Transcript for DOE Earth Day Webinar: “Women Leading Sustainable Energy Collaborations”

Welcome to the presentation today. The environmental issues that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is working on involve so many disparate parts and parties that it is necessary that we employ effective collaboration across the U.S. During today's DOE Earth Day webinar, we'll hear presentations from leadership in three federal Offices (Bioenergy Technologies Office [BETO], Advanced Manufacturing Office [AMO], and Water Power Technologies Office [WPTO]). These presenters will describe how environmental issues across our nation are being addressed through collaboration.

This webinar is hosted as a collaboration between the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and the BioComms working group. BioComms consists of BETO communications, BETO's national laboratory relationship managers, and communication and education experts over a large footprint across our country. The mission of the Energy department is to ensure America's security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. The mission of EERE is to create and sustain American leadership in the transition to clean energy in the global economy. The purpose of the BioComms working group is to increase awareness of the many technological advances that BETO has invested in.

Before we begin, we have a bit of housekeeping to take care of. Rachel Foist will be helping with this webinar. Rachel?

Thank you, Leslie. Before we get started, I'd like to go over a few items so you know how to participate in today's event. For everyone joining us on today's webinar, if you're listening in using your computer's speaker system by default, we would ask that you join over the phone by selecting the telephone in the audio pane of your control panel and using the displayed dial-in information so as to maintain a steadier connection. You will be automatically muted, and your cameras will be turned off during the presentation. If you would like more information from today's presenters, you can submit your questions to us through email, and we will follow up with you. Now, I'll turn the time back over to Leslie to introduce the purpose and speakers of today's webinar. Leslie?

Thank you. This is a DOE special Earth Day webinar. Earth Day is celebrating its 50^th anniversary this year! Fifty years ago, on April 22, 20 million Americans took to the streets, college campuses, and hundreds of cities to increase environmental awareness and stress the need to create a new path forward for our planet. The first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement and is now recognized as the planet's largest civic event.

At DOE's Office of EERE, every day is Earth Day. Collaboration has also become a way of life at DOE and EERE as it enables people across the country and around the world to work together to bring about coordinated environmental change. Within DOE, women are leading sustainable energy collaborations.

We will hear from three of these women today: Dr. Valerie Reed, Valri Lightner, and Alison Hewett. It's an honor to have these DOE leaders with us today. I'd like to tell you a little about each, and they will go into more detail during this webinar.

Dr. Valerie Reed: As the Deputy Director for the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), Dr. Valerie Reed oversees efforts to improve performance, lower costs, and accelerate market entry of advanced biofuels and bioproducts. She has more than 27 years of experience in addressing energy and environmental issues faced by the United States and globally. In addition to her programmatic activities, she is a founding member of the Metabolic Engineering Working Group, which was the interagency effort to advance metabolic engineering technologies for industrial, agricultural, and human needs. She had the honor of serving the Chief Scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), helping to build bridges between the Departments of Agriculture and Energy.  She spent two years as Director of the EERE Wind Technologies Office, expanding her expertise across renewable energy technologies. Dr. Reed received her Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.) in biochemistry from Georgetown University.

Valri Lightner: Valri Lightner has been a technology development manager for the federal government for 35 years and is currently the deputy director of DOE's Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO). Before locating to the AMO office, Valri worked in DOE's Loan Programs Office, where her team provided the technology management of a portfolio including vehicle manufacturing and innovative energy projects. She has led public-private research and development collaborations in cellulosic biofuels, fuel cells for transportation, and pulp and paper energy efficiency. Valri Lightner holds her Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in chemical engineering from Villanova University.

Alison Hewett: Ali Hewett is a senior research analyst for the Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO). She has experience in environmental science and policy analysis, sustainability strategy and management, and on corporate social and environmental responsibility. She supported Arlington County's Department of Environmental Services' Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions and World Wildlife Fund's Forest & Climate Initiative in producing climate and energy research and communications. Alison Hewett holds a Master of Arts in both International Affairs and Natural Resources and Sustainable Development.

We are so grateful to have these women with us. We will begin with Valerie Reed. Valerie, please share why you decided to pursue a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). We would also like to know about your Office mission and priorities, why collaboration is important to the federal government and our country, and an example of an important collaboration your Office is working on. Valerie Reed?

I am happy to be here. I want to thank the BioComms team: Stephanie, Sheila, Rachel, Justin, Leslie, and everyone behind the scenes for making this webinar happen. I think this is very timely, and I hope that everyone online will learn a little bit of something from us at DOE.

On the surface, my decision to go into a STEM career seemed like a no-brainer, and in many ways, I did follow a very traditional path to choosing a science-related career. As I thought about it, there were a series of defining moments that really sent me in the direction that landed me here at the DOE.

 I grew up in a family of science-related people, as many people do. My father was a chemical engineer working for a big chemical company, developing technology for agribusiness, and my mother was a teacher. She taught chemistry at a vocational technical high school. This was a school that trained students in the trade, things like chefs, hairstylists, farm mechanics, and the like. It was a full high school but not a college-track high school, but it was here that I had my first lesson in really understanding the importance of science to everyone. Science is everywhere, and to trying to avoid it is impossible. For example, there is science in baking, the mixing of complex chemicals to create hair color, and the physics behind the internal combustion engine, the list could go on and on. My mother went on to become the chair of a very productive science department at this high school, and I do remember the excitement she showed every time one of her students chose to take the SAT and follow a STEM career path through college. Later in her career, she would go on to train teachers all over the East Coast in a new course called that was called “Principles of Technology,” which was the teaching of the extensive nature of physics in our world through hands-on activities that the average American could relate to. I believe truly that this is the kind of physics that everyone should be aware of just to open up the newspaper.

Another defining moment stood out when I think on my decision to pursue an undergraduate degree in chemistry. And this came from a high school chemistry teacher. He was that kind of teacher that really engaged the students and had an impact. He was a lot of fun. He liked to turn demonstrations into WOW moments and even took his seniors to elementary schools to do colorful and often explosive demonstrations of the power of chemistry. I dreamt of being just like that one day, and later when I had my own children, I instituted a program at the elementary school that brought the science fair to that school, and now it's in its fifteenth year.

The next few years of my life, though, found me at college studying and deciding what next to do with my life, and I really didn't have a clue. I decided the best path forward for me was to stay in school, so I applied to graduate school, and this is where I had another defining moment.

When I was visiting Georgetown's chemistry department, one of the professors took me to the roof of one of the tallest buildings there. This was his way of trying to sell the program to potential applicants. The view of Washington, D.C., with all of its power and influence, really blew me away. It was then and there that I decided I needed to do something with my science background where I could try and have an impact on the world.

As I look back over the 27 years that I have been involved with renewable energy technologies, I have seen a big shift in the number of women who are in the field. I recall several early boards or panels that I was on with other agencies like NSF, NIH, and USDA, and I would be the only woman there. The men that I shared the board room with were awesome mentors to me, and I was very, very lucky. Not everyone is as welcoming in this world. Today though, the increase in the number of women is evident as I often find that in these same meetings and board rooms there are as many women, if not more women, than the men.

My current role is the deputy director of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). The mission of BETO could best be described as developing industrially relevant technologies that produce cost-effective biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower. Through our efforts in applied R&D, we look to find ways to reduce the cost of using our nation's abundant resources, called biomass, to produce economically important products that are going to take into account environmental sustainability and provide the U.S. with a domestic bioeconomy.

So, what is the bioeconomy? There are a few definitions out there and all of them rely on a core principle: the use of biotechnology or biological organisms to improve products or services for the market. For the purposes of our program and the agencies that are involved with us, there is an R&D board that has defined it this way: it is the global, industrial transition to sustainably use renewable aquatic and terrestrial resources in energy, intermediate, and final products for economic, social, and national security benefits.

This graphic captures all of that at once. Our work supports the increasing use of renewable biomass materials and waste feedstocks for the production of transportation fuels, chemicals, and energy, stimulating job growth and economic opportunity and increasing the nation's energy security and resilience, and contributing to environmental qualities as well as the reduction in greenhouse gases.

Of course, collaboration is key, and that is the theme of today's webinar. It is very important when you take the bioeconomy vision into account. One way we are collaborating across agencies is through the Biomass Research and Development board, which represents eight industries that have a role in one or more of the aspects of the bioeconomy. The board is co-chaired by senior officials from DOE and USDA and currently consists of senior decision makers from the agencies that you see here, including the Office of Science and Policy within the Executive Office of the President.

I mentioned previously that BETO's mission was to develop industrially relevant technologies that produce cost-effective biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower. This is done through our support of research, development, and demonstration activity. Our Office efforts span the entire bioenergy supply chain from the initial life cycle of the feedstocks to the fuel or product produced and how it performs.

Within our feedstock supply efforts, we have developed cost-effective, integrated logistics systems, which means growing, harvesting, collecting, storing, preprocessing, handling, and transporting quality feedstocks to a biorefinery. Feedstocks include residual agricultural waste that comes from existing crops, like corn stover, as well as other waste, such as the nonrecyclables of MSW, manure, and wastewater sludges. We also support the nation's largest government-funded algae research program, developing algae for industrial purposes, and BETO also considers energy crops that might one day be purposefully grown on our nation's farms to produce energy and products.

Our conversion R&D program is focused on developing commercially viable technologies that will convert these feedstocks to the final products, most particularly, liquid fuels and bioproducts. The program could be looked at as having two main efforts in conversion: biochemical and thermochemical. Biochemical conversion efforts focus on the pathways of producing sugars as well as other carbohydrate energy intermediates followed by the conversion of these two final fuels. Efforts include things like studying enzymes for the degradation of biomass as well as synthetic biology for the design of microbial systems that can take intermediates from the biomass and construct new, purposeful molecules, such as fuels or polymers. Within thermochemical conversion, we're more focused on pathways that produce bio-oil or gas from biomass, and then we upgrade that to a final, finished product. These technologies rely very heavily on high-temperature and pressure methods, such as pyrolysis and gasification, and they produce gas or oil, which is then, through chemical catalysis, upgraded to a final product. This is very similar to what the petroleum industry does today.

While we have worked through our national labs, universities, small businesses, and with industrial partners at the bench-scale to develop these promising technologies, scaling this up is really critical for industry to prove that we can do this in a cost-effective manner. Our demonstration and market-area, or advanced development and optimization area, focuses on demonstrating and validating the conversion technologies through successful construction and operation of cost-shared pilot and demonstration-scale integrated biorefineries. By taking the time to test each step and integrate it slowly as we move up the scale, we can see where the bottlenecks occur, then we can redesign our R&D efforts at the bench-scale to overcome the issues we face and have a more successful transition into a commercial-scale investment.

This information is how you can find out more about the bioenergy program. Many of the things that I talked about today will be found on this website. We are going to transition over to Valri Lightner from the Advanced Manufacturing Office.

Thanks, Valerie. Similar to you, I was also influenced by my high school chemistry teacher in my choice of a career field. In addition to teaching high school chemistry, he actually taught freshman chemistry in college as well and convinced our high school to use a college book, which was helpful in exposing us to and pushing us beyond what we would have learned otherwise. He was good about mixing in experimentation and letting us conduct hands-on experiments, but some of the more hazardous experiments, where taking a piece of metal out of oil and watching it burst into flames when it hit air, he would conduct as a sort of show-and-tell for the class. I had an interest in solving problems and I found that chemistry, and really understanding what's going on within a chemical reaction, is kind of like solving a problem, which aligned well to my interests. I was excited about a field in chemistry; my teacher was encouraging me toward the direction of chemical engineering because he thought that would continue to challenge me throughout my career field.

Another huge influencing factor of my going into chemical engineering was that the local naval base, the naval surface warfare center, had a cooperative education program, but it was only for engineers. I was accepted into that program, and it was what actually allowed me to go to college because my parents, neither one of them, went to college. I was the first one to go to college in my family, and while my parents were supportive of my going to college, they told me that I was on my own [financially]. I had to self-finance college, and the cooperative education program paying for my tuition and books was a lifesaver, in that regard.

After I graduated from college, my first nine years I spent as a process engineer working in manufacturing. I feel like that experience helped me to be a successful program manager when I came to work at the DOE because I can understand the research projects and how they could be implemented on the manufacturing floor. I think that has helped me to be successful—to understand that context and how things might be applied when I am looking at potential projects. I have worked in several different offices within mainly the Office of EERE. I started initially in what was the previous Office to the Advanced Manufacturing Office, and then I worked with the pulp and paper industry, helping them become more energy efficient. From there, I went to [DOE's] Fuel Cell Program working on fuel cells for vehicle application, and then I worked with Valerie Reed in the Bioenergy [Technologies] Office for a few years. Then, I went to one program where I managed a very diverse portfolio, and it was really interesting to see some of the renewable energy technologies that my peers had worked on being implemented for the first time on a commercial scale. And now I have been back with the Advanced Manufacturing Office for four years.

In the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), I manage a team of about 60 federal and contractor staff. We manage a budget of roughly $400 million per year. Our mission is to catalyze research development and adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies. You'll see some of the statistics on this slide show the importance of manufacturing on both the industry and the economy. Manufacturing represents about 25% of the energy we use, and with that, the manufacturing sector actually spends $200 billion a year on energy costs. Manufacturing also, as a part of the economy, represents 11% of the GDP and employs 13 million Americans. The work that we do in manufacturing needs to have an energy focus, and so we tie any of the work that we do to overarching energy goals, either to reduce the energy intensity of specific manufacturing processes or to reduce the energy impact of manufactured goods. The technology space in manufacturing is very broad, so I have listed a few areas that we work in. For instance, we develop materials that can operate in high-temperature, high-pressure environments. I talked about how we focus on reducing the amount of energy used to manufacture chemicals, and those are often the building blocks of other products. The chemical industry makes the things that go into the things that are the products we use every day. We also develop critical materials; these are the materials that are critical for energy use in things like batteries or magnets that run our energy infrastructure but for which the U.S. is vulnerable to supply chain disruptions because those materials aren't readily available and processed here in the United States. We are trying to develop that domestic supply chain.

Looking forward at what the manufacturing sector could be in the future, or what I'd love to see, is how technologies that we have been developing are starting to make their way into the industry and reshaping and making our U.S. manufacturing sector more competitive, enabling the U.S. to regain global leadership in manufacturing. Some of those technologies have to do with using the information and data that is so much more available than when I started my career over 30 years ago. And taking and collecting data as you are making processes so that you can make adjustments so that your products are born qualified, so that they already meet qualifications and specifications that you are correcting online and that you are not making a product that is off-spec. Another key feature of our future environment is the talk of the circular economy, to keep materials in use longer. For example, using secondary materials, being able to recycle, reuse, remanufacture metals and fibers that are in current products and keep those materials in use longer. To see that come to realization, I think, would be very exciting.

This provides a link to more information on the various technologies that we work on at the Advanced Manufacturing Office. And with that, I'll transition over to Ali Hewett from the Water Power Technologies Office.

Thanks, Valri, and thanks to Leslie for inviting me to this webinar today. My career journey to the DOE was definitely not straightforward. I've always been passionate about the environment and sustainability, and like a typical millennial, I always knew that I wanted a meaningful career that reflected my values.

What I didn't know was exactly what that job title would be or even where it would be, but with the help of my mentors along the way, many of them women, I was able to turn my passion into a career. I tried to have a little fun here on this slide, showing my career path with places at the top, interests in the middle, jobs at the bottom, and some pictures of my dog for good measure.

So, to answer Leslie's first question, my career journey started in the great state of Texas, where I grew up. My family loved camping and hiking, so I grew up being outside. That passion led me to study ecology and earth science at Texas A&M. During my senior year, I did an internship on the Hill with a Texas Congressman, which brought me to D.C. for the very first time. This brief first experience in public service had such an impact on me that I immediately decided to apply to graduate school in D.C. to study environmental policy. As part of my grad program, I actually spent a year in the beautiful, tropical rainforest of Costa Rica studying sustainable development, which may or may not have influenced my grad school decision. I was really interested in forest conservation and reducing emissions from deforestation, which led me to World Wildlife Fund and Arlington County Government. Those experiences were really important in shaping my career because I had a chance to be on teams led by some amazing women who were actively trying to make the world a better place and create more sustainable communities.

As corny as it sounds, seeing all those women making an impact at both the global and local level inspired me to take the next step in my career by making the jump to renewable energy. When I first came to the DOE as a contractor supporting the Bioenergy [Technologies] Office, I was also very fortunate to work closely with women in senior leadership roles. I actually had the chance to work with Valerie Reed and other leading women on the Biomass R&D Board bioeconomy initiative. They showed me that the energy sector is incredibly diverse and interdisciplinary and that collaborations across multiple agencies and expertise is really key to making the greatest impact. Seeing both Valerie Reed and Valri Lightner, leading their respective offices, is really inspiring for me and also to the next generation of women in energy because I think that to empower women to join the energy field and promote more diversity in STEM, people need to see themselves represented in the workforce and also in leadership roles. I also think that women mentoring women is critical to create a more equitable workforce, especially in the energy sector. For me personally, mentoring has helped me navigate my career and succeed in my roles across DOE from the Bioenergy Technologies Office to the Sustainability Office to the Water Power Technologies Office, which I am speaking on behalf of today.

I have been on the Water Power team for just over a year. I am excited to share some of the goals and initiatives of the Office on the next slide.

The mission of the Water Power Technologies Office is to enable research, development, and testing of new technologies to advance marine energy and next-generation hydropower and pumped storage systems. Stewards of marine energy costs and fully leveraging hydropower contribution to the grid, WPTO supports early-stage research development, validates performance and grid reliability for new technologies, develops and enables access to necessary testing infrastructure, and disseminates objective information and data for technology developers and decision makers.

[WPTO] is broken down into two areas: [1] the hydropower program, which focuses on conventional hydropower and the marine and [2 the] hydrokinetics program, which focuses on marine renewable energy, or energy from ocean waves, tides, and currents. For over 100 years, hydropower has provided the U.S. with reliable and affordable renewable energy. Although only a small portion of existing dams produce electricity, new generation equipment can be added to existing infrastructure, upgrades can be made at operating facilities, and new sustainable hydro can be built to tap into the potential of the oldest source of renewable energy. The Water Power team is leading analysis to fully leverage hydropower's benefits for our power systems while working to modernize the hydro fleet and advance small-scale hydro technologies. Our Office is investing in new sources of renewable energy that are generated from marine and hydrokinetic technologies. Marine energies can be used to power remote and coastal communities and could reduce power constraints and promote growth in ocean-related industries. A final point is that conventional and pump storage hydropower are reliable, flexible power sources that can also support the deployment and integration of more variable renewable resources, like wind and solar.

To better understand how hydro and pump storages can support our electric grid, we launched the HydroWIRES initiative in 2019. Five national labs are working together to understand the needs of the rapidly evolving grid, investigate hydro capabilities and constraints to provide grid services, optimize hydro authorizations and planning, and invest in technology innovation.

Over the past two years, the Office has also expanded its portfolio to include non-grid applications of marine energy. In 2019, we launched the Powering the Blue Economy [PDE], which has off-grid and offshore applications for marine energy. As Blue Economy industries, such as aquaculture, move further offshore, they need access to consistent, reliable power off the grid. Delivering power to these systems can be both expensive and difficult, so marine energy could be a cost-effective alternative and could enable new markets that are currently power-limited, like ocean observing. Our Powering the Blue Economy report analyzed the potential of marine energy technologies to power eight different Blue Economy markets. We've split these markets up into two portfolios: [1] the Power at Sea portfolio and [2] the Resilient Coastal Communities portfolio. The PDE reports provide the foundation for new areas of R&D. Just a few months after publishing, we've already announced multiple projects within this portfolio, including two prizes and one collegiate competition, which I'll talk about in the second half of this webinar.

If you'd like additional information on the Water Power Technologies Office and our work, please visit our website and also subscribe to our WaterWIRE to receive updates in your inbox on funding opportunities, events, publications, and more. With that, I will turn it back over to Leslie.

Thank you to our presenters for all the work you've done on behalf of Americans. We are going to hear from each speaker again about specific programs they are collaborating on or collaborations across DOE. Valerie Reed, do you want to begin?

Yes, absolutely. I am going to talk about a really important issue related to plastics. Plastics are a very important critical part of our industrial society. We see them everywhere every day in our lives in plumbing, refrigeration, automotive uses, and medical devices. One [area] in particular is packaging and storage of food. Plastics have made our lives incredibly easy, more efficient, and less expensive, but with all this plastic around, plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing, visible, global environmental issues that we are facing today. It's estimated that we globally generate 384 million tons of plastic waste—40 percent of which ends up in landfills, and nearly 20 percent of that is leaked into the environment. Eight million metric tons of plastic waste ultimately ends up in the ocean. Every day, there is a news article or story about dead marine life with a stomach full of plastic or a new study about microplastics in our drinking water. The McArthur Foundation estimates that if we don't find new ways to make, use, and recycle plastic, there will be as much plastic in the ocean by weight as there are fish by 2050.

All this plastic ending up in our landfills is exceeding our ability to contain it. We are running out of places to send our waste. In the last year, foreign landfills, once popular for U.S. markets for plastics, have implemented restrictions and [some have] banned the import of waste plastics. American cities and towns are left scrambling to try to find new buyers for their plastic waste, leading to recycling-related cost increases that are passed on to consumers.

DOE has a very important role to play because production of plastics consumes a lot of energy. Plastic production consumes up to 10 percent of the global energy supply, and the production continues to grow at a projected rate of 3.7 percent per year. Collecting this plastic waste, finding ways to reuse it through either recycling it or upcycling it (upcycling means making it more valuable than the original use of the plastic), could lead to true energy savings.

The U.S. recycling industry currently has little or no incentive to recycle—currently, recycled plastics only have about 40 percent of the embodied energy of the virgin plastics—and the return on the plastics just isn't there. In fact, the plastic recycling rate is less than 10 percent.

Current approaches for using discarded plastics are often very limited and generally not cost-effective for most plastics. For example, we incinerate them, which consumes the plastic, and you can't use it again. It also potentially produces unwanted byproducts. Mechanical recycling downgrades the polymers, limiting future use, of course, and it results in a loss of energy. If we consider chemical recycling methods that are available today, like pyrolysis, these tend to be very energy-intensive and currently too expensive. The U.S. and the entire world are facing a challenging problem with regard to the continued use and full life cycle of plastics.

Recognizing the need for a solution to this crisis, DOE has launched a new initiative entitled the Plastics Innovation Challenge (PIC). The vision of the challenge is to dramatically reduce plastic waste and position the U.S. as a world leader in advancing plastic recycling technologies. The mission of the challenge is to transform discarded plastics from a waste to a resource by upcycling existing plastics and then manufacturing new plastics that are recyclable-by-design. These technology advances will create economic incentive to capture the discarded resource and minimize the landfilling and leakage into the environment and ocean.

The challenge is being led by the three offices represented today: Bioenergy, Advanced Manufacturing, and Water Power Technologies. We're also collaborating with the Office of Science and ARPA-E.

The Plastic Innovations Challenge is pursuing the following objectives: collection---we're developing collection technologies to prevent plastics from entering the ocean in the first place---and deconstruction, where we are using biological and chemical methods for deconstructing plastic waste into useful chemical streams that can then be upcycled to develop higher-value products; this will encourage future recycling. We're also working to develop new plastics that are recyclable by chemical or molecular design of the material. This then can be scaled for a new domestic industry.

This research strategy will lead to a strong, domestic upcycling supply chain, and it will also help U.S. companies scale and deploy new technologies in domestic and global markets. DOE has proposed over $50 million in 2020 to launch this challenge, and we're conducting work through three national lab projects as well as [sponsoring] external funding opportunities.

The PIC is intended to [1] be comprehensive and coordinated across the span of fundamental and applied research that is already going on within the department and [2] take advantage of the capabilities within national labs, academia, and industry. The Offices involved, the three that I mentioned, are all bringing their different expertise to collaborate on the challenge. AMO, for example, has a lot of work in advanced manufacturing that will benefit the challenge as we consider the input and the sustainable alternative to plastic production, methods of sorting and separating the plastics, and overall energy efficiency improvement in plastic manufacturing. In addition, AMO has an existing investment in the REMADE Institute. REMADE stands for Reducing EMbodied-Energy And Decreasing Emissions. The institute is a national collation of leading universities and companies focused on research in new, clean energy technologies within four important industrial, material categories, one of which is related to polymers. The Water Power Office is directing their expertise in marine and hydrokinetics technologies, which Ali just told you about, into developing plastic debris remediation systems, for example, that are able to monitor and assess, as well as collect and extract, plastics from rivers and marine environments before they can even enter the ocean, where it becomes much more difficult to collect the waste. My program, BETO, is directing its expertise in biological and chemical deconstruction to develop technologies that can take complex mixtures of plastics and develop energy-efficient production methods for novel, recyclable-by-design plastics as well as developing renewable bio-based plastics that will improve the recyclability of plastics and enable new markets in the U.S.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Valri.

Thanks, Valerie. Grand Challenges are efforts that require a coordinated and collaborative effort across either the DOE or across the federal government. In the energy storage area, this is a DOE effort to set the U.S. up to be a global leader in energy storage systems, and that includes developing energy storage systems, manufacturing the systems, and using and operating the systems. We've set up the Energy Storage Grand Challenge to include five tracks that are listed across the bottom of the slide. The first one, being led by the Office of Electricity and Technology Development, and even though it's led by the Office of Electricity, there is a lot of technology developed within various offices of EERE as well, including the Water Power program, the Vehicle program, and others.

I'll skip over to the domestic manufacturing and supply chain, and that is being led by my Office. In that area, we are looking to address the technical barriers that are listed in the DOE-focus above, where we are addressing technical barriers of the production and manufacturing of energy storage systems. We are also looking at helping industry to scale up emerging manufacturing processes and addressing supply chain vulnerabilities.

[AMO is] looking at developing technologies that [1] don't put us in a place where we are dependent on foreign sources for the material for energy storage systems or [2] make sure that those supplies are available through U.S. processes. Back down and across the bottom of the slide, the next area, Technology Transition, is led by [DOE's] Office of Technology Transitions, who make sure that the technologies that we are developing within the department and with our partners get transitioned into commercial application and use.

We are looking at the policies---what are the policies that are necessary in order for energy storage systems to be economical and what will help them be economical in the field. We are also developing the workforce for developing the technologies and operating them in the future.

I have this slide up here to show the variety of different technologies that we'll talk about when we talk about energy storage. Energy storage is important both to ensure that we have grid reliability and so that we can integrate intermittent renewables into the grid, for instance. Another application phase is in vehicle technologies for electric vehicles. The energy storage system allows the electric vehicle to operate.

The Energy Storage Grand Challenge just kicked off within the department in January, and in March we started our first of a series of virtual webinars and workshops to get stakeholder input to inform what we should be focusing on that is necessary for developing energy storage systems and which energy storage systems we should be developing that have the broadest use. I would encourage you, if you are interested, to look for those workshops and participate. We will also be issuing a Request for Information later this month and then later this summer a roadmap of what we plan to focus on under the Energy Storage Grand Challenge. There's a link [on this slide] for more information.

I'll introduce Ali again; Ali is going to be talking about the Water Security Grand Challenge.

Another Grand Challenge that AMO, BETO, and WPTO are all collaborating on is the Water Security Grand Challenge. The Water Security Grand Challenge is a White House-initiated, DOE-led framework to advance technology and innovation to meet the global need for safe, secure, and portable water. Although other agencies are involved in this challenge, DOE is uniquely positioned to invest in the innovation related to water technologies because energy and water systems are inherently interconnected. Energy is needed to extract, treat, and deliver water, and water is needed for energy production and electricity generation. Purifying water for these processes can be difficult and energy-intensive, so to reduce the demand on freshwater supplies, the [Water Security] Grand Challenge will focus on cost-effective desalination technologies, transforming produced wastewater into a resource, producing freshwater for thermoelectric plants, increasing municipal wastewater resource recovery, and developing small, modular energy-water systems. To achieve these goals by 2030, we are coordinating prizes, petitions, and early-stage R&D within EERE and across DOE. As a recent example, the Advanced Manufacturing Office launched the million-dollar water recovery prize competition to accelerate resource recovery from municipal wastewater. This competition is currently open, and you can join at americanmadechallenges.org to propose your innovative solutions.

Under the Water Security Grand Challenge, AMO also recently announced the Energy-Water Desalination Hub. The Energy-Water Desal Hub is a $100-million effort over five years, pending appropriations, to advance desalination technologies. Leading the hub is the National Alliance for Water Innovation, which is a public-private partnership with more than 35 members and 180 organizations within the alliance, which is headquartered at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The hub will focus on low-cost alternatives that treat non-traditional water sources, such as seawater and brackish water, for municipal, industrial, or other water-resource needs.

Under the Water Security Grand Challenge, DOE is funding solutions that are modular and easily transportable in order to provide drinking water in disaster relief scenarios and remote communities. To meet that goal, the Water Office launched the Waves-to-Water Prize, which is a $2.5-million prize competition that challenges participants to build a modular, wave-powered desalination device. It is the first prize launched under the Water Office's Powering the Blue Economy initiative, and it was also the first prize under the Water Security Grand Challenge. The concept winners were announced in November, and the winners that advance to the final stage will get to test their device in the ocean. Stay tuned for more information on this, including the winners of the design stage.

Wastewater is just one prize our Office is leading related to the Water Security Grand Challenge's goal of tapping new resources for drinking water, but we're also running a number of other prizes to target equally challenging technology issues, which you can see here. One of the benefits of prizes is the opportunity to partner with other agencies to maximize impact. As an example, in collaboration with NOAA, we launched the $3-million Ocean Observing Prize to address the power needs of the ocean observing sector. We also worked with the Bureau of Reclamation to launch the Fish Protection Prize to address a long-time challenge of the hydro industry. Prizes, competitions, and challenges can all be powerful tools to drive innovation and really inspire the public to contribute new perspectives and solutions. Prizes can cast a wider net, attract more diverse participants, reach new networks, and build new partnerships between entrepreneurs, the private sector, and DOE's national labs. Most importantly, they encourage totally new, innovative ideas from entrepreneurs.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to Leslie.

We have a few questions. Do the presenters have a little bit of time to answer a question or two or do we need to get them to you by email?

I think that we could answer one, at least.

Okay. Valerie Reed, what programs are in place at DOE to create a more diverse workforce?

Okay, I know that I have mentioned in my comments that I have seen a real increase in the number of women that I see in the meetings that I attend on a regular basis, all associated with the expertise and the types of things that BETO is responsible for, and that is really exciting. There is still a need to reach out to underrepresented communities; for example, we just aren't seeing enough projects coming in through our FOAs from HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) and other minority educational institutes.

What is DOE doing? Well, DOE does have an Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, and they put out funding opportunities. They have one in FY20, which is looking at topics around the minority education workforce and training. They have $4 million to provide financial assistance awards in topics, such as in STEM education, capacity building, technical assistance training, and workforce pipeline analysis, and to look at ways we can improve the balance between the types of universities and institutes that apply for our research dollars. Also, there is a program, the Minority Education Institute Student Partnership Program, which offers high school, undergraduate, and graduate students summer internship programs of about eight to ten weeks, and these are paid internships. They can be within DOE at headquarters or they can be at some of our national laboratories, giving students a chance to see what it would be like to work in a STEM environment. I can't say enough about these types of programs. I do my best each year to try to ensure that BETO is participating in these student internship programs because it is the next generation that is really going to take these technologies we are working on today and continue to develop them and move them in the future. We need that workforce. So, hopefully that was helpful.

Absolutely, I think that there is a large portion of the audience that is developing their careers and finds that especially helpful.

What about funding mechanisms that are available at EERE, and how we can know when they are available, do you have something on that, Valri Lightner?

Sure. Those newsletters that we had the link to in some of our earlier slides will always let you know when we have funding opportunities, but typically it is usually around January to April, during that part of our funding cycle, that we issue funding opportunities. They come out as competitive opportunities where we've laid out a technical challenge that needs to be overcome with specific technical metrics and targets. We are looking for proposed solutions that can meet those metrics. There is a merit-based process where we get peers to evaluate the proposals that come in, and then the federal panel takes the input from those peers and recommends selections to a selections official. That evaluation process, from the time the submission hits the street, through that evaluation process, announcement of selection, and negotiation of award, typically takes about a year.

Thank you. Ali, how do the technologies office support DOE's STEM initiative?

In WPTO, we provide some basic information on hydro and marine information online, essentially 101-[type] content for the public. We are also going a step further and working with NREL and a number of other external partners with expertise in STEM education to develop resources, specifically for educators and students interested in water power. For example, we are developing sample lesson plans and other curricular resources, descriptive animations for technologies, and day-in-the-life videos, where we interview water power professionals about their jobs and career path. As we finalize this content, we'll be making it available online and sharing it through our newsletter that I mentioned earlier, the WaterWIRE. In addition to creating some educational content, we're also working to create educational experiences, like the marine energy collegiate competition, which challenges university students at both the undergraduate and the graduate level to develop a business case for a potential marine energy device. This is just the first of a number of opportunities that we're looking to offer students to inspire them to consider a career in water power.

Also, I should mention that many other DOE education programs maintain educational resources and manage student competitions for different technology areas, and much of this activity is coordinated across the department under DOE's STEM-rising initiative. STEM-rising offers a great newsletter with educators as the target audience, so that is a really good resource if you are looking for information on DOE's many STEM activities and offerings.

Perfect, thank you. So, this could be answered by all of you, and we will let this be our parting question. Mentoring is such an important part of developing your career now---are you actively mentoring anyone right now or do you consider yourself a prodigy of anyone, and can you tell us about this?

I was just going to say that within the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, we have a formal mentoring process that pairs up mentors with people that want to be mentored. At any point in time in your career, you can sign up to be mentored. We all need mentoring and benefit from that, I think. I have served in the past as a mentor. I am not currently serving as one, and I would say that I have also served as a mentor for folks that are going through leadership development programs that are usually more aware that they are asked to get a mentor for that program. One of those mentees is one of my biggest successes. She worked in the Bioenergy Program, and she just recently took a senior executive position in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It is really amazing to watch people grow and develop through the mentoring process. It is really something that I would encourage anyone to do.

I just want to say that the senior leader that just went to the EPA that Valri just mentioned was actually my mentor, but organically it happened in the Bioenergy Technologies Office. So, she definitely passed that down. Like I said, mentoring is extremely important, and it has definitely helped me in my career. I hope to mentor someone one day.

Thanks to our attendees for being part of our webinar today and celebrating Earth Day with us. Thank you to our presenters for letting us know how at the federal level Offices are working together to solve these great challenges for the U.S.

With that, we will part. If you want to get any more information on these topics that we've talked about, we can provide the information on that as well as take any other questions by email. Thank you all.