Funding will strengthen onshoring and build a more competitive, secure, and efficient U.S. industrial sector
Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation
January 22, 2026
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WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation today selected 16 projects that will enhance the capability of the U.S. National Laboratories to develop technologies that improve the efficiency and competitiveness of American industry. These expanded lab capabilities will drive process and technological innovation, reduce costs, and increase prosperity for American workers and consumers.
“Our National Laboratories are some of the greatest in the world and these projects will help our labs advance the cutting-edge technologies that make American industry the global standard in excellence and innovation,” said Assistant Secretary of Energy (EERE) Audrey Robertson.
The selected projects will address critical industrial challenges in the following areas:
- Energy-Intensive Industries: Develop the capabilities that enable industry to create innovative solutions in the most energy-intensive sectors, such as iron and steel, cement, chemicals, forest products, and food and beverage, where novel technologies can have the greatest impact.
- Cross-Sector Technologies: Develop the technology capabilities that enable industry to address challenges common across multiple industrial subsectors, such as industrial process heating, membrane separations, load flexibility, and advanced computing.
Project highlights include:
- Data Center Cooling Collaborative: This Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory project will form a data center cooling testbed network that can meet varied and evolving cooling technology needs; provide reliable, flexible, standardized user test facilities; and reduce the time and cost to bring new technologies to market.
- Burner Laboratories to Advance Fuel UtiliZation for Thermal Energy (BLAZE): National Energy Technology Laboratory and partners will establish and operate industry-accessible testbed facilities that will accelerate the development of innovative industrial combustion systems, allowing U.S. industry to meet the growing demand for efficient and adaptable process heating solutions.
- Center for Industrial Modeling and Simulation: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and partners will bring together lab modeling and simulation experts with stakeholders in industry and academia to share expertise, identify needs and opportunities, and accelerate the adoption of high-performance computing tools and resources to improve industrial efficiency and competitiveness.
- National Library for Iron Ore and Scrap: Idaho National Laboratory will develop an ore and steel scrap resource center to deliver characterized lab-and pilot-scale samples of various iron ore and steel scrap material for cutting-edge innovations using hard-to-obtain real-world samples.