[Senate Hearing 115-484]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-484
FOSTERING INNOVATION: CONTRIBUTIONS
OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S
NATIONAL LABORATORIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 12, 2017
__________
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
___________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
26-874 WASHINGTON : 2019
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho RON WYDEN, Oregon
MIKE LEE, Utah BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
STEVE DAINES, Montana AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
CORY GARDNER, Colorado JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
LUTHER STRANGE, Alabama CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
------
Subcommittee on Energy
CORY GARDNER, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH JOE MANCHIN III
JEFF FLAKE RON WYDEN
STEVE DAINES BERNARD SANDERS
LAMAR ALEXANDER AL FRANKEN
JOHN HOEVEN MARTIN HEINRICH
BILL CASSIDY ANGUS S. KING, JR.
ROB PORTMAN TAMMY DUCKWORTH
LUTHER STRANGE CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO
Colin Hayes, Staff Director
Patrick J. McCormick III, Chief Counsel
Brianne Miller, Senior Professional Staff Member and Energy Policy
Advisor
Angela Becker-Dippmann, Democratic Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Democratic Chief Counsel
Scott McKee, Democratic Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Gardner, Hon. Cory, Subcommittee Chairman and a U.S. Senator from
Colorado....................................................... 1
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Subcommittee Ranking Member and a U.S.
Senator from West Virginia..................................... 2
Duckworth, Hon. Tammy, a U.S. Senator from Illinois.............. 4
WITNESSES
Tumas, Dr. Bill, Associate Lab Director, Materials and Chemical
Science and Technology, National Renewable Energy Laboratory... 5
Ratnayake, Anuja, Director, Emerging Technology Strategy, Duke
Energy Corporation............................................. 16
Kearns, Dr. Paul, Interim Laboratory Director, Argonne National
Labora-
tory........................................................... 25
Anderson, Dr. Brian J., Director of the WVU Energy Institute,
West Virginia University....................................... 32
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
Anderson, Dr. Brian J.:
Opening Statement............................................ 32
Written Testimony............................................ 35
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 71
Duckworth, Hon. Tammy:
Opening Statement............................................ 4
Gardner, Hon. Cory:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
``75 Breakthroughs'' by the U.S. Department of Energy's
National Laboratories...................................... 39
Kearns, Dr. Paul:
Opening Statement............................................ 25
Written Testimony............................................ 28
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
Opening Statement............................................ 2
Ratnayake, Anuja:
Opening Statement............................................ 16
Written Testimony............................................ 18
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 68
Tumas, Dr. Bill:
Opening Statement............................................ 5
Written Testimony............................................ 8
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 63
FOSTERING INNOVATION: CONTRIBUTIONS
OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S
NATIONAL LABORATORIES
----------
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Energy,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:06 p.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Cory Gardner,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CORY GARDNER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
Senator Gardner [presiding]. The Committee will come to
order.
Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for your patience as
we had to delay the hearing start.
Today the Subcommittee on Energy will hold its second
hearing in the 115th Congress. I enjoy the opportunity, always,
to work with the Ranking Member, Senator Manchin, to address
these key topics in Energy.
During today's hearing we will take a deeper look into the
Department of Energy's National Laboratory system. In 2015, the
Council to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy
Laboratories stated that the 17 labs of the DOE ``are national
assets that have contributed profoundly to the nation's
security, scientific leadership, and economic
competitiveness.'' I am excited to hear much more about these
outcomes today.
The constellation of national labs was born from our desire
to harness nuclear energy. Through today's discussion, I
suspect our witnesses will enlighten us on the dramatic
transformations that the lab system has taken over the last 70
years to continually address our nation's biggest challenges
and leaders, and as you are leaders, on the global stage.
The U.S. has been the leader in research and development
for years, but China is close at our heels in research
spending. How we choose to invest in our national labs and
support the scientists within them is critical going forward.
Today I hope to hear more about what has been accomplished
with the world-leading unique facilities we have developed so
far and insights into how our laboratories incubate creative
experts responsible for life-changing outcomes.
If I remember right from chemistry class, and according to
my grades I may not have always remembered right, a catalyst is
something that promotes or accelerates a reaction or outcome
that would not normally happen. I believe our national labs are
catalysts that have accelerated or made possible many
innovations.
Our national labs harness nuclear power. They have shown us
how to draw energy from the sun and the wind. Medical imaging
was made possible by national lab materials discoveries. They
have continued to push the limits of computational power and
software tools to analyze the most difficult problems to keep
us all safe, both from nuclear weapons and even in the car as
we drive.
The national labs are truly a catalyst. The ability of
national labs to encourage innovation, foster collaboration and
accelerate outcomes results in significant value and impact.
I expect our witnesses today can probably teach us a thing
or two about catalysis science. Beyond that, I definitely look
forward to hearing them elaborate on the discovery environment
within the labs and examples of results providing societal
value. I believe the national labs have demonstrated a great
ability to our delivery on science over several generations and
Administrations and will continue to enhance the lives of
millions of Americans.
I would like to welcome our four witnesses: Dr. Brian
Anderson, Dr. Kearns, Ms. Ratnayake, if I got it right, and Dr.
Tumas; but I will start first with turning to Senator Manchin
for comments and introduction.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WEST VIRGINIA
Senator Manchin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
you for scheduling this hearing and for your work and support
of our country's national lab system.
Between the National Energy Technology Lab in Morgantown,
West Virginia, and the National Renewable Energy Lab that calls
Colorado home, Senator Gardner and I have a firsthand
understanding and appreciation for the critical work that is
done by the good men and women who make our national lab
systems.
I was happy to work with Senator Capito on the
Appropriations Committee to ensure that NETL is funded at
$72.66 million for NETL research and development and at $58.68
million for NETL infrastructure and operations for the Fiscal
Year 2018 Energy and Water bill.
I also want to thank Senator Heinrich for his leadership on
the Energy Technology Maturation Act of 2017. This bill is a
commonsense approach to ensuring that the Department of Energy
can incentivize small businesses and private sector interest to
partner with the national laboratories to advance the growth of
lab-based technologies into commercial markets. I am happy to
be a co-sponsor also with him.
And last, but not least, I appreciate that our witnesses
are joining us today for this very timely discussion. In
particular, I want to recognize Dr. Brian Anderson who leads
the West Virginia University Energy Institute. I have worked
with Brian for some time, and I am glad he is here today to
give us the University Partner's perspective on the importance
of the work being done in Morgantown at the National Energy
Technology Lab.
The network of 17 national labs have developed over a long
history with many originating during the time of the Manhattan
Project. The national labs focus on energy innovation,
scientific research, national security and environmental
stewardship. The national labs work at the forefront of basic
science and fundamental research, and the work that our
national labs do has led to some of the most significant
innovations of the last century. Just a couple examples include
making digital recording technology a reality and x-ray vision.
It was actually the national labs who discovered the difference
between good and bad cholesterol.
Over the past year, the national laboratories provided
expertise and support for the joint comprehensive plan of
action which, as we know, is the Iran Nuclear Agreement and
addressing and evaluating the impact of the leak at the Aliso
Canyon Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility.
Another unique but important aspect of our lab systems are
user facilities. The labs have unique and leading-edge user
facilities such as x-ray and neutron sources, advanced
accelerators and laser facilities, and nanomaterials facilities
that benefit the research of over 33,000 researchers from
academia, research institutions and private industries,
annually.
The lab that I hold near and dear to my heart is the
National Energy Technology Lab (NETL) which is headquartered in
Pittsburgh. The NETL is the only government-owned, government-
operated, GOGO lab, in the national lab system. Housed under
the Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy, it
celebrated its 100th anniversary several years ago in
recognition of a history of research stations dating back to
1910.
NETL implements a broad range of energy and environmental
research and development programs that include enabling
domestic coal, natural gas and oil to economically power our
nation's homes, businesses and transportation in an efficient,
environmentally sustainable way.
With a sprawling complex in Morgantown, West Virginia, that
employs approximately 612 people, NETL has delivered some of
our most important energy innovations in recent decades. NETL
has expertise in coal, oil and gas technologies as well as
energy systems and international energy issues. For example,
its work regarding the extraction of rare earth elements (REE)
from coal byproducts is a testament to NETL's ability to think
creatively to solve our nation's energy security and supply
chain challenges.
I was happy to help secure funding for the REE research in
the Fiscal Year 2018 Energy and Water bill and look forward to
working with WVU and NETL further as we work to redevelop a
domestic energy industry for rare earth elements.
And as Dr. Anderson will tell us today, NETL's
partnerships, cooperative research and development agreements,
financial assistance and contractual arrangements with
universities and the private sector have led to extraordinary
collaboration amongst the world's leading minds in energy
innovation.
West Virginia has a history of producing energy for the
rest of the country and NETL has played a big role in ensuring
that we are striving to do it in cleaner, more efficient and
more cost-effective ways. That has contributed greatly to West
Virginia's role as a net energy exporter.
In conclusion, the national labs are the lifeblood of our
innovation. The collaborative nature of this lab system makes
our lab system dramatically important to the future of science
and energy innovation in this country; therefore, the proposed
budget cuts to our national lab system are concerning to say
the least. The Fiscal 2018 proposed budget would cut $1.25
billion in funding from the national labs which could eliminate
about 7,000 jobs. That is obviously going to result in a brain
drain that will cause major disruption to the ongoing work at
these facilities, at our universities and in the private
sector.
I look forward to working with Chairman Gardner and my
colleagues to ensure our nation's labs are given the resources
they need to continue their vital work.
Thank you all for being here.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Manchin, and thank you
for the introduction of Dr. Anderson, one of our witnesses
today.
Senator Duckworth, I know, has an introduction as well.
STATEMENT OF HON. TAMMY DUCKWORTH,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ILLINOIS
Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is a real pleasure to introduce Dr. Paul Kearns, Acting
Director at Argonne National Laboratory, which is in my home
State of Illinois.
I was warned by my staff not to make this claim because we
do not actually have the hard data for it, but I am going to
claim it anyway--I think, with our two national labs, we have
more particle physicists per capita than any other state in the
nation and I dare anyone to come up with the data to prove me
wrong.
[Laughter.]
Senator Gardner. I am going to have to look into that.
Senator Duckworth. Go for it. Go for it.
Senator Franken. I am on it too.
Senator Duckworth. There you go, there you go.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Kearns heads up one of those critical, critical, crown
jewels of scientific innovation in Illinois. We also have the
privilege of having the first national lab in the country,
Argonne.
Dr. Kearns has a long and decorated career as a scientist
having served across the country at several national labs. His
experiences are especially relevant to this hearing on
innovation.
At Argonne, Dr. Kearns guides the development and
implementation of the laboratory's strategic vision. He is
leading Argonne in its efforts to continue delivering world
class performance in science and technology, operations,
employee health and safety and environmental protections.
Dr. Kearns promotes a culture of innovation and
collaboration within the laboratory which will serve it well as
it enters into its 75th year, and he also promised to put in a
good word for Fermilab, our other national laboratory as well.
So I am incredibly happy that Dr. Kearns was able to join us
for this very important conversation.
Thank you for being here and welcome.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Duckworth.
We will begin with the lab that just happens to be located
in the great State of Colorado, the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, Dr. William Tumas, Associate Laboratory Director,
Materials and Chemical Science and Technology.
Dr. Tumas is responsible for overall leadership,
management, technical direction and workforce development of
the materials and chemical science and technology capabilities
at NREL, spanning fundamental and applied research and
development for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Dr. Tumas received his undergrad degree in chemistry from
Ithaca College, his Ph.D. from Stanford and then did his post-
doctoral research at Caltech. I hope you have paid your student
loans.
[Laughter.]
With that, I look forward to hearing your testimony. Thank
you.
STATEMENT OF DR. BILL TUMAS, ASSOCIATE LAB DIRECTOR, MATERIALS
AND CHEMICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY
LABORATORY
Dr. Tumas. Thank you, Senator Gardner, thank you, Ranking
Member Manchin and the rest of the Subcommittee for the
opportunity to talk about the value of the national
laboratories today.
As Senator Gardner said, I'm the Associate Lab Director for
Materials and Chemistry at the National Renewable Energy Lab,
commonly called NREL. I lead programs in material science,
nanoscience, chemistry, energy storage, solar energy, hydrogen
and fuel cells. I also lead an Energy Frontier Research Center
in Materials by Design.
I started my career at DuPont Central Research and six
years later I moved to the Los Alamos National Laboratory and
in 2010 I moved to NREL.
What attracted me to the national labs, as we heard from
our Chair and the Ranking Member, is the ability to really
address big science challenges, complex problems and to work in
a real teeming science environment with superb colleagues and
excellent facilities.
As we heard already, the national labs have contributed
significantly to our national security, our energy security,
our economic prosperity and our scientific leadership.
Other examples include optical disc recording to explosive
detection, many examples we heard from our everyday lives can
track their origin to national laboratories, strengthening the
metal on aircraft, 22 elements were discovered at the national
laboratories, everything from lead-free solder to nuclear
deterrents to airport security.
Another thing that I'd like to point out is the national
labs really are one of the only groups that you can pull
together, essentially, on a moment's notice to create very
large, multi-disciplinary teams to tackle really pressing
needs, whether it's disaster forecast, disaster recovery or
other things that are even classified that we can't discuss in
this arena, there are many examples today.
The national labs, as we heard, have a scientific use, set
a specialized science user facilities. They also have a pool of
highly-
talented individuals and researchers, and that really forms the
backbone of a national lab system that I would purport really
is a huge engine for maintaining and developing our country's
science and technology capability.
In addition to allowing access to tens of thousands of
scientists from universities and industry to the user
facilities, the lab serves as a magnet and, I would argue, a
training ground for our next generation of scientists and
engineers.
There are a number of examples where we've seen significant
impact in energy as well. Cost-efficient shale gas can trace
its way back to national lab work. We'll hear about carbon
capture and storage, perhaps, from NETL and the University of
West Virginia. Photovoltaics, near and dear to my heart, from
our own laboratory, and I'm sure we'll hear about advanced
battery technologies from our colleague from Argonne.
NREL work encompasses fundamental science but also applied
science and engineering, technical analysis and assessment and
systems integration. And we're proud to have made significant
contributions in partnership with many others to a number of
areas. Thin film solar cells are made by a U.S. company and
create tens of gigawatts of clean power. Multi-junction, high-
efficiency solar cells power satellites and are finding
increasing use by the U.S. military for energy.
The U.S. industry, solar industry, employs over 370,000
employees today. The wind industry employs 100,000 and is on
track for a quarter million employees in the U.S. by 2020.
NREL has contributed significantly to power variable power
strategies and pitch control that are used in almost every
turbine in many, many states in our country.
Making energy more affordable and domestically available,
of course, also makes U.S. industry more competitive. In
addition to working on affordability, NREL works a lot on
resiliency. Through our energy systems integration facility, we
work with other laboratories, you'll hear examples from Duke
Energy today, on trying to make the grid more stable, more
reliable and more secure. And we have a co-lead of 14 lab
consortium that aims to modernize our grid and also guard it
against both manmade and natural threats.
Despite all these great advances, we live in a world of
great opportunity and a world of great challenge.
Supercomputers coupled with experiment can help us discover
materials; but in the future, it can also help us design
entirely new processing concepts that could lead to advanced
manufacturing. Understanding the Earth subsurface is critical
for fossil fuel extraction, for nuclear waste disposal and for
maintaining and assuring high-quality water resources across
our country.
From a catalysis science standpoint, Senator Gardner, I'm
fascinated by what we can do in the future of taking carbon
dioxide and not thinking of it as a waste product, but actually
converting it to materials and to products of commerce.
In energy, we aren't done yet. There's still much to be
done on cost, on efficiency, on accelerating the deployment and
on getting more energy on to the grid, a true above all
strategy. As we'll hear from our colleagues, likely, energy
storage is critical as well.
Through the energy materials networks we've seen that
laboratories now can work on big data, computation and
experiment and partnership with industry and companies and
address a myriad of challenges, like lightweight materials,
electrocatalysis for hydrogen production and for fuel cells,
caloric materials for refrigeration and one that I like that we
lead with NREL with three other labs, looking at photovoltaic
materials for photovoltaic modules. So we certainly aren't done
yet. Continued innovation is critical.
I think it's unrealistic to expect the private sector,
though, to pick up the massive R&D void that significant
curtailment in our federal R&D budgets could cause. In fact, I
would argue that the Bell Labs, Westinghouse Labs and, as of
last year, my own former employer, DuPont Central Research,
don't even exist anymore.
Our current ecosystem really depends much more on public-
private partnerships between national laboratories and industry
and companies, and that's what's needed to turn scientific
discoveries into beneficial use.
Success comes not only from fundamental research on
materials discovery, as we've seen in solar and batteries, but
also laboratory engagement with partners on devices,
prototypes, testing, reliability and durability, the entire
technology development spectrum.
We're not the only country making major investments. As you
know, other countries are making massive investments, as
Senator Gardner told us.
Cutting-edge science is going to be critical to the future
of America and it's going to be critical to maintain our
competitive edge. And I would argue if we fail to take
advantage of the science assets and the prior investments
already made, we risk depending on others for the ideas,
knowledge and the innovation we surely will need in the future.
So I'd just like to close by telling you that, in summary,
national labs bring an unmatched expertise, I think, in
science, but also a very strong and very key link to connecting
science to the technological advances that we require.
With that, I want to thank you for the opportunity to talk
to you and thank you for your leadership.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Tumas follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Dr. Tumas.
Our next witness, Ms. Ratnayake, who is joining us today,
is the Director of Emerging Technology Strategy for Duke
Energy. The Emerging Technology organization is responsible for
monitoring technology-driven megatrends, identifying and
developing utility technologies, and informing Duke Energy's
long-term strategy.
Ms. Ratnayake has over a decade of experience in the energy
industry as she earned her Bachelor's degree in Business
Administration from Berea College and holds a Master's degree
in both Business Administration and Diplomacy and International
Commerce from the University of Kentucky.
A native of Sri Lanka, Ms. Ratnayake and her husband have
two sons.
Thank you for joining us today.
STATEMENT OF ANUJA RATNAYAKE, DIRECTOR, EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
STRATEGY, DUKE ENERGY CORPORATION
Ms. Ratnayake. Thank you, Senator.
Good afternoon, Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Manchin
and members of the Subcommittee. My name, as I was introduced,
is Anuja Ratnayake. I'm the Director of Emerging Technology
Strategy at Duke.
Our team, as Senator Gardner mentioned, we are the front
end of Duke Energy, where we lead emerging technology pilot
projects, including a focus on energy storage, microgrids and
renewable energy integration and we continuously work with a
number of national labs.
If I may, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge Duke
Energy's customers and employees, who have been affected by
Hurricane Irma which has caused widespread devastating damage
across Florida, as well as damage and outages in the Carolinas.
In the storm's aftermath personnel safety continues to be
the most important focus as we work as quickly as possible to
restore power to critical infrastructure and all of our
customers.
Today, I appreciate the opportunity to provide the
Subcommittee with the perspective of regulated electric utility
on the value that the Department of Energy's national labs
provide to the electric power sector and our customers.
Duke Energy is one of the largest energy companies in the
U.S., serving a population of about 24 million people with
electric and gas services. We operate under a regulatory model
that prioritizes lowest cost for customers which is met through
prudent commercialized technology. This regulatory structure
does not incentivize utilities to undertake research,
development and early adoption of new and emerging solutions
due to the inherent technology risk during the early stages of
their commercialization. This creates significant challenges as
potentially transformational but nascent solutions are unable
to prove their abilities without extensive testing. This is
exactly the gap the DOE research programs and ARPA-E fill,
serving a vital role for the entire energy sector.
New technologies that are meant to operate on their own can
take years of R&D in lab settings before they become
scientifically viable and then more R&D in field settings
before they're economically competitive.
The energy grid is the largest and most complex machine in
the world, comprised of many millions of subcomponents, all
working seamlessly together to keep your lights on. Adding a
single, new subcomponent, not only requires years of R&D by
itself, but it must also prove it can work with the millions of
existing components, as well as other future requirements
driven by parallel technology developments.
This is not the kind of R&D even the most well-funded,
sophisticated company should do on its own. For if a technology
doesn't work, it could literally turn out we're dark. This is
why we strongly believe the true transformative potential of
today's emerging technologies cannot be realized without
partners like the national labs. They have expertise with this
complex system as well as the unique tools necessary to test
and validate emerging tech capabilities.
In my written testimony, I have described specific project
examples on increasing efficiency in fossil generation,
expanding grid resiliency and enabling seamless renewable
integration. The fundamental point of these projects is to
position our industry to embrace the changing energy future and
evolving customer expectations.
To highlight one of these examples our collaborative
partnership with Pacific Northwest National Lab looked at
impacts of integrating solar PV on the grid. The lessons
learned from this study have proven essential for understanding
intermittency and maintaining reliability while we add more
solar to our system.
With PNNL we further evaluated leveraging energy storage,
smart inverters and demand site management to effectively and
economically integrate the increasing levels of solar
generation. This work was an essential building block for us to
rethink how to plan a smart energy future for our customers.
Our mandate as electric utilities is to provide safe,
reliable and affordable energy for our customers. Your support
and investments in the national labs enable us to leverage new
technologies, to modernize the power grid and stimulate
economic growth while we continue to meet this mandate.
The capabilities offered by the national labs are
unattainable anywhere else in the industry and are critical to
the industry's ability to understand how to better operate and
plan our system for the future. This ultimately ensures
customers and our communities have the lowest cost, most
reliable, resilient and advanced clean energy system in the
world.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ratnayake follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Ms. Ratnayake.
Dr. Kearns, as introduced by Senator Duckworth, the Interim
Director at the Argonne National Laboratory.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF DR. PAUL KEARNS, INTERIM LABORATORY DIRECTOR,
ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Kearns. Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Manchin and
members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today.
I am Paul Kearns, the Interim Director of Argonne National
Laboratory which is located in Lemont, Illinois. For nearly
three decades I've held senior management positions in the
Department of Energy's national laboratories. I am passionate
about securing our nation and encouraging breakthrough
discoveries in science and technology.
For more than 70 years the U.S. Department of Energy and
its national laboratories have been delivering scientific
discovery and innovation focused on understanding nature's
deepest secrets, improving the way our nation generates,
distributes and uses energy, and enhancing global, national and
our homeland security. Time and again the laboratories have
been called upon to overcome the world's greatest scientific
challenges, from answering urgent questions about outbreaks of
Ebola to mitigating weather-related risk with innovative
detailed computer models.
The Department of Energy operates five light sources,
including our Advanced Photon Source at Argonne. Each offers a
different way of characterizing materials at the atomic and
molecular level so that we may understand, predict and
ultimately control material properties.
From these facilities come life-changing discoveries. Drugs
used to treat and halt the progression of conditions, including
advanced kidney cancer, malignant and inoperable skin cancer, a
common type of leukemia and HIV all got their start at
Argonne's Advanced Photon Source. Research there has also led
to greater understanding of diseases ranging from autism to
osteoporosis.
This ability to view matter in great detail has led to many
other inventions as well. The intense x-rays of the Argonne
Advanced Photon source has helped us design the technology
that's used in the battery cell that powers the Chevy Volt. It
has also led to insights about how to improve the reliability
of additive manufacturing, the efficiency of the internal
combustion engines and the possibility of hypersonic flight.
These insights flow from open and productive partnerships with
a range of industries including pharmaceuticals, oil and gas
and transportation.
As we upgrade Argonne's Advanced Photon Source, researchers
will be able to peer deeper in near real time and develop, for
example, next generation quantum materials with extraordinary
properties and create 3-D images of the human brain. In other
words, the ultimate 3-D microscope is within the nation's
grasp.
More than 30 of the 500 fastest supercomputers in the world
can be found at DOE laboratories. At Argonne, we've helped
industry perform simulations in support of more efficient jet
engines and wind turbines and help doctors arrive at prognosis
and treatment plans designed specifically for individual cancer
patients. Scientists also use these resources to enhance the
creation of nanocircuits to usher in the next generation of
electronic circuitry.
We design, build and operate distinctive scientific
instrumentation and facilities making supercomputing, imaging
and other resources available to the wider research community.
This multiplies the value the national laboratories deliver
through collaboration with more than 30,000 users of our
facilities from academia and industry.
With our unique talent and tools, national laboratories
play a critical role in large-scale, long-term research and
development that compliments the pursuits of universities and
industry to discover new knowledge and better human lives.
Argonne's material science and chemistry research has
yielded a spectrum of innovations ranging from some of the
toughest ceramic ever produced--perfect for energy and
transportation applications--to innovations that demonstrate
the doubling of the carrying capacity of the best commercial
superconductors.
DOE laboratories and universities mutually benefit from
developing strategic partnerships. These partnerships
capitalize on the different strengths of their respective
organizations and bring unique solutions to regional and broad
national challenges.
As an example, the Institute for Molecular Engineering
created, as a partnership between Argonne and its parent
organization, the University of Chicago, looks to impact major
society issues with innovative technologies achieved through
molecular scale, design and manipulation.
The Argonne Joint Center for Energy Storage Research,
JCESR, DOE's battery and energy storage hub, is an example of a
successful public-private partnership, bringing together
collaborators from universities, industry, and other national
laboratories. The hub's mission is to look beyond lithium ion,
today's technology, to create next generation battery
technologies that will transform the transportation sector and
the electrical grid, the way today's lithium ion batteries have
transformed personal electronics.
In addition to energy storage, national laboratories are
working to create a more reliable and resilient power
infrastructure for U.S. energy and economic security, as has
been mentioned already today. The laboratories increase the
mobility of our citizens with new transportation systems
through diversified fuel sources and increased efficiency.
We integrate combustion, fuels and lightweight materials
research to improve internal combustion engine efficiency. We
explore the possibility of cost-effective and durable hydrogen
storage materials for fuel cells and develop and deploy new
energy storage technologies for electric and hybrid electric
vehicles.
Specialists in backgrounds in engine and combustion system
development, as well as high-octane and bio-derived fuel
chemistries collaborate with our leading experts in advanced
engine simulations allowing for comprehensive assessment of
alternative fuels to optimize fuel economy gains for a range of
applications.
National laboratories make us more secure by advancing
nuclear materials management, detection, and forensic
capabilities to protect the nation. They also enhance the
safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear
deterrent. We provide the targeted, sophisticated data
collection and lightning-paced parsing necessary to inform
national security decision-making, and create an advantage with
energy and power solutions specifically designed to fulfill
national security missions.
The success of the national laboratories is being noticed
by other countries. They are looking at our model to replicate
its unique interdisciplinary nature. We must continue to invest
in this system to remain at the forefront of research and
development as we overcome the greatest scientific challenges.
Thank you for your time and interest in how the national
laboratories bring greater security, health, and prosperity to
Americans.
I welcome any questions that you might have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Kearns follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Dr. Kearns.
Dr. Anderson, introduced by Senator Manchin, the Director
of the West Virginia Energy Institute.
Thank you, Dr. Anderson.
STATEMENT OF DR. BRIAN J. ANDERSON, DIRECTOR OF THE WVU ENERGY
INSTITUTE, WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
Dr. Anderson. Chair Gardner and the rest of the Committee,
I thank you very much for your attention today. And I do,
certainly, thank Senator Manchin for his kind introduction.
As he mentioned, I am the Director of the WVU Energy
Institute at West Virginia University. We are the central
umbrella organization to help coordinate interdisciplinary and
multidisciplinary research across our 14 colleges and schools
and that includes 167 affiliate faculty members who work in the
energy space.
I am the GE Plastics Materials Engineering Professor of
Chemical Engineering and have 17 years of energy research
experience, primarily in chemical engineering, CO2
sequestration, natural gas hydrates, unconventional gas
production and geothermal energy. In all of these research
areas I have personally collaborated with NREL, Argonne, Los
Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Idaho National
Lab and, of course, NETL.
West Virginia University is a public, land-grant, research-
intensive university. It is one of the Carnegie Classification
Research 1 universities, which is the top 115 universities
performing research in the country.
Our Morgantown campus hosts the University Energy
Institute, the National Research Center for Coal and Energy,
the Center for Alternative Fuels, Engines and Emissions which
discovered the Volkswagen was cheating on their emissions tests
last year.
The University has active and ongoing research related to
operating improvements on existing coal-fired power generation,
the recovery of rare earth elements from coal wastes,
instrumentation and sensor development to accurately measure
fugitive emissions from shale gas wells, analysis of sub-
surface geologic structures and their applicability to store
gas liquids, carbon sequestration or to produce natural gas.
We have also developed sophisticated software systems and
algorithms that can model complex fossil fuel combustion
systems, as well as complex electric transmission grids
responding to variable generation from intermittent sources
like solar and wind.
In the renewable space, we are a leader in biomass as well
as geothermal energy and in energy storage to enable renewable
energy technologies onto the grid.
Additionally, the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center
(CERC) Advanced Coal Technology Consortium is based in the WVU
Energy Institute at West Virginia University. That consortium
is one of five consortia across the country that was created
through a bi-lateral protocol signed in 2009 between the United
States Department of Energy and two agencies of the People's
Republic of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology and
the National Energy Administration. The initial phase of this
Center's Protocol spanned five years and in 2015 was extended
another five years.
As with most of our major research initiatives at WVU, this
CERC program involves a number of Department of Energy National
Laboratory collaborations. The CERC program has national
laboratory project partners, such as Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Lab, the National
Energy Technology Laboratory. And these lab partners are in
addition to the number of private sector and academic
institutions including Duke Energy.
A second project that I would draw your attention to is
called the Marcellus Shale Energy Environment Laboratory
(MSEEL). Again, this is a collaboration between the National
Energy Technology Lab and WVU.
As we know, much of our power sector is shifting to natural
gas and a lot of natural gas is being produced from Appalachia.
Our MSEEL site is the world's first transparent well in the
sense that all the data collected in terms of its water
footprint, its air footprint, noise, light and the full cycle
of the production of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale site
in Morgantown is open to the public.
This is one of the most instrumented wells in the world and
we have a full record of all of the emissions through the cycle
with the design on reducing emissions during production as well
as emissions during transportation and distribution of natural
gas. Not only is this project funded by the DOE Fossil Program,
it does heavily involve NETL as a research partner.
In addition to the partnership between CERC and MSEEL, the
University has active relationships with the NREL in
geothermal, biomass and hydroelectric, Brookhaven National Lab,
Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest and Lawrence Berkeley National
Lab, not to leave them out, but these are our major research
collaborations.
We have worked with NETL since 1946 supporting their R&D
activities. In '46 the research came to Morgantown in the form
of a synthesis gas branch experiment station, specifically
focused on coal gasification research at WVU.
WVU has collaborated with the NETL when it was the
Morgantown Energy Center. The Morgantown Energy Technology
Center, the Federal Energy Technology Center and, of course,
now, NETL.
So for the better part of the last decade we have, through
the onsite research contract, been a part of the Regional
University Alliance with our partners at Carnegie Mellon
University, the University of Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech and
Penn State, where many students have completed their Ph.D. work
onsite at the laboratory, including many of my own. Not only
does this provide a broad and talented research workforce for
the laboratory, but it also has resulted in a number of R&D 100
awards that have been awarded to RUA researchers.
So generally, innovation ecosystems often include
innovation clusters at the scale of metropolitan areas that
form a core research group of universities or companies. These
innovation clusters are typically driven by the interaction of
early stage technology ideas or firms with financing and
related companies in a geographically concentrated area that
has an enabling environment.
Geographic proximity often encourages rapid
commercialization; however, the DOE national laboratories act
not only as a convening party, but that catalyst in a hub for
innovation ecosystems across the United States.
I do sincerely thank the Committee for your time and
attention today and for allowing me to speak about West
Virginia University and our partnerships with the many national
laboratories.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Anderson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Dr. Anderson, and thanks to all
of you for being here, again, today.
I think this panel is a great representation of what our
national labs stand for and how research and development in
this country really works because we have not only the
scientists from our great laboratories across the country, but
we have the private sector involvement, we have our
universities and research institutions that are all at the
table to talk about innovations in research science and how we
are going to maintain, in this country, the leading edge of
innovation.
I encourage everybody who is listening or a part of this on
the dais to check out this ``Breakthroughs'' by America's
national laboratories, 75 breakthroughs, the highlights in
2017.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
I just thought I would go through a few of these. It is
pretty phenomenal.
Our labs fabricated the smallest machines. The world's
smallest synthetic motor, as well as radios, scales and
switches that are 100,000 times finer than a human hair were
designed at our national labs. And it is important to talk
about, okay, that is great, but how do you turn on a radio that
is that small? Well, these are the forays into nanotechnology
that could lead to life-saving pharmaceuticals and more
powerful computers.
We are talking about a national lab discovery on freezing
smoke and the smoke is actually fireproof which, there is an
irony there, it is incredible to think about why would you
freeze smoke and how did we come up with this, but what can it
do? Well, it is heat-
resistant aerogels that are candidates for insulation in
buildings, vehicles, filters in appliances. These are things
that are life-altering, life-changing, life-improving.
Ms. Ratnayake, in your comments and testimony you stated,
``There's this role, an appropriate role, for industry. There
is an appropriate role for the national lab system.''
These discoveries and the partnerships you do together in
industry, tell me the importance of federally funding and
assuring appropriate and full robust funding for our national
labs. What does that mean to Duke and to private industry?
Ms. Ratnayake. Certainly, Senator.
You gave some really good examples. They may not
necessarily be anything specific, but the energy examples are
equally transformational.
We work with a number of national labs to understand how to
integrate the new technologies that are coming to us. So it's
not necessarily fundamental sciences, but the fact of the
matter is we can't operate on a system with technology
solutions that doesn't have history.
That's where the national labs have helped us, particularly
NREL has helped us immensely. The capability NREL has within
its campus allowed us to test different components before any
of it went on our system--we had to operate in real time and
our customers would be impacted.
Most of the studies we've done with them has helped us to
understand--when I have a large amount of solar, for example,
on a single circuit, how do I operate it without the end
customer being impacted because of the variability you see in
its production?
We've had multiple opportunities to work with NREL to
visualize what that future looks like which, within our
facilities, we can't. We don't have those tools. As I
mentioned, we don't have the resources or the incentives as an
industry to look at that.
So our back-up position is to say, you're an unproven
technology, I can't adopt you. In the absence of a lab, that's
all in the absence of a lab, then public-private partnerships,
that's really my back-up position or I have to wait until
somebody else puts a solution on our system and hope that I
know what I'm doing when I have to operate it. This gives us
that, sort of, fail-proof approach process to experience things
before they become reality on my system.
Hopefully I'm answering your question.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Then there are some who might say that our national labs or
the research labs in the Federal Government are infringing or
duplicating the work that is being done by the private sector.
But that is simply not true because of what you just answered
and explained, that you would not be doing what you do without
that.
Ms. Ratnayake. Right.
So you can think of us in, sort of, with two different
roles. We, as the utility industry, are really the end user of
a number of technologies that get developed by various
entities. Some of them, I would say a very large number of the
ultimately commercialized technology, would have started in a
place like a national lab or in a place like an ARPA-E funded
program. By the time it comes to us, the remaining research and
development is all about how do I take a scientifically proven
component and make it a part of this grid that we have to
operate with 100 percent reliability every single day if we
possibly can. I can't take the risk of putting that component
without knowing how it would interact with 12 other parts.
None of the equipment manufacturers who deliver individual
components have that interest. That's the unique place that
national labs help us to bridge the gap. If they did not have
the ability, if each individual component wasn't able to go and
become a part of these testing facilities and proving, it's
just not going to be commercially viable.
So anybody who says the national labs are infringing upon
the potential of the private sector perhaps doesn't understand
the complexity of the system we are operating.
Senator Gardner. Thanks, Ms. Ratnayake.
Dr. Tumas, you are off the hook for this round. I am going
to come back to you though next time.
We will go to Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Well, I want to start by thanking the
Chair for holding today's hearing and the witnesses have
already presented an incredibly strong case for how valuable
the Department of Energy's 17 national laboratories are to our
energy future and to our nation's economy.
In New Mexico, we are proud to be home to two of DOE's
largest national laboratories, Los Alamos and Sandia. Both labs
play critical roles in both national security and development
of advanced energy technologies.
For a number of years now I have worked here in Congress
and with our two national labs in New Mexico to improve the
process to transfer those innovative technologies from the labs
into the private sector. Technology transfer and partnering
with the private sector is a critical part of a laboratory's
mission and key to increasing the economic impact of federal
research dollars.
Our national labs produce a steady stream of advanced
technologies that we have heard about a little bit today that
can yield big dividends in commercial markets. To improve the
rate of transition of laboratory-developed energy technologies
into commercial development, I believe we need to strengthen
DOE's programs to promote stronger, direct partnerships with
that private sector.
To do that, today I am proud to say I am introducing a bill
with Senator Gardner, the Energy Technology Maturation Act,
which authorizes a program at DOE to provide dedicated funding
to help bridge the gap between lab research and development and
a commercial product the private sector can produce and market.
I am also pleased to say that, in addition to Senator
Gardner and I, Senators Bennett, Durbin, Manchin and Harris are
original co-sponsors on that bipartisan bill and we are looking
forward to hearing from Senator Franken, why he is not on that
list.
[Laughter.]
Tech transfer is a major job creation opportunity that we
cannot afford to miss, even in Minnesota----
Senator Gardner. He is still----
Senator Heinrich. ----and our bill will create an
environment that strengthens our economy while encouraging
future innovations.
[Laughter.]
Senator Franken. I have never been blindsided like this.
Senator Heinrich. So I want to thank all of you for joining
us today, and I am going to yield for a moment because I think
my colleague from Minnesota is a little upset with me.
Senator Franken. I have never been blindsided like that,
Senator, and I resent it. I am joking, I don't.
Senator Heinrich. Okay.
Senator Franken. It looks good. I will look at the bill. If
you guys are doing it, it sounds good.
Senator Heinrich. Great.
[Laughter.]
Back to our witnesses.
I want to thank our lab witnesses and just ask your
thoughts, from the perspective of the labs. What is working in
the world of tech transfer? What are you seeing that is
enabling that to happen more effectively? And what isn't? And
what can we do about it?
Do any of you want to share your thoughts on that? We will
start with Dr. Kearns.
Dr. Kearns. Yes, let me jump right in because this is an
area, as I said, I'm pretty passionate about and excited to be
able to answer the question or at least start the discussion.
I think there are two things that I would cite as working
well. And one is really thinking beyond the transactional
relationships with industry to, really, more strategic
relationships with industry.
No offense to our panelists here, but we have recently
struck a long-term agreement to provide science and technology
and strategic planning support for Exelon, one of the larger
utilities in the U.S. So we're pretty excited about that. It's
fairly open and it's a cooperative research and development
agreement which allows us to have a great deal of flexibility
and really allows us to pursue many different avenues of
potential interest that Exelon may have in thinking about their
own research and development activities.
As has been commented on, they've turned--utilities today
in a regulatory, regulated environment, have great difficulty
in conducting research and development activities. So they've
turned to not only Argonne National Laboratory, but they've
turned to MIT and Northwestern with similar kinds of
arrangements, really, to pull the laboratories and those
universities in to their thinking in terms of what the future
might look like, how they might best position themselves for
the future and what new technologies they should explore. So
that's one.
A second is a new activity at Argonne we call chain
reaction innovations which is sponsored by the DOE's Office of
Advanced Manufacturing. It kind of turns things around in terms
of how we do tech transfer and that actually invites innovators
and entrepreneurs, they turn out to be fairly young for the
most part, to the laboratory to actually use our facilities and
to work with our researchers, side by side.
It's done through a competitive process and we are just
launching the second cohort, if you will, where we can actually
have young, fresh minds just out of college, or perhaps they've
just finished their postdocs, really present their ideas.
They're selected through a competitive process. As I said, we
team them with researchers at the laboratory, as well as a
business mentor to really help create a winning environment for
them so they can really be successful in terms of what they do.
And it really spans the field of interest, the ones we have,
all the way from basic fundamental science to new ideas in
chemistry, to all the way to looking at advances in nuclear
energy technologies. So it's really been well received in those
regards.
So those are two things that I would cite as that are
working very well.
Senator Gardner. Since we gobbled up a little bit of your
time, Senator Heinrich, if you would like to ask a little bit
more, you can.
Senator Heinrich. Actually, I would, if either of our other
witnesses from either NREL or West Virginia want to chime in, I
am more than----
Dr. Tumas. Yes, thank you, Senator.
At NREL we think we need to be as innovative in reaching
out to partners as we are in our research. And clearly, I think
that true partnership is important. I like to tell my
international colleagues in some of our collaborations that
collaboration is much like American football. It's a contact
sport.
And access to the labs for small companies--there are many
innovative mechanisms that have been developed over the years
for that.
I joined Los Alamos about the time in 1993 that craters
started to become very important. I spent 17 years there. One
of our energy frontier research centers is led by Los Alamos,
but NREL is an active participant. And you may know that some
of the quantum dot technologies developed there are actually in
spin-off companies in Los Alamos County today.
Senator Heinrich. Right, absolutely.
Dr. Tumas. It's very clear that innovative mechanisms are
important.
We've developed some partnerships. One is with the Wells
Fargo Foundation where we have 20 startup companies that have
access to national lab capabilities for testing, proof of
concept, and de-risking. Wells Fargo has just elected, the
foundation has just elected to go select another 30 companies
to participate there. Very different mechanisms.
We have energy material networks that were just set up that
I talked about. One is DuraMAT. It focuses on materials for
photovoltaic modules. It's led by NREL, but it has three other
labs: Sandia, the Stanford Linear Accelerator and Lawrence
Berkley lab. Each has a role in big data, materials
reliability, materials modeling, but there's an industry board
of active photovoltaic companies as well as along the supply
chain with companies that sit on that board, help guide the
research, but it's a mechanism to actually provide ready, as
needed, access to laboratory capabilities. And so, they're
there when they're needed.
Senator Heinrich. Great.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator.
I am grateful to be a co-sponsor of the legislation which
links the two together, meaning the kind of value stream that
we need when it comes to those investments, getting them
commercialized. So I appreciate your leadership in this area,
Senator Heinrich.
Senator Franken.
Senator Franken. Thank you.
It is like football, you were saying? What were your
degrees from what schools?
Dr. Tumas. I had the pleasure of watching John Elway for
three years at Stanford, Sir.
Senator Franken. No, no, no.
[Laughter.]
Oh, you were at Stanford?
Senator Gardner. Great answer, thank you.
Senator Franken. Okay, but I thought I heard Caltech and
MIT, whose football programs rival Yeshiva's.
[Laughter.]
I am concerned about the budget cuts that President Trump
is making in research, funding for research and development
across the government which, I think, puts at risk our
international competitiveness and innovative edge, not to
mention jobs, is especially pronounced at the Department of
Energy.
The budget slashes energy science and research programs by
$3.1 billion, including cutting renewable energy and energy
efficiency research by 70 percent, and it completely ends ARPA-
E.
These cuts would have serious impacts on our national labs
which, truly, are the envy of the world. The Administration
justifies these cuts by expecting the private sector to pick up
the slack, stating that the budget, ``reflects an increased
reliance on the private sector to fund later stage research,
development and commercialization of energy technologies.''
It seems like the Administration is buying into, kind of,
the Heritage Foundation fantasy that ignores the long-standing
research model that has been so effective in the United States
and are now subscribing to, really, a dangerous approach and, I
think, a naive one, that innovative technologies do not need
assistance to transition from the lab and that there is no
federal role through public-private partnerships and other
types of support. They are rejecting the model that played a
critical role in the development of the internet, for just one
example.
Also, Mr. Tumas, you talked about getting oil and gas from
shale, that kind of partnership.
Ms. Ratnayake, you work in the private sector. Is Duke
Energy planning on substantially increasing its investment in
energy research and development in lieu of those proposed DOE
cuts? Are any industry consortiums contemplating the next Bell
Labs, say, for energy innovation?
Ms. Ratnayake. We are not, Senator Franken.
Senator Franken. And I would like to hear from the rest of
the panel.
If these cuts go through, how will that impact the lab's
ability to create and retain top talent?
Dr. Anderson. I know from a university perspective it would
have a dramatic effect on the next generation of innovators,
the next generation of scientists, who are funded through the
Department of Energy programs at our universities and through
our national laboratories.
And while I have the mic, Senator Franken, as you alluded
to earlier, in terms of our national competitiveness, I can
speak frankly with our U.S./China Clean Energy Research Center
Advanced Coal Technology Consortium, that through that
partnership, through that bilateral partnership, we get to see
firsthand the innovation engine that exists in China. And so,
cuts to our scientific endeavors in the United States, both at
the basic level as well as applied and tech transfer, there is
a vast economy that is ready to take our place.
Senator Franken. So if we pass the President's budget, we
are ceding our leadership to China and to other countries, in
your opinion?
Dr. Anderson. It makes it very difficult for us to maintain
our foothold, yes.
Senator Franken. That is what I believe.
I am going to turn to energy storage because, Ms.
Ratnayake, you were talking about solar energy and the problem
you have with it being intermittent and how to deal with that.
I believe that energy storage is a key to facilitate
widespread deployment of renewable energy. It can also be used
to improve grid reliability and resilience or to avoid more
expensive upgrades. Do you agree with that?
Ms. Ratnayake. Yes, Senator Franken. Energy storage has
multiple characteristics that could help across our entire
value chain. And I would perhaps say all the components you
recognize, that there are many different ways to solve them.
Energy storage definitely has a role to play there.
Senator Franken. Thank you.
May I just continue on this path here?
Mr. Kearns, can you talk about some of the recent advances
in energy storage that are coming out of Argonne National Lab
as part of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research?
Dr. Kearns. Yes.
We have a very active program in energy storage research.
Working with today's technology, as well as what we call beyond
lithium ion, there's been a real significant investment by the
Department of Energy, certainly with support of Congress, in
the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research over the last four
years.
Great progress has been made in looking at transportation,
energy storage technologies through transportation
applications, but also grid storage applications which has been
the focus.
New materials, a great deal of fundamental, scientific
research has been done as well to help us understand those
materials and how they would perform, if you will, in terms of
deployment at a battery cell whether it be for a vehicle or in
the electric grid.
So, very good news, really, lots of promising development.
We're not done. We have work yet to do. We have some
fundamental science questions that need to be answered before
we can actually move to, really, deployment of those
technologies to industry. But great, significant work has been
accomplished.
Senator Franken. What can this Committee do to support you
as you develop more reliable, efficient, and cost-effective
advanced energy storage?
Dr. Kearns. Certainly, continued investment, continued
funding is really essential. I think support of active
partnerships, which we've talked about a great deal today. The
Joint Center for Energy Storage Research includes five national
laboratories and four prominent universities, as well as four
industrial partners. And so, that collaboration across the full
spectrum of interest and capabilities is really needed.
Industry participation involvement has really helped us
keep the eye on the target, if you will, and really understand
some of the challenges that they foresee in terms of actually
manufacturing materials and moving those materials into the
marketplace. So that full spectrum of partnership support is
really needed as well in engagement.
Senator Franken. Yes.
Thank you for letting me run over. Thank you to all of our
witnesses. You are all terrific.
I just want to emphasize that I really think that we
disinvest in this research at our peril and that the
Administration has budgeted Draconian cuts, as far as I am
concerned, to our labs and to the advanced research that we do
there and that we would be ceding leadership to China and
probably other countries as well, that if anything, at this
time when we know that we are in a period of, we are seeing the
results of climate change around the world and we know that it
is happening. And whether you believe it is manmade or not,
which 97 percent of peer-reviewed scientists believe it is
changing and there is something we can do about it, and just
from the standpoint of it is cheaper to do wind.
You know that in Colorado, my goodness.
Senator Gardner. And in Congress.
[Laughter.]
Senator Franken. Yes.
It is cheaper to do solar and--China is choking on its
fumes, and we want the business. I want the business coming
from New Mexico and Colorado and from Minnesota.
If we don't invest in our labs, in our research, it is
really so counterproductive for our country's future. I just
cannot emphasize that enough.
I want to thank you all, again, for your work and your
testimony.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Franken.
We will go another round if you would like. Is that alright
with you, to go a little bit more?
Senator Heinrich. Yes. Absolutely.
Senator Gardner. Dr. Tumas, Senator Franken mentioned
battery storage. Did you want to talk a little bit about some
of the storage work you are doing at NREL as well?
Dr. Tumas. Sure. Sure, I would.
I think there's really--Dr. Kearns did a great job and
Argonne's been actively engaged for a long time.
I think what we're going to see in energy storage is we're
going to have to couple energy storage with energy generation.
We're going to see systems integration be important.
I like to think of our work at NREL and among the national
labs as, kind of, systems-driven and analysis-based research.
We both have to look at what are the fundamental limitations of
current technologies but we have to develop the future, next
generation concepts as well. And we know some of those limits.
The other thing that I think is really important is, as a
chemist I'm fascinated by, not only what we can do by putting
electrons into electrodes, but what can we do by putting
electrons into chemical bonds?
And so, we know how to electrolyze water to make hydrogen
and oxygen and we know how to take hydrogen and oxygen back to
electricity. We know some of the limits of those, but we know
that those can help very much with grid integration at large
scale.
As we think about energy on very different--what we do for
the car might be very different than what we do for the grid,
long-term. So thinking about how to interconvert electrical and
chemical energy is a grand challenge that all the labs and a
number of universities need to address, how to make those
efficient.
The other one--it's really important and we've done this in
solar for a long time and now, I think, we're going to have to
do it in PV battery systems. And that's the, not just
understanding, but actually predicting lifetimes, predicting
reliability, predicting durability. All the kind of de-risking
that our colleague from Duke Energy talked about to really make
technologies viable.
And we can't just try to predict 30 years by studying
something, testing it for 30 years and then moving forward. We
have to understand degradation mechanisms. There's fundamental
science there, but there's plenty of applied science as well.
Senator Gardner. Yes, thank you.
I am sorry, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt, I am
sorry, did I interrupt you?
Dr. Tumas. No, that's fine, sir.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Dr. Tumas, just looking at your background, you went
through industry, research and development. You went through
two national laboratories and we have talked about other
nations that are copying the successes that we have had in our
national laboratory system, other nations that are ramping up
significantly their investments, the concern I have with the
reduced funding for our national lab system.
But I also worry about the fact that, you know, if there is
this uncertainty in our national lab system, does it continue
to draw the brightest minds? Does it continue to be the magnet
for the best and the brightest in innovation and research and
science?
So tell me a little bit about mission-driven science, the
system of engineering that DOE has that brought you and kept
you in the national lab system and what it is about that system
that draws people from within the 50 states, but also from
around the world to these magnets of innovation?
Dr. Tumas. So I think it's a couple of things. As I talked
a little bit in my testimony, big challenges that require big
solutions.
I think that one of the cultures you see at national
laboratories, and you see it much more so even at some of the
research institutions across the world, is the idea of teaming.
I love storming, informing new teams to go after new
challenges. It's really exciting to get a set of awesome
scientists who have never worked together, working together
from different disciplines on a very complicated problem.
We have a lot of postdocs and graduate students in my
Energy Frontier Research Center. Almost all of them have spent
some time at the Stanford Linear Accelerator where we can
actually look at the synthesis of molecules in real time. And
so, there's the kind of training and access to these
facilities.
We now live in a world--I grew up in a world that was very
discipline-focused. We now live in a world where graduate
students and postdocs work very multidisciplinary. They spend
time talking with theorists. They spend time doing advanced
experimental work. We have many students and postdocs who are
interested in policy and some of the analytical ramifications
and scenarios of their research. So I think this ability for
the lab system to really bring this multidimensional,
multidisciplinary approach, in addition to specialized tools
that can't be found anywhere else in the world, is really a
critical magnet.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Storage has been touched on quite a few
times, and I think I might want to return to that a little bit
with Dr. Kearns and Dr. Tumas.
But I wanted to mention, it is worth noting today that the
DOE--and some of us following open source data have suspected
this for a number of months--but the DOE has now said that we
have officially hit our SunShot goals of $1.00 per watt. And we
not only hit that goal, but we hit it three years early, Dr.
Tumas. And back in 2011 when that was set, I think the
equivalent is about $.06 unsubsidized per kilowatt-hour. Is
that right, more or less? I think we were at $.27 per kilowatt-
hour in 2011 for solar, to give you a sense of how steeply we
are coming down that curve.
If you were to look out a few years, what in photovoltaics,
in terms of new designs or new panel technologies, do you see
that gets you excited, whether it is from the perspective of
declining costs or increases in efficiency or even just
integrated systems? What are you excited about that you see out
there in the future that has not made it into the news just
yet?
Dr. Tumas. Great. Most of it is probably in the news
somewhere but maybe it's not well-known, but I'd be glad to
address that. Thank you for the question.
First of all, we, if you look at--so we're all delighted
that the SunShot goal has been met and it's always great to
meet your goals ahead of time. What's interesting is we're
meeting it at a time where that slope of cost reduction is not
yet flattening out. It's very clear, and there are road maps in
EERE--the people that run the SunShot program have a road map
for how to get to $.03 a kilowatt-hour. They suggest by 2030. I
would suggest that that could be accelerated, potentially.
There also are major issues, as we talked about, with
storage and intermittency on how to deal with a more reliable
grid, how a two-way grid allows us to get even more solar onto
the grid and wind and other things.
But from a material scientist standpoint, from a
fundamental research, I think we're not done yet either. The
four absorbers that are in commercial PV systems were actually
known when I was in graduate school watching John Elway play
football. And it turns out that only recently, there was a
material 15 years ago that was worked on at IBM, and only about
four or five years ago people in England and people in
Switzerland took these materials, perovskites, and showed they
could actually be a new solar material. In fact, NREL has an
efficiency curve that plots the efficiency over time, and this
has a slope that's been unprecedented.
And so, all of a sudden there's a whole set of new
materials. At our own Energy Frontier Research Center we're
trying to understand, as well as others, what is it about these
materials that make them special? And while we're doing that
we're also understanding that you can actually solution process
these. We, and others, can actually do roll-to-roll printing of
these materials and make 19 percent solar cells that could be
printed like newspaper. And so, we start to see new form
factors.
What's interesting about solar panels despite all the cost
reduction and all the efficiency increases is they, kind of,
still look like they did 35 years ago.
Senator Heinrich. Very much.
Dr. Tumas. And you can imagine building integrated
photovoltaics, photovoltaics everywhere else, that might bring
you power for different applications.
Clearly we, and a number of others, are working with the
Department of Defense on how to take very high-efficiency
solar, put it into flexible form factors.
So, there's many--much we can do, not just on materials
discovery, but it turns out for solar cells, it's not just the
material that matters, but it's how the materials interact.
There's several layers in a solar cell. It's how those
materials interact over time. It's how those materials are
manufactured at a large scale and what that position looks like
held up to a small scale. It really covers this whole spectrum
from discovery, but then really marching it all the way through
to a reliable, predictable, potentially new product.
Senator Heinrich. Dr. Kearns, same question, but storage in
terms of either additional chemistries----
Dr. Kearns. Sure.
Senator Heinrich. ----about thermal storage which we have
not touched on, non-lithium ion applications, flow batteries,
et cetera. What has you excited about the future?
Dr. Kearns. Oh, a number of things, really, have us excited
about the future of energy storage and thinking beyond lithium
ion. There's a great deal of interest in multivalent batteries
which is, you know, part of the challenge associated with any
battery is its capacity to store energy. By going from lithium
ion to multivalent ion of some sort, you really increase the
ability to store a great deal more energy. And so, we're very
excited about that potential.
It's a great deal of literature that's been really created,
scientific literature, to really, kind of, validate the thought
and the idea and really begin to move toward some applications
in that space.
I think also, certainly, new materials. If we look at
electrolytes and cathodes and certainly a high interest in all
kinds of different materials and new applications. Thoughts
about membranes as well in this space that could really drive,
if you will, greater efficiencies.
Big challenge, really, for energy storage, not only in
terms of storage capacity, but also reducing the cost. And you
see that real time, if you will, in terms of today's lithium
ion technology.
We'd like to leapfrog, if you will, in terms of thinking
about the next generation battery in terms of beyond lithium
ion. There's something that is cost competitive to start in
terms of where we're at today with lithium ion technology and
drive it and improve it from there. So, a lot of excitement in
terms of great promise, great potential there.
Flow batteries, you mentioned, certainly of high interest
in terms of grid storage.
Senator Heinrich. Great. Thank you very much.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Well I can certainly tell from the panel the great pride
that you approach your work with. Of course, the benefit to the
country has been phenomenal over the past many decades, the
work that you have all done in research innovation and
development beginning with an idea of how we were going to win
a war to today's ability to grow jobs, economy and remain the
world's superpower of innovation.
I want to thank you for being here today, and thank all the
panelists for your time and testimony today.
For the information of members, the record of this
Committee hearing will remain open until Friday for questions
for the record.
This is your homework assignment. I would ask that you
respond to those questions as quickly as possible.
With the thanks of this Committee, the Committee is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:19 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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