New Release from DOE: ARPA-E

ARPA-E Issues Open Call for Transformational Energy Technologies

March 2, 2012 - 2:31pm

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) issued a $150 million funding opportunity open to all transformational energy technologies to support the Obama Administration’s all-of-the-above approach to solving our nation’s most pressing energy challenges. This Open Funding Opportunity Announcement is a call to our country’s brightest scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to propose early-stage research projects that would not otherwise be able to attract private investment, but could lead to breakthrough energy technologies. This is the second open funding opportunity released under ARPA-E.  The first was in 2009.

“Today we are calling on our nation’s best and brightest to catalyze energy breakthroughs in all areas imaginable through this Open Funding Opportunity Announcement, which illustrates the true purpose of ARPA-E,” said Director Majumdar.  “Innovation is our nation’s sweet spot, and it is critically important that we look at every possible energy solution in order to ensure America’s future prosperity and security.”

This Open Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) joins ARPA-E’s other recently issued FOA – Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy (MOVE) – which will make $30 million available to find ways to harness our abundant supplies of domestic natural gas for vehicles and was announced by President Obama last week at the University of Miami.

More details on all of ARPA-E’s Funding Opportunities and Requests For Information are available HERE. Individual awards under the Open FOA will range between $250,000 and $10 million.

President Obama launched the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) in 2009 to seek out transformational, breakthrough technologies that are too risky for private sector investment but have the potential to translate science into quantum leaps in energy technology, form the foundation for entirely new industries, and in the future have large commercial impact.

Including its most recent round of selections, ARPA-E has funded a total of more than 180 projects, for $521.7 million in awards across 12 program areas. Demonstrating the success ARPA-E has already seen, the Agency announced last year that eleven of its projects that received $40 million from ARPA-E for innovative research, were able to use this funding to demonstrate results, which allowed these teams to secure more than $200 million in outside private capital investment.

ARPA-E’s third annual Energy Innovation Summit featured 107 speakers, including: President Bill Clinton; Microsoft Founder and Chairman, Bill Gates; Xerox CEO, Ursula Burns; FedEx CEO, Fred Smith; BDT Capital Chairman, Lee Scott; Deputy Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter; MIT President, Susan Hockfield; U.S. Energy Secretary, Steven Chu; and ARPA-E Director, Arun Majumdar.  The Summit attracted 2,440 attendees from 49 states and 26 countries and featured a Technology Showcase displaying over 240 breakthrough energy developments from ARPA-E’s awardees, finalists and other teams.

Energy Department Spurs Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

News release from the U.S. Dept. of Energy:

Energy Department Takes First Step to Spur U.S. Manufacturing of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors

January 20, 2012 

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy today announced the first step toward manufacturing small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in the United States, demonstrating the Administration’s commitment to advancing U.S. manufacturing leadership in low-carbon, next generation energy technologies and restarting the nation’s nuclear industry.  Through the draft Funding Opportunity Announcement announced today, the Department will establish cost-shared agreements with private industry to support the design and licensing of SMRs.

“America’s choice is clear - we can either develop the next generation of clean energy technologies, which will help create thousands of new jobs and export opportunities here in America, or we can wait for other countries to take the lead,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “The funding opportunity announced today is a significant step forward in designing, manufacturing, and exporting U.S. small modular reactors, advancing our competitive edge in the global clean energy race.”

Small modular reactors, approximately one-third the size of current nuclear plants, have compact designs that are expected to offer a host of safety, siting, construction and economic benefits. Specifically, they could be made in factories and transported to sites where they would be ready to “plug and play” upon arrival, reducing both capital costs and construction times. The small size also makes SMRs ideal for small electric grids and for locations that cannot support large reactors, providing utilities with the flexibility to scale production as demand changes.

The draft Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) announced today solicits input from industry in advance of a full FOA, which will support first-of-a-kind engineering, design certification and licensing through a cost-shared partnership. The full FOA will fund up to two SMR designs with the goal of deploying these reactors by 2022.

Today’s announcement comes on the heels of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s certification of Westinghouse Electric’s AP1000 nuclear reactor design, which was supported through a cost-shared agreement with the Energy Department. The Department’s efforts, in coordination with the NRC and private industry, have helped American companies lead the way in obtaining certification and licensing approvals for new reactor designs, which will further streamline these processes for future investments in the U.S. nuclear industry.

For more information on SMRs, please visit the Office of Nuclear Energy website.