also
increased our fiscal year 2004 request for Transmission Reliability R&D
by $3.0 million. The Department reduced its request for the Energy
Storage program by $2.6 million, as mature technologies such as battery
storage system are handed off to industry for commercialization, and as
synergies with the transportation battery program are realized. In
addition, the Department supports development of distributed energy
technologies located closer to the point of end use, thereby increasing
the chance that the electricity grid will stay in balance.
Question. Please provide an update of this effort and describe the
types of commercial possibilities exist?
Answer. The Department recognizes the broad potential benefits of
superconductivity in our future electrical system. The fiscal year 2004
request will support development of pre-commercial prototypes for 100-
megawatt generators, longer distance power cables, fault current
limiters, and larger-scale flywheel electricity systems. Also, the
``next generation'' of superconducting wire is expected to accomplish
performance milestones needed for fiscal year 2005 use in equipment--a
breakthrough for improving performance and reducing cost. Successful
equipment research and development completion and availability of
``second generation'' wire will lead to commercial opportunities for
advanced, cost-effective, power equipment that generally is half the
size of conventional alternatives and has only half the energy losses.
In addition, commercial possibilities also exist in defense
applications of these technologies.
We note that the Department's budget for electricity reliability
and high temperature superconductivity has grown by more that 50
percent since fiscal year 2001. We believe we can reach the end of the
current research agenda by 2010, if we are able to focus our funding on
achieving the goals and avoid directed projects that do not contribute
to the goals.
Question. In order to achieve commercial successes, what level of
investment should be made in R&D over what period of time?
Answer. The current level of funding is appropriate to bring about
continual research advances, while still following a well-conceived
research roadmap. Program successes include establishing world
leadership in processing of ``first generation'' High Temperature
Superconductivity wire as well as in development of advanced power
equipment prototypes using this wire. Another success is the discovery
at DOE laboratories of methods to make ``second generation''
superconducting wire, able to achieve program cost and performance
goals, which are based on advancing the technology to the point where
commercial success is possible. We believe we can reach the end of the
current research agenda by 2010, if we are able to focus our funding on
achieving the goals and avoid directed projects that do not contribute
to the goals.
DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS
Question. Mr. Garman, the Department did not propose to continue
funding for a number of demonstration projects that have been initiated
over the last several years. I understand you are attempting to get
more from your R&D dollars, and you are not interested in duplicative
demonstrations or funding projects that should properly be financed by
the private sector. At the same time, this committee is well aware of
unique cases where it is preferable to use appropriated dollars to
demonstrate technologies before they become commercially attractive.
Given these considerations, what criteria would you suggest to this
subcommittee in evaluating the many requests for demonstration projects
from Senators?
Answer. As you point out, there are unique cases in which it is
appropriate to demonstrate technologies before they become commercially
attractive. We strive to use the Administration's R&D investment
criteria to guide all of our activities, including demonstrations. One
criterion useful for evaluating demonstration proposals is the
existence of significant market barriers to commercialization. These
market barriers are conditions that do not satisfy the needs of a fully
competitive market. Such a determination can only be made on a case-by-
case basis, depending upon the market the technology faces. If the
analysis indicates that we can reduce the market barriers, or validate
the technology, we may propose a demonstration. Conversely, if we
cannot show that there are market barriers forcing underinvestment by
industry, we will not pursue the demonstration.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Thad Cochran
DIAGNOSTIC AND INSTRUMENTATION LABORATORY (DIAL)
Question. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank the Undersecretary and
Directors for testifying before this committee today. The work you do
is very important to my State and to me. I'd like to commend David
Garman, the Director of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy, for the work he does with biomass research.
This scientific research is so important to a rural, agricultural
State like Mississippi. Biomass energy is estimated to contribute over
7 percent of Mississippi's total energy consumption--that amount is
double the national average. The majority of our lumber facilities burn
wood waste to generate steam for industrial processes. Biomass offers
special opportunities for benefiting Mississippi's economy by keeping
energy dollars in our State and by providing jobs in rural areas where
biomass is produced. By using their wastes for energy, disposal costs
are avoided, and industries are better able to compete.
The principal biomass waste streams that occur in Mississippi are
generated by agriculture (e.g., cotton gin waste), wood products
manufacturing (e.g., sawdust and wood scraps), animal wastes from
confined feeding operations, and municipal solid waste collections
(e.g., paper and cardboard, demolition waste, lawn and tree trimmings).
Last year, I visited a biomass plant in Winona, Mississippi and
inquired about plans for using Federal funds that were appropriated in
the fiscal year 2003 omnibus bill. I learned that the Winona biomass
project can enter its final stages of discovering the organism which
will cause the heated biomass to turn into gas. Once that organism or
``bug'' is discovered, the plant can operate from start to finish where
chips of wood can be input, burned and then gasified into ethanol. In a
town like Winona, that sort of success has great economic development
potential.
I am pleased to learn that the Department is concentrating its
biomass research efforts on the catalysts needed for biomass gasifiers.
Many communities, beyond the scientific community, will benefit from
this work.
I would also like to commend the Mississippi Diagnostic
Instrumentation and Analysis Laboratory at Mississippi State
University. I am pleased to see that you're funding good science, like
the joint Los Alamos-Mississippi State project that we hope will be
useful for both DOE and Homeland Security. A continuing concern is how
do we take this magnificent science and turn it into the new
technologies DOE needs to accelerate cleanup. I am hopeful that you
consider using organizations such as DIAL at Mississippi State to turn
your science into technologies that will be used at the DOE sites. Mr.
Chairman, with your permission I have a question I'd like to submit for
the record.
I am pleased to see that you're funding good science, like the
joint Los Alamos-Mississippi State project that we hope will be useful
for both DOE and Homeland Security. A continuing concern however is how
do we take this magnificent science and turn it into the new
technologies DOE needs to accelerate cleanup? Have you considered using
organizations such as DIAL at Mississippi State to help bridge the
``valley of death'' to turn your science into technologies that will be
used at the DOE sites?
Answer. The ``valley of death'' issue is a major concern of ours
and we have been developing strategies to efficiently transfer
scientific results to cleanup applications. First, we will work
directly with site cleanup personnel to identify problem areas where
science can make a significant impact and to further collaborate with
the site on these specific issues. This will ensure that our scientific
results are directly transferred to the sites for further development.
We regularly conduct technical exchange workshops and find these
invaluable, and will expand these at major cleanup sites. In addition,
we have found that frequently, scientists want to take their work to
the next stage themselves or at least provide technical support
throughout the development. We encourage appropriate Environmental
Management Science program researchers to develop partnerships with
applied organizations, such as DIAL.
Question. What future plans do you have to work with DIAL?
Answer. The Environmental Management Science program will continue
to select projects through competitive peer review that focus on the
Department's cleanup problems. A key research area continues to be
techniques to characterize and monitor contaminated sites. In
partnership with the national laboratories and universities, DIAL is
likely to be competitive in this area.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Harry Reid
SCIENCE
Question. In the fiscal year 2003 Conference Report, we instructed
you to reprogram funds, if necessary, to respond to the challenge of
the Japanese Earth Simulator Computer. I believe the Earth Simulator is
a warning shot across the bow for American computing companies and
research. Does your advanced computing strategy adequately address the
need for a robust investment in American supercomputing to maintain
American competitiveness?
Answer. The fiscal year 2004 budget request for Advanced Scientific
Computing Research includes $14 million for research in next generation
computer architectures (NGA) for scientific simulation. The NGA allows
us to embark on an R&D investment strategy to provide future high
performance computing resources that are optimized for scientific
simulations in areas of strategic importance to the Department.
Question. Given the remarkable successes of the Human Genome
Project, can you help the Committee understand the new science drivers
behind the Genomes to Life program?
Answer. The Human Genome Project, and DOE's associated Microbial
Genome Program, determined a representative human DNA sequence and the
DNA sequences of a rapidly growing number of microbes (nearly 100),
most with direct relevance to DOE mission needs in energy and the
environment. While the availability of genomic DNA sequence information
has revolutionized the way scientists think about and do biology it is
only a first of what will certainly be many very large steps. An
organism's DNA sequence is the blueprint, the complete set of genetic
instructions, which biology uses to create a living, working organism.
It gives scientists a complete list of all the parts (proteins for
example) along with the genetic on/off switches and rheostats that the
organism uses to make sure that all of its genes are active only at the
right time and place. However, the DNA sequence doesn't tell us what
all those parts do, how they actually work, how they interact with each
other, how they are regulated, and how different organisms, microbes in
the case of the Genomes to Life program, interact with each other.
These uncertainties are the scientific drivers for the Genomes to Life
program. In the end, we want to understand microbes of interest to DOE
so well that we have computational models that accurately predict their
behavior in response, for example, to environmental contaminants,
elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide. With this understanding we can use
those microbes to develop biology-based solutions to DOE needs--
abundant sources of clean energy, new solutions for cleaning up DOE
waste sites, removal of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Question. We have a large capital investment in the Office of
Science user facilities that serve many users at universities and
laboratories. Are we operating these facilities at maximum capacity in
the fiscal year 2004 budget to meet the needs of these scientists?
Answer. The science user facilities are operating in the fiscal
year 2004 request between 83 and 100 percent of maximum capacity. It is
always difficult to find the right balance among completing priorities
for facility operations, research, construction, etc. We are satisfied
that we have allocated the funding in the request to achieve the best
balance possible.
Question. As I mentioned in my opening statement, I am pleased that
the United States has resumed its participation in the ITER project.
However, the dollar levels look very low for our first year
participation. Are the funds in the budget adequate to fulfill our
international requirements?
Answer. The proposed fiscal year 2004 participation is of a
preparatory nature, 2 years in advance of the start of construction,
planned for fiscal year 2006. In this sense, the $12 million request is
sufficient to begin our involvement.
Question. As a follow-up, the U.S. participation seems fairly
modest compared to that of several of the international partners. Are
you satisfied that it appears that the United States will be just a
junior partner in ITER? Is a larger role something we should aspire to?
Answer. As just noted, the proposed fiscal year 2004 level of
funding does not necessarily presage the level of U.S. participation
during construction. With regard to that participation, the
Administration wishes to make a significant contribution to this
project. The ultimate answer to your question of participation levels
will depend on the final number of interested parties, and I will note
that South Korea has recently expressed interest in joining the
negotiations.
Question. Are you having any problems attracting top flight
scientists to your labs given the deteriorating condition of many of
these facilities? If so, what can Congress do to address the situation?
Answer. Recruitment of new staff is particularly critical at this
time as the generation that helped build the labs retires and the labs
compete in the job market to replace them. While it is always difficult
in hot new areas like genomics and nanoscience, decaying facilities and
sites, lack of adequate housing for post-doc and graduate students, and
salary gaps are making recruitment even more difficult. I should add
that retaining the current staff is not easy either.
We have anecdotal comments from Lawrence Berkeley, Brookhaven and
Oak Ridge National Laboratories that scientists are, in fact, declining
job offers based on the condition of working space offered them. Their
concerns range from quality of facilities and equipment and appearance
to location and amenities.
Berkeley, Brookhaven and Oak Ridge are our oldest laboratories.
Overall, 24 percent of the building space at our laboratories is more
than 50 years old. We have identified over $1.5 billion, $1.2 billion
of this total is for buildings, of line item projects to renovate,
modernize and replace our existing buildings to better support our
research missions. A complete listing and description of the projects
can be found at the SC web site: http://www.science.doe.gov/SC-80/sc-82
under ``Infrastructure Needs Assessment.'' We appreciate the support
from Congress of the President's funding requests to modernize the
Science laboratories.
Question. A few years ago you office supported an education
program. I see that your fiscal year 2004 budget proposes a new
workforce development program. Does this program address the workforce
development needs of the scientific community?
Answer. Our approach to science workforce development is to have a
comprehensive plan to expand the pipeline of students interested in,
attracted to, and retained into science and technology careers. To do
so, we have a major effort in offering mentor-intensive internships to
undergraduate students at our national laboratories drawn not only from
the typical 4-year research institutions but also from non-research
institutions and community colleges. We also have a Faculty and Student
Teams program that is aimed at developing long-term relationships
between the faculty of small non-research institutions and the
scientists at our national laboratories.
Of particular interest to us, is the proposed Laboratory Science
Teacher Professional Development program. If our Nation is to have a
sufficient number of physical scientists and engineers, we need to
address the serious declines in these majors among U.S. citizens. A
number of commissions and studies have shown that the best route to
stimulating student interest is through qualified and exciting teachers
especially in the middle school years. Our teacher professional
development program is aimed at attacking this problem through mentor-
intensive research and focused science-discovery experiences for K-14
teachers. It will forge long-term relationships between the national
laboratory scientists and our Nation's science teachers. Through this
approach we believe we can produce a group of teachers who will be
agents of change and inspiration to their students and local
educational communities. We believe this comprehensive plan will
utilize the unique human and scientific resources of the national
laboratories to help support the future science workforce development
of the Nation.
Question. What is so different about your office's approach to High
End Computing? What are you doing to develop this important area and
what are the benefits?
Answer. There are three major differences to our office's approach
to High End Computing. First, we will conduct this effort within the
context of an inter-agency strategy in High End Computing, to leverage
resources and to provide the strong, broad commitment needed to sustain
this long-term strategy. Second, we will engage our scientists with
computer design researchers and with U.S. computer vendors through
research collaborations, to evaluate computer system bottlenecks and to
identify cost-effective solutions. Third, we will support research in
the software programming environment to ensure that future
supercomputer platforms are easy to use as soon as they become
available.
Question. What actions have you taken in the last year to assure
the integrity of the Lab Directed Research and Development process?
Answer. The Office of Science implemented the following policy
changes to ensure that the LDRD program at its laboratories is executed
in full compliance with all Congressional and DOE regulations.
--My office issued detailed guidance on the roles and
responsibilities for Headquarters, DOE Site Offices/Operations
Offices and the Laboratories regarding adequate reporting and
effective oversight of the LDRD program.
--For the first time in the Office of Science, I can personally
assure you that a single Federal official--the site office
manager--will carry out a prospective review of the
laboratories' proposed LDRD projects, ensure their relevance to
DOE missions and concur in each project.
--Also, my office developed supplemental implementation guidance for
reporting LDRD charges on other Federal agency funded work for
others (WFO) projects and it is being implemented by each Site
Office.
--The Office of Science provided the necessary data to the CFO's
office for the annual LDRD financial report to Congress. This
report provides information and analyses to comply with
congressional requirements, and supports the conclusion that
the LDRD funds clearly benefit the national security missions
of the Department by providing innovative new research to
underpin future mission capabilities.
--In addition, each year the Science laboratories analyze and report
the benefits provided to defense and non-defense customer
categories as a percentage of total LDRD project dollars. They
demonstrate that LDRD benefits are commensurate with the
percentage of funds received.
I have made a personal commitment to ensure that we are fully
responsive to Congressional guidance on LDRD and will strive to make
our improved processes work efficiently and effectively.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY
Question. I see that you have zeroed out funding for the
Concentrating Solar Power portion of the solar energy budget. I have
been told by many energy scientists, including researchers at the
National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), that CSP holds significant
promise for long-term energy potential. Why have you given up on
Concentrating Solar Power and what is it going to take to get you to
focus on it again?
Answer. EERE's budget reflects numerous factors: Administration
priorities, alignment with the Administration's R&D investment
criteria, program performance, expected public benefits, and bringing
to completion research on some technology applications that are ready
to be commercialized. Concentrating Solar Power was identified as a low
priority area because of a study by the National Academy of Sciences in
2000 that recommended: ``[The Department] should limit or halt its
research and development on power-tower and power-trough technologies
because further refinements would not lead to deployment.'' The study
also suggested that the Department reassess market prospects for solar
dish/engine technologies. Based on these recommendations, the fiscal
year 2003 budget began phasing out the CSP program, and the fiscal year
2004 budget terminates it.
In 2002, the Department sponsored two independent technical reviews
of Concentrating Solar Power: the first by Sargent & Lundy (S&L), an
engineering firm that conducts due-diligence studies in the power
sector; the second a review by the National Research Council (NRC) of
the S&L study. In November 2002, the NRC submitted its review of the
initial S&L study. The NRC found that many of the conclusions from the
S&L study were reasonable, but also identified several limitations and
deficiencies in the S&L analysis, which S&L has agreed to address. We
are awaiting the final report from Sargent & Lundy, and based on our
review of that and the NRC review DOE will reevaluate the possibility
of future Federal support for CSP.
Question. In the last two conference reports we have carried
language directing the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to
deploy some of their technologies in Nevada in partnership with
industrial and university partners. It is my understanding that this
effort is working out well for everyone involved, but I would be
interested in your thoughts.
Answer. Within the scope of this Congressionally-directed activity,
DOE and NREL staff identified a variety of RDD&D opportunities in
fiscal year 2002 that the indicated Nevada constituencies might conduct
to complement existing renewable program efforts and provide benefits
to Nevada and the U.S. Southwest. In response to a targeted
solicitation, nine proposals were selected for award from among 36
proposals. Work on eight of the nine projects commenced in October
2002. The ninth project with Pulte Homes for a Zero Energy Home
demonstration project/information center has been delayed due to the
departure of Pulte's project lead. Alternate builders are being sought
to support Pulte's end of the project and complete the award
negotiations. With the fiscal year 2003 appropriations only recently
concluded, no new awards have been made. In general, the implementation
process is proceeding smoothly but it is too early to characterize the
possible program technology and regional energy benefits that may
result from this funding.
Question. Biomass seems to have taken a substantial cut in the
fiscal year 2004 request. By all accounts this program has been very
successful. Why are you cutting back at this time?
Answer. The Department recognizes the tremendous potential of a
well-focused biomass R&D program to develop biorefinery technologies
that can produce fuels, power, and high-value chemicals and other
products. Nevertheless, Congressionally-directed activities reduced the
coherence of this program and significantly constrained the ability of
our scientists and engineers to move these important technologies
forward. Thus, when we made the tough choices about funding the most
important research for our Nation's energy security, environmental, and
economic goals, we decided to shift funds from the biomass program
where the effectiveness of our R&D work was already reduced into other
areas, particularly our longer-term hydrogen and fuel cell R&D.
EERE's budget reflects numerous factors: Administration priorities,
efficiencies realized by combining all biomass research under one
program, alignment with the Administration's R&D investment criteria,
program performance, expected public benefits, and bringing to
completion research on some technology applications that are ready to
be commercialized. It is also important to recognize that in fiscal
year 2004, DOE will continue collaborating with USDA in order to
leverage both agencies' resources as we are doing in fiscal year 2003.
In fiscal year 2003, under a joint solicitation required by the Biomass
R&D Act of 2000, USDA will award $14 million and DOE $5 million for
cost-shared R&D work identified in the Act.
Question. When you took over as Assistant Secretary 2 years ago,
you expended a substantial amount of time and effort in reorganizing
the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy office. One of the unique
features of the final organization chart was the creation of a Board of
Directors for EERE. You assured us at the time that the Board of
Directors was going to be a panel of your brightest minds and was going
to be afforded the opportunity to think big thoughts and advise you
directly. More to the point, you assured us that it was not a burial
ground for unwanted Deputy Assistant Secretaries. However, in the year
since the reorganization went into place, two of your five Directors
have left and the other three seem to be engaged in activities not
always directly related to your office's mission. Do you still stand by
the concept of a Board of Directors?
Answer. One of the innovations of the new EERE business model has
been the creation of the Board of Directors. It has also been one of
the early successes. Board members have represented EERE and the
Department in international climate change deliberations, formed
corporate strategies related to the FreedomCAR partnership and Hydrogen
Fuel Initiative, and advised on how to reshape the budget to comport
with new, emerging priorities. Proof positive of the importance of this
unique governmental entity is that we are conducting a national search
to replace the recently departing Board members and hope to have an
announcement as to their replacement in the coming weeks.
______
Questions Submitted by Senator Patty Murray
SCIENCE
Question. Dr. Orbach, the Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL) and
major Universities and research institutes in my State are valuable
resources for the Genomes to Life program and I urge you to expand the
use of those world class facilities. However, I also realize the Office
of Science's Biological and Environmental Research program sustained
real cuts into the base budget in the fiscal year 2003 Omnibus budget.
For this budget year, I would like to work with the Chairman to include
significant increases for the Genomes to Life program in the BER
budget. Dr. Orbach, what would the Office of Science be able to do with
additional funds for the Genomes to Life program?
Answer. Senator Murray, I believe that the fiscal year 2004
President's request for the Genomes to Life program provides robust
funding, while balancing the needs of this exciting new program with
other equally compelling programs being carried out within the Office
of Science. In these very early days of research in the Genomes to Life
(GTL) program we have three types of research needs. First, we need to
fund large, multi investigator, multi institutional, multidisciplinary
research teams to do the kinds of science required by a program whose
technology, computational, and experimental challenges are as complex
and diverse as those of the GTL program. We have already funded 5 large
scientific teams ($5-7 million per year) whose research spans the four
core goals of the GTL program (approximately one team per goal): (1)
understand all the multi protein molecular machines in DOE-relevant
microbes, (2) identify the genetic regulatory machinery that controls
these machines, (3) understand complex, DOE-relevant communities of
microbes since microbes generally work in communities and not alone,
and (4) develop the computational resources needed to make all of this
happen. To ensure a diversity of research approaches that is so
important for fundamental discovery in science, we need at least two or
more teams of scientists addressing each of these large, challenging
goals. The fiscal year 2004 President's request includes an additional
$29.2 million for GTL. These additional funds could, for example,
support an additional large team of scientists focused on each of the
four core GTL goals. Second, we need to fund a wide variety of cutting
edge research projects that will help us develop many of the specific
technologies and research tools that will be needed by our large GTL
research teams, by planned GTL user facilities (see below), and,
indeed, by tomorrow's scientists across all areas of biology. These
individual investigator type projects are analogous to the many
projects funded in the Human Genome Project that led to the development
of the resources and technologies eventually used to actually sequence
the human genome. Third, the proposed GTL plan calls for cost-
effective, high throughput user facilities for carrying out much of the
routine biology and generating the necessary resources of GTL (and for
other areas of biology outside of GTL) just as the Human Genome project
needed DNA sequencing factories. Four high throughput facilities are
planned for (1) protein production, (2) imaging of microbial proteins,
molecular machines, and communities, (3) proteomics, and (4) whole
systems analysis.
Question. Dr. Orbach, does the fiscal year 2004 budget request have
enough funds to have full utilization of EMSL including computer
equipment?
Answer. The fiscal year 2004 budget request for the Environmental
Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) includes $35,149,000 for operating
expenses and $1,989,000 for capital equipment. The EMSL is expected to
have sufficient funding to allow full utilization of the EMSL,
including the new high performance computer.
SUBCOMMITTEE RECESS
Senator Domenici. And for all of you who came from the
Department and others, thank you for being here.
Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 3:31 p.m., Wednesday, March 12, the
subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene subject to the call of
the Chair.]