The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has devoted more than $540 million to advance research into clean energy technologies and low-carbon manufacturing at 54 universities and 11 National Laboratories, an announcement last week said.
According to a news release, the funding will support research into methods of reducing greenhouse gases that come from energy production, given President Joe Biden’s goal of creating a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
“Meeting the Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious climate and clean energy goals will require a game-changing commitment to clean energy — and that begins with researchers across the country,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a public statement. “The research projects announced today will strengthen the scientific foundations needed for the United States to maintain world leadership in clean energy innovation, from renewable power to carbon management.”
According to the announcement, awardees included Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.; the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo.; the University of Colorado Boulder; and Ames National Laboratory in Ames, Iowa; among others.
“Renewable energy research and technology will allow for a more resilient future while creating good-paying jobs in Ohio,” U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio said in a public statement. “Case Western Reserve University is one of Ohio’s great institutions of higher education. This award will continue Ohio’s leadership in innovation and position our state to lead in the industries of the future.”
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said in a news release that Dartmouth will receive a $1.5 million award to invest in research around commercial solar technologies.
“This research will help position the U.S. to transition to a clean energy economy and net-zero carbon emissions. Time is of the essence to combat the climate crisis, and New Hampshire continues to lead in innovative clean technologies and solutions,” Shaheen said in the announcement.
According to the news release, more than $400 million will help establish and maintain 43 Energy Frontier Research Centers, which bring together multidisciplinary scientific teams to research the toughest challenges preventing advances in energy technologies. The projects, led by 28 universities and nine National Laboratories with more than 75 additional partner institutions, will study energy storage and quantum information science.
The announcement added that 53 projects led by researchers at 33 universities and 11 National Laboratories will receive a combined $140 million through the Chemical and Materials Sciences to Advance Clean Energy Technologies and Low-Carbon Manufacturing funding opportunity. The funding will be devoted to research to lower the cost of energy production, such as with direct air capture or carbon storage and sequestration.
In addition, it said, several projects will focus on research underpinning the department’s Energy Earthshots Initiative, with set goals for improvements in clean energy technology such as decreasing the cost of producing hydrogen, reducing the cost and increasing the duration of grid-scale energy storage, and making it easier to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it at gigaton scales.
The announcement noted that legislation spearheaded by President Biden, such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act, will help to further enhance ongoing clean energy research as local, state and federal officials look to reduce carbon emissions.
The DOE funding comes as higher ed institutions continue to devote more resources to clean energy and climate change research, such as at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which announced plans this year to open the Resnick Sustainability Center…
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