DOE Installations and Operations (2020 Presidential transition)

Book 1 - Corporate overview
Entire 2020 Transition book As of October 2020

At its core, the Department is a science and technology organization that advances critical missions for the American people, including nuclear security; scientific leadership and discovery; clean energy innovation; environmental remediation; and energy security. Meeting these challenges requires a geographically dispersed presence, complex facilities, and highly-trained workforce. The map on DOE Laboratories, Plants, and other Field Sites shows the location of DOE’s National Laboratories, production facilities, and other field sites.

National Laboratories

Founded as part of an immense national investment in scientific research during and following World War II, DOE’s system of National Laboratories is comprised of 17 world-class research institutions that constitute the most comprehensive research network of its kind. For more than seventy years, the National Laboratories have brought deep science and technology innovation to bear against major challenges in the United States, and they continue to serve as an integral component of the U.S. research enterprise and invaluable strategic partners for DOE in evolving with its modern-day missions.

DOE’s National Laboratories each have distinct but complementary resources and capabilities, with scientists, engineers, technicians, and analysts collaborating throughout the system, as well as with academia and industry, to ensure the best solutions are pursued without regard to organizational boundaries. The labs operate one-of-a-kind national scientific user facilities that are used annually by over 32,000 researchers from universities, federal laboratories, and the private sector.

The National Laboratories fill a critical gap in the Nation’s energy innovation ecosystem. Universities emphasize early discovery and tend to focus on research associated with small groups of faculty members, while companies respond to market needs and typically focus their R&D on near-term solutions or the integration of multiple technologies. National Laboratories tackle multidisciplinary problems with a long-time horizon, often joining fundamental discovery research, technology development, and demonstration projects. In addition, the National Laboratories conduct R&D in areas that are not pursued by either universities or companies, such as safeguarding and managing the Nation’s nuclear stockpile.

Specifically, the National Laboratories conduct activities across several main mission areas:

Advance United States energy independence and leadership in clean energy technologies to ensure the ready availability of clean, secure, reliable, and affordable energy.
Deliver discovery and innovation in physical, chemical, biological, engineering, and computational and information sciences that advance our understanding of the world around us.
Enhance global, national, and homeland security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the United States nuclear deterrent, helping to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and securing the Nation’s borders.
Develop deployable technologies for the safe cleanup of the environmental legacy from five decades of nuclear weapons development, production, and testing.
Design, build, and operate distinctive scientific instrumentation and facilities, and make these resources available to the research community.
Serve the national interest not only as leaders in science and technology, but also as quickly mobilized national assets in times of national need.
Move innovation to the marketplace and strengthen United States competitiveness.
Train the next generation of scientists and engineers, particularly in DOE core mission areas.

DOE’s National Laboratories have a substantial record of accomplishment and demonstrated return on investment for the American taxpayer. For example, the DOE National Laboratories have:

Driven U.S. leadership in supercomputing, including exascale and quantum computing, and led application of supercomputing to address complex problems.
Developed energy efficiency technologies and standards that have saved United States taxpayers over $1 trillion.
Conducted the fundamental and applied research that enabled the shale gas revolution and the development of nuclear, photovoltaics, and energy storage for transportation industries.
Made scientific discoveries, from new chemicals and new states of matter to an improved understanding of the origins of the universe.
Sustained confidence in the Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile in the absence of nuclear testing, identifying and dealing with arising issues in weapon systems through life extension programs.
Provided to the DOE Office of Environmental Management purpose-built technical capabilities and process improvements that have achieved life cycle savings of over $5 billion.
Served as an “on call” resource for tackling unprecedented challenges—from the threat of unsecured nuclear materials as the Soviet Union collapsed, to the Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, to the COVID-19 global health crisis.

For more information on the National Laboratories please visit FY19 Labs at a Glance (2020 Presidential transition).

Weapons Plants and Remediation Sites

In addition to its National Laboratories, DOE performs its nuclear security mission at multiple sites around the country. These government-owned sites are typically operated by management and operating (M&O) contractors who employ the bulk of personnel at the sites, performing highly technical and often hazardous work.

In addition to its three national security laboratories, NNSA operates four nuclear weapons production facilities and the Nevada National Security Site. The NNSA nuclear security enterprise’s M&O workforce consists of over 50,000 contractor employees.

EM, with an annual budget of about $7 billion, uses over 30,000 contractor employees at 16 sites in 11 states to perform vital cleanup work resulting from legacy nuclear weapons production, including the deactivation, decommissioning, decontamination and demolition of thousands of aging facilities; safe management and disposition of radioactive and hazardous liquid and solid wastes; and remediation of contamination in soil and groundwater.

Many of the contractor employees performing NNSA and EM work are represented by trade unions.

Power Marketing Administrations

The Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs) are agencies within DOE whose primary mission is to market hydroelectric power produced at Federal dams. These multipurpose water projects are owned and operated primarily by the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers. There are four PMAs— Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), Southeastern Power Administration (SEPA), Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA), and Western Area Power Administration (WAPA)—each operating in a different geographic region. In FY 2019, DOE’s four PMAs marketed power primarily from 133 Federal hydro power plants with maximum operating capabilities of 38,613 megawatts, approximately three percent of the Nation’s power plant capacity. The PMAs report to the Assistant Secretary for Electricity.