Department of Energy Accomplishments (2020 Presidential transition)

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

Since the beginning of the Trump Administration, the Department of Energy (DOE) has made significant progress across its entire mission space, having:

Established U.S. Energy Dominance for the first time, America became the world’s number one producer of oil and natural gas;
Led substantial increases in exports of U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) by nearly five-fold and issued 20 long-term authorizations for LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries since January 2017 the U.S now exports LNG to 38 countries on 5 continents;
Increased oil production at the Alaska Field Lab project by more than 700 barrels per day over the first 20 months of polymer
injection, which more than doubles the previous production;
Established 15 resource basin-specific field labs since January 2017, aimed at maximizing resource recovery with a goal to double well productivity in a safe and environmentally prudent manner;
Published the Small-Scale LNG Rule to expedite approval for small-scale natural gas exports;
Published the 2050 LNG Policy Statement to allow companies to export LNG through 2050 as an alternative to our original 20-year authorizations;
Stabilized oil markets during the COVID-19 pandemic by facilitating discussions among the world’s leading oil producers through DOE’s leadership in the International Energy Agency and G20;
Used the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, for the first time, as a temporary storage option for U.S. small and mid-sized crude oil producers to help stabilize oil markets following the demand destruction caused by COVID-19;
Launched the Science-informed Machine Learning to Accelerate Real Time (SMART) Decisions in Subsurface Applications Initiative, bringing together seven DOE national laboratories, industry, and academia to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to carbon storage and oil and natural gas applications;
Founded the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory to provide interdisciplinary and multi-lab support to the national COVID-19 response;
Co-led the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, a unique public-private effort, bringing together federal government, industry, and academic leaders to volunteer free compute time and resources to halt the spread of COVID-19;
Launched the COVID-19 Technical Assistance Program, an initiative to allow National Lab experts to provide free, targeted assistance to American innovators in the fight against COVID-19;
Launched the Lab Partnering Service COVID-19 portal, offering users a curated access point to National Lab research, facilities, and intellectual property that could prove useful in the fight against COVID-19;
Launched the Coal FIRST (Flexible, Innovative, Resilient, Small and Transformative) Initiative to develop the power plant of the future, which can produce electricity and hydrogen from coal, biomass, and waste, with zero or even negative CO2 emissions;
Continued to promote 21st Century Coal by advancing research and development in the conversion of coal to high-value carbon products like building materials and manufactured products, which can help sustain coal community jobs;
Implemented the Nuclear Fuel Working Group’s Strategy to Restore American Nuclear Energy Leadership;
Supported the First Nuclear Power Plant (Vogtle) to be built in the U.S. in Nearly 30 Years by providing an additional $3.7 billion in loan guarantees;
Established the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) to provide a platform for private sector technology developers to assess the performance of their nuclear reactor concepts through testing and demonstration;
Launched the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program to competitively-select two advanced reactor projects to result in fully functional advanced nuclear reactors within seven years;
Successfully returned electric power to communities affected by multiple catastrophic hurricanes and typhoons;
Developed the North American Energy Resilience Model (NAERM) to understand risks to electricity infrastructure and identify needed investments to improve system resilience across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico;
Established the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER) to improve the cybersecurity and resilience of the Nation’s energy critical infrastructure;
Delivered on the President’s Cyber Workforce Executive Order through the Department of Energy CyberForce Competition, with over 100 colleges and universities competing across 10 National Labs to grow capabilities in industrial control system cybersecurity;
Strengthened Protections for the Nation’s Electric Grid against Foreign Adversaries by implementing Executive Order 13920, Securing the United States Bulk-Power System, which the President signed on May 1, 2020;
Established the Cyber Testing for Resilience of the Industrial Control Systems (CyTRICS) program to secure the Nation’s Energy Supply Chain and support the Bulk Power System Executive Order;
Oversaw the expansion of renewable power, including a doubling of solar production from 2016 through 2019 and a 32 percent increase in wind production, making the U.S. the world’s second largest producer of both wind and solar;
Launched the American-Made Challenges, by investing more than $40 million in 16 different American-Made prizes and competitions to advance energy innovation and American manufacturing;
Launched the Energy Storage Grand Challenge, a comprehensive strategy to position the U.S. for global leadership in the energy storage technologies of the future;
Launched the American-Made Solar Prize, a competition designed to revitalize solar manufacturing in the United States, leading to four rounds that will result in $12 million in prizes;
Created the Energy-Water Desalination Hub as part of the White House Water Security Grand Challenge, announcing nearly $100 million for the National Alliance for Water Innovation to address water security issues in the United States;
Launched the American-Made Solar Desalination Prize, a $9 million prize competition designed to accelerate the development of low-cost desalination systems that use solar-thermal power to produce clean water from salt water;
Funded the development of the first renewable jet fuel used on a commercial flight from Orlando to London Gatwick;
Initiated the Plastics Innovation Challenge which launched a comprehensive program to design new highly recyclable or biodegradable plastics, develop novel methods for deconstructing and upcycling existing plastic waste, and address plastic waste;
Rolled back unnecessary regulations supporting a presidential priority by refocusing energy conservation standards to increase consumer choice and save over $300 million for the American people;
Protected consumer lighting choices by preventing more stringent regulations on common incandescent lightbulbs that would have essentially regulated those products out of existence, denying families the ability to make their own lighting choices;
Initiated the Sustainability in Manufacturing Partnership to help drive manufacturing productivity improvements resulting in partners saving over $6 billion in energy costs;
Reduced the price of batteries by more than 80% over 10 years, culminating in 2019, from just over $1,000 per kilowatt-hour to $185 per kilowatt-hour for the useable energy of a full battery pack;
Established the ReCell Battery Recycling R&D Center and launched the Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling Prize to develop technologies to profitably capture 90% of all lithium-based battery technologies in the United States and recover 90% of the key materials from the collected batteries;
Reduced the cost of electrolyzers, which produce hydrogen from water and electricity, by 80% and automotive fuel cell costs by 60% in the past decade, while quadrupling their durability to over 120,000 miles;
Completed the first science-based high-level radioactive waste (HLW) interpretation shipment, removing 8 gallons of recycle wastewater from the Defense Waste Processing Facility at the Savanah River Site for treatment and disposal, a model for new pathways to address tank waste and expedite cleanup of DOE sites across the country;
Approved commencement of operations at the Savannah River Salt Waste Processing Facility, which will allow DOE to address the bulk of the remaining tank waste within a decade;
Transferred 70 sites to the Office of Legacy Management (LM) across the Nevada Test and Training Range, including the Tonopah Test Range, the first transfer of active Environmental Management Sites to long-term LM stewardship since 2012;
Completed “Vision 2020” at Oak Ridge’s East Tennessee Technology Park, the first time a uranium enrichment complex has been fully deactivated and decommissioned , and completed four years ahead of schedule, saving taxpayers $500 million;
Reached agreement with the state of California to allow active cleanup to resume at the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) site after more than a decade. Nine out of an initial set of 10 buildings are down, and by the end of the year the final building will be demolished;
Won 106 R&D 100 Awards for exceptional new products and processes that were developed and introduced into the marketplace, pushing the DOE total to over 900;
Established DOE’s first ever Chief Commercialization Officer, who is tasked with bridging the gap between our 17 National Labs and commercialization in the private sector;
Celebrated the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry win by a DOE Lab Researcher (Dr. Jennifer Doudna) who was originally funded by DOE’s Lawerence Berkeley National Laboratory for her foundational work in understanding the structure of RNA, which led to her co-invention of the gene editing technology known as CRISPR;
Celebrated two DOE-supported researchers winning the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (Dr. M. Stanley Whittingham and Dr. John Goodenough) for their foundational work in the development of lithium-ion batteries;
Established the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office to serve as the central point for the coordination and development of broad and extensive artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for the Department and its National Laboratories;
Improved Veteran’s Health through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to leverage next-generation AI and supercomputing technologies;
Maintained Global Leadership in Supercomputing by building and operating two of the world’s fastest supercomputers at DOE National Laboratories;
Launched the Quantum Internet to evolve from today’s limited local quantum network experiments and revolutionize how information is transmitted in the future;
Selected the first Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers to provide training and collaboration opportunities for the next generation of QIS scientists and engineers;
Supported the exploration of the Universe in Partnership with NASA by providing the power source and the SuperCam detector for the Mars Perseverance Rover, and winning a Gears of Government award for developing an electrical power source to support long-duration crewed missions on the Moon, Mars and destinations beyond;
Established the DOE-NASA Joint Executive Committee to ensure alignment and collaboration in the furtherance of the Administration’s national space goals of landing the first woman and
next man on the surface of the moon by 2024, establishing a sustainable presence on the moon by 2028, and ultimately putting the first human boots on the surface of Mars;
Supported American’s Innovative Small Business by providing $1.1 billion in funding through DOE’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants across 49 States;
Funded Energy Frontier Research Centers by providing over $445 million to support 64 Centers in diverse energy and science related fields;
Launched the Pathfinder Program with U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Homeland Security to better prevent and
protect against attacks on Defense Critical Energy Infrastructure;
Increased private sector follow-on-funding for DOE’s ARPA-E projects by 100% to $3.6 billion and nearly doubled the number of filed patents stemming from ARPA-E funded research to 385, since 2017;
Engaged over 1,800 partners in research agreements through the DOE National Laboratories, bringing in $337,924,445 in funding and earning $21,084,539 in licensing income in FY2018 to propel American innovation forward;
Launched the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program as the first public-private partnership for accelerating fusion as a future energy source;
Increased Global Nuclear Security by removing or confirming disposition of significant quantities of highly enriched uranium (HEU), bringing the program’s lifetime total to more than 7,215 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium downblended or eliminated from nearly 50 partner countries — enough material for more than 320 nuclear weapons;
Completed Flight Tests and other key milestones for nuclear warhead modernization programs in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense;
Completed the W76-1 Life Extension Program under budget and ahead of schedule,
strengthening U.S. safety and security by extending the warhead’s service life from 20 years to 60 years;
Developed Five Developmental Plutonium Pits in support of a strategic effort to recapitalize production of a key component of nuclear weapons;
Made Significant Progress on Nuclear Weapons Infrastructure Initiatives that will enable the use of strategic materials including uranium, plutonium, lithium, tritium, and high explosives to maintain the nuclear deterrent;
Issued four cooperative agreement awards to produce Molybdenum-99, a medical isotope used in over 400,000 medical procedures each day, including the diagnosis of heart disease and cancer, without the use of highly enriched uranium;
Enhanced the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) regional capabilities to disrupt weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attacks by providing advanced equipment and training for the “Capability Forward” initiative, through which fourteen major U.S. cities will receive new advanced capabilities by FY2022;
Replaced fixed-wing Aerial Measuring System (AMS) aircraft, used to provide rapid wide-area assessments of releases of radioactive materials in the environment;
Met milestones for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, including contracts for reactor plant heavy equipment including the lead ship reactor core;
Placed the U.S. Navy’s 150th spent fuel canister into dry storage at the Naval Reactors Facility at Idaho National Laboratory;
Launched the Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation (P-TEC) with partner countries from Central and Eastern Europe to push back against Russian energy-based malign influence;
Completed a Deal with Australia to lease space and store U.S. crude oil in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the first time since Congress provided DOE with this authority;
Fostered the Development of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum bringing together Israel, the Palestinian authority, Egypt, Jordan, and other regional partners to facilitate natural gas trade and economic growth; and
Launched the U.S.-India Strategic Energy Partnership to enhance energy security, expand energy and innovation linkages, bolster our strategic alignment, and facilitate increased industry and stakeholder engagement in the energy sector.