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January 5, 2010
The National Governors Association announces that six states — Colorado, Hawaii, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin — have been selected to participate in a program to help states develop comprehensive action plans to improve energy efficiency of existing buildings. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) monies.

January 6, 2010
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announces that DOE is awarding $47 million for 14 projects to support the development of new technologies that can improve energy efficiency in the information technology (IT) and communication technology sectors. The Recovery Act funding is for research, development, and demonstration projects in three subject areas: equipment and software, power supply chain, and cooling of equipment. The funding will be matched by more than $70 million in private industry funding.

January 7, 2010
Secretary Chu is present as General Motors produces the first lithium-ion battery pack for the Chevrolet Volt at its new manufacturing facility in Brownstown, Michigan. Funded by $106 million in Recovery Act funding announced by DOE in August 2009, the plant was converted from an empty facility to a production-ready site in five months. The lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant is the first operated by a major automaker in the U.S. General Motors provided $43 million of the plant’s costs.

January 7, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the inaugural "ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit" to take place March 1-3, 2010 at the Gaylord National Hotel & Convention Center in Washington, DC.  The event, hosted by DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) and organized by the Clean Technology and Sustainable Industries Organization (CTSI), will serve as a forum for the nation's energy leaders to share ideas, collaborate, and identify key technology opportunities and challenges.

January 7, 2010
The Department announces that it has entered into a Consent Decree with Haier America resolving an investigation into whether Haier violated DOE's energy efficiency standards.  The Department's investigation led Haier to determine that a parts defect caused certain freezers to consume more energy than represented to consumers and possibly violated DOE's energy efficiency standards and the ENERGY STAR® requirements for freezers.  The Consent Decree obligates Haier to notify affected consumers, repair defective units, and pay a voluntary contribution to the U.S. Treasury.

January 7, 2010
NNSA and the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) recognize the 25th anniversary of a joint program between NNSA and DoD that has contributed to the development of advanced technologies necessary to meet warfighting needs and improve non-nuclear munitions. The Department and DoD signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in 1985 establishing the DoD/DOE Joint Munitions Technology Development Program (JMP). In the 25 years since, the JMP has provided major advances in warfighting capabilities that play a crucial role in the exploration, development, and transition of new technologies needed by the armed services.

January 8, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selection of three initial projects under the Low-Carbon Communities of the Americas (LCCA) — a program launched in June 2009 to assist countries in Latin America with sustainable energy market transformation initiatives. Through the LCCA program, DOE invited countries to submit proposals for collaboration in areas including renewable energy development and building and industrial energy efficiency.  The Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, along with other National Laboratories, will be providing technical assistance to countries receiving support under the initiative. The projects involve creating an Energy Efficiency Center in Costa Rica, building low-carbon communities in the Caribbean, and initiating a wind project in Dominica.

January 8, 2010
President Barack Obama announces the award of $2.3 billion in Recovery Act Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credits for 183 clean energy manufacturing projects in 43 states. The projects were competitively selected through a rigorous merit review process and the companies chosen say they will create more than 17,000 jobs. Projects selected for this tax credit generally must be placed in service by 2014, but approximately 30 percent of them will be completed in 2010. As part of a partnership between DOE and the Department of Treasury, the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit authorizes Treasury to provide developers with an investment tax credit of 30 percent for facilities that manufacture particular types of energy equipment. Qualifying manufacturers will produce solar, wind, and geothermal energy equipment; fuel cells, microturbines, and batteries; electric cars; electric grids to support the transmission of renewable energy; energy conservation technologies; and equipment that captures and sequesters carbon dioxide or reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

January 11, 2010
Secretary Chu, in Columbus, Indiana, announces the selection of nine projects totaling more than $187 million to improve fuel efficiency for heavy-duty trucks and passenger vehicles. The funding includes more than $100 million from the Recovery Act, with a private cost share of 50 percent, and will support nearly $375 million in total research, development and demonstration projects across the country. The nine winners have stated their projects will create over 500 jobs, primarily researchers, engineers, and managers who will develop the new technologies. By 2015, the projects expect to create over 6,000 jobs—many in manufacturing and assembly.

January 12, 2010
The Department announces that it has received certifications for over 600,000 residential appliances in 15 different product categories in response to DOE's enhanced energy efficiency enforcement efforts. The Department recently announced that manufacturers had until January 8, 2010m to submit correct energy use data before aggressive enforcement actions were taken. The certification data provided by 160 different manufacturers will allow DOE to review manufacturers' compliance with minimum energy efficiency standards and take action to ensure that products are delivering the energy and cost savings required by law.

January 12, 2010
NNSA announces the removal of the final 5.4 kilograms (11.9 pounds) of U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) spent nuclear fuel from Turkey. The material — the last significant amount of HEU in Turkey — was removed and returned to the U.S. for storage at a secure nuclear facility.

January 12, 2010
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., rules that the federal government cannot claim an “unavoidable delay” in its defense against electric utilities suing the government because DOE did not begin disposing of utility spent nuclear fuel beginning in 1998 as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982.

January 13, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the investment of $78 million under the Recovery Act for advanced biofuels research and fueling infrastructure that will help support the development of a clean sustainable transportation sector. Two biofuels consortia will seek to break down critical barriers to the commercialization of algae-based and other advanced biofuels such as green aviation fuels, diesel, and gasoline that can be transported and sold using today's existing fueling infrastructure. The selected projects consist of leading scientists and engineers from universities, private industry, and government, and will facilitate sharing expertise and technologies.

January 13, 2010
NNSA announces that it recently completed the installation and successful startup of a new surveillance diagnostic tool that is capable of detecting aging defects on critical components in the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. In response to NNSA's need to implement cost effective, optimized inspection of nuclear components (also known as "surveillance transformation"), scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory teamed with NNSA's Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, to develop a new X-ray computed tomography (CT) system to image nuclear weapon components. The new CT scan will enhance NNSA's surveillance program by providing a precise non-destructive means for the detection of aging phenomena on nuclear weapon components for evaluation of potential impact, and to provide a basis for assuring a high level of confidence in their continued performance.

January 13, 2010
The Department’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships program releases a new manual to recommend best practices for public outreach and education for carbon dioxide (CO2) storage projects. The recommendations are based on lessons learned by DOE’s seven Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships during the first six years of the partnerships program. The manual, titled Best Practices for Public Outreach and Education for Carbon Storage Projects, is intended to assist project developers in understanding and applying best outreach practices for siting and operating CO2 storage projects.

January 14, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that 69 scientists from across the nation will receive up to $85 million in funding under the Recovery Act for five-year research grants as part of DOE's new Early Career Research Program. The new effort is designed to bolster the nation's scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career years, when many scientists do their most formative work. Awardees were selected from a pool of 1,750 university- and national laboratory-based applicants. Selection was based on peer review by outside scientific experts.

January 14, 2010
NNSA announces that it has successfully completed the recovery of two high-activity Cesium-137 devices from a warehouse located approximately 25 miles from Manhattan in Rahway, New Jersey. NNSA recovered these disused and unwanted irradiators as part of its Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). The devices, which contained more than 3,000 curies of Cs-137 at the time of their recovery, were used for medical research during their useful life.

January 15, 2010
Secretary Chu announces more than $37 million in funding from the Recovery Act to support high-efficiency solid-state lighting projects. Solid-state lighting, which uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) instead of incandescent bulbs, has the potential to be ten times more energy-efficient than traditional incandescent lighting. The 17 projects selected include funding for solid-state lighting core research, product development, and domestic manufacturing.

January 15, 2010
Secretary Chu, at a roundtable meeting with energy reporters, discusses loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants, the FutureGen project, increased funding for the development of high-performance computing, and the potential environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing to extract gas and oil from shale. The Department’s research efforts to develop hydraulic fracturing have provided a huge return on investment, the Secretary notes, with lower costs and reduced imports. “The return on investment could be a hundred fold, it could be a thousand fold,” says the Secretary. “We don't even know yet.”

January 18, 2010
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upholds the Department's decision to remove the ENERGY STAR® label from certain inefficient LG refrigerator-freezer models. As part of its expanded energy efficient enforcement efforts, DOE had taken steps over the past few months to remove the label from these products, which independent testing had shown were consuming significantly more energy than allowed by the ENERGY STAR® program. The Court's Memorandum Opinion denied LG's motion for a preliminary injunction that would have allowed the manufacturer to continue using the ENERGY STAR® label on approximately 40,000 affected LG refrigerator-freezers. Throughout the proceedings, DOE maintained the government's right to enforce the energy efficiency requirements associated with the ENERGY STAR® program.

January 20, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that the Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will invest up to $12 million in total funding—$10 million from the Recovery Act—in four companies to support the development of early stage solar energy technologies and help them advance to full commercial scale. Companies awarded under DOE's Photovoltaic Incubator Program will work with NREL to transition prototype and pre-commercial PV technologies into pilot and full-scale manufacturing.

January 20, 2010
The Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) releases the Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study indicating that the eastern U.S. could derive 20 percent of its electricity from wind power by 2024. The two-and-a-half year technical study of future high-penetration wind scenarios finds that transmission upgrades, offshore wind, and operational changes would be needed.

January 21, 2010
Secretary Chu, in testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, discusses clean energy research and development needed to meet the medium and long-term challenges associated with climate change.

January 21, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selection of five projects to receive more than $20.5 million from the Recovery Act to support deployment of community-based renewable energy projects, such as biomass, wind and solar installations. The projects will be leveraged with approximately $167 million in local government and private industry funding. The Department estimates that these projects will provide enough clean, renewable energy to displace the emissions of approximately 10,700 homes.

January 21, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that DOE has closed its $465 million loan with Tesla Motors, Inc., for construction of a manufacturing facility in southern California on the Model S electric sedan and a power-train manufacturing facility in Palo Alto, California. The Palo Alto facility will assemble electric vehicle battery packs, electric motors, and related electric vehicle control equipment, both for Tesla's own electric vehicles and for sale to other automobile manufacturers. The agreement was negotiated and signed by DOE's Loan Programs Office. Tesla's planned Model S will consume no gasoline and will not produce any tailpipe emissions. It is being designed to offer a variety of range options depending on the battery pack used, from 160 to 300 miles on a single charge. Volume production of the Model S is planned to begin in 2012 with a target production capacity of 20,000 vehicles per year by the end of 2013.

January 21, 2010
The Department announces that it has issued the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Decommissioning and/or Long-Term Stewardship at the West Valley Demonstration Project and Western New York Nuclear Service Center, DOE/EIS-0226. The EIS evaluated the decommissioning and long-term stewardship alternatives at the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP) and Western New York Nuclear Service Center in West Valley, New York. DOE worked in partnership with the New York State Energy Research and Development
Authority to develop a preferred alternative before issuing the final environmental impact statement. DOE has identified Phased Decision-making, allowing partial to unrestricted land release in 2 phases, as the preferred alternative for the site.

January 25, 2010
Thomas P. D'Agostino, NNSA administrator, authorizes the start-up of the new Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. HEUMF — an ultra-secure warehouse — will consolidate enriched uranium storage into a single state-of-the-art facility that reduces operating costs and improves security, efficiency, and operations. The $549 million facility is Y-12's largest construction project in more than 40 years.

January 26, 2010
The Department announces that approximately 1.6 billion supercomputing processor hours have been awarded to 69 cutting-edge research projects through the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program. The INCITE program provides powerful resources to enable scientists and engineers to conduct cutting-edge research in just weeks or months rather than the years or decades needed previously. The projects were awarded time at DOE's Leadership Computing Facilities at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

January 27, 2010
Arun Majumdar, director of ARPA-E, in testimony before a House Committee on Science and Technology oversight hearing, discusses the status of the ARPA-E Program and the path forward.

January 27, 2010
NNSA announces that scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have successfully delivered an historic level of laser energy—more than 1 megajoule—to a target in a few billionths of a second and demonstrated the target drive conditions required to achieve fusion ignition. This is about 30 times the energy ever delivered by any other group of lasers in the world. The peak power of the laser light, which was delivered within a few billionths of a second, was about 500 times that used by the U.S. at any given time.

January 27, 2010
President Obama in his State of the Union Address urges Congress to pass “a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.”  The President calls for “more production, more efficiency, more incentives” and the building of “a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. “ He also asks for the making of “tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.”

January 28, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that DOE has closed its $1.4 billion loan agreement with Nissan North America, Inc., to retool their Smyrna, Tennessee, factory to build advanced electric automobiles and an advanced battery manufacturing facility. Nissan plans to use the proceeds from the loan to produce its all-electric vehicle, the LEAF, at its existing Smyrna plant. Nissan will offer electric vehicles to fleet and retail customers, and plans to ramp up production capacity in Smyrna up to 150,000 vehicles annually.

January 28, 2010
Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner, at a roundtable discussion in Minneapolis on green manufacturing jobs, announces that the Obama administration's budget, to be released next week, will expand the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit by $5 billion. The program provides a 30 percent tax credit for investments in the factories that will make the products to power the clean energy economy. DOE and the Internal Revenue Service review and make determinations on the eligibility of applications for the tax credits.

January 28, 2010
President Obama, in response to a question on gas prices at a Town Hall Meeting in Tampa, Florida, says “we have to increase production on oil, we have to increase production on natural gas, because we're not going to be able to get all our clean energy up and running quickly enough to meet all of our economic growth needs. But even if we are increasing production we've got to get started now decreasing our use and making our economy more efficient.”

January 29, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the formation of a Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the Nation's used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. The Commission is being co-chaired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton and former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. In light of the Obama Administration's decision not to proceed with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and President Obama’s instructions, the Commission will conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The Commission will provide advice and make recommendations on issues including alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and defense spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. The Commission is made up of 15 members who have a range of expertise and experience in nuclear issues, including scientists, industry representatives, and respected former elected officials. The Commission will produce an interim report within 18 months and a final report within 24 months.

January 29, 2010
President Obama announces that the federal government will reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 28 percent by 2020. On October 5, 2009, the President signed Executive Order 13514 on Federal Sustainability, setting measurable environmental performance goals for federal agencies. Each federal agency was required to submit a 2020 GHG pollution reduction target. The federal target announced is the aggregate of 35 federal agency self-reported targets.

January 29, 2010
President Obama, in response to a question on energy policy at the GOP House Issues Conference in Baltimore, states “the future is that clean energy—cleaner forms of energy are going to be increasingly important, because even if folks are still skeptical in some cases about climate change in our politics and in Congress, the world is not skeptical about it.  If we're going to be after some of these big markets, they're going to be looking to see, is the United States the one that's developing clean coal technology? Is the United States developing our natural gas resources in the most effective way?  Is the United States the one that is going to lead in electric cars?  Because if we're not leading, those other countries are going to be leading.”

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February 1, 2010
Secretary Chu details President Obama's $28.4 billion Fiscal Year 2011 budget request for DOE. The Secretary highlights the development of a clean energy economy; investment in advanced science, research, and innovation; maintenance of a strong nuclear deterrent and secure nuclear materials both at home and abroad, and improvements in energy efficiency to help curb greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. The FY 2011 budget request also places an emphasis on DOE improving fiscal performance with the proposed creation of a new initiative on Management Reform. An additional $36 billion—on top of the existing $18.5 billion—in loan guarantee authority for the near-term deployment of new nuclear power plants is requested. “In order to really restart the nuclear industry in the United States,” the Secretary told reporters, “you need several of each type of reactor.” Noting that three major reactor designs were currently under development, the Secretary said the total funding would be “enough to allow seven to ten reactors to be built.” The President’s 2011 budget contains no anticipated “climate revenue” from a climate cap-and-trade bill, unlike the 2010 budget request that forecast raising $646 billion over the next decade. “We don't have cap-and-trade legislation, so one doesn't plan a budget on something we don't have,” the Secretary observes. “The administration's position is that we would still very much like to have a cap on carbon that slowly ratchets down. We would like to have it so that this is the very important long-term signal, but largely it is going to be revenue-neutral, so that you return the proceeds from anything back to people who pay energy bills, to industries, to states, so that you give them time to make these adjustments.”

February 2, 2010
The Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announce the creation of the State Energy Efficiency (SEE) Action Network. The network is meant to help states achieve maximum cost-effective energy efficiency improvements in homes, offices, buildings and industry by 2020. Through the Network, DOE, EPA and other member organizations will assist states with their energy efficiency initiatives, including residential efficiency programs, financing solutions, and improving availability of energy usage information.

February 2, 2010
Secretary Chu, in response to in an October 26, 2010, letter (pdf) from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board calling for immediate actions to reduce the risk posed by a seismic event at the Plutonium Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, accepts the board’s recommendations. “A significant number of actions have been completed recently or are planned in the near future that improve the safety posture of the facility,” the Secretary notes.

February 2, 2010
NNSA announces that it has completed the installation and testing of radiation detection systems at three new ports: Colon Container Terminal and the Port of Cristobal in Panama and the Port of Manzanillo, Mexico. The equipment, provided through NNSA's Megaports Initiative, will be used to help deter, detect, and interdict illicit shipments of nuclear and other radioactive materials that might move through the global maritime shipping system. 

February 3, 2010
President Obama, at a meeting on energy policy with a bipartisan group of governors from around the country, announces three measures that will work in concert to boost biofuels production and reduce our dependence on foreign oil: 1) EPA has finalized a rule to implement the long-term renewable fuels standard of 36 billion gallons by 2022 established by Congress; 2) the Department of Agriculture has proposed a rule on the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) that would provide financing to increase the conversion of biomass to bioenergy; and 3)  the President's Biofuels Interagency Working Group released its first report: Growing America's Fuel.  The report, authored by group co-chairs, Secretaries Vilsack and Chu, and Administrator Jackson, lays out a strategy to advance the development and commercialization of a sustainable biofuels industry to meet or exceed the nation's biofuels targets. In addition, the President announces a Presidential Memorandum creating an Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to develop a comprehensive and coordinated federal strategy to speed the development and deployment of clean coal technologies. The Task Force will be co-chaired by representatives of from DOE and EPA and include participants from at least 9 different agencies and offices. The Task Force shall develop within 180 days a plan to overcome the barriers to the deployment of widespread affordable CCS within 10 years, with a goal of bringing five to ten commercial demonstration projects on line by 2016.

February 3, 2010
In his first public remarks since President Obama's Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request was sent to Congress, NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino calls it a “direct and tangible display of the President's commitment to this mission, and a demonstration of the critical role NNSA plays in implementing the President's unprecedented nuclear security agenda.” Speaking to an Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM) workshop on the upcoming Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, D'Agostino says the $2.7 billion the President requested for nonproliferation programs — up 25.8 percent from FY 2010 — support strengthening global nonproliferation efforts by bolstering NNSA programs that play a critical role in meeting the President's goal of securing vulnerable nuclear material within four years.

February 4, 2010
Secretary Chu, in testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, discusses DOE’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request.

February 5, 2010
The Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces a proposed experiment facility in northern Minnesota that would allow scientists to adjust temperatures and levels of carbon dioxide across a broad range of possibilities projected by climate models. The facility, to be built in a high-carbon spruce bog within the Chippewa National Forest, will provide answers to key questions about the effects climate change could have on vegetation and ecosystems while addressing critical uncertainties related to the carbon cycle. The laboratory, working in cooperation with the Department of Agriculture, hopes to begin construction of the facility in December 2011.

February 9, 2010
In a press conference following a meeting with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, President Obama calls for “bipartisan agreement” on energy. Noting that while he is “very firm” in his “conviction that the country that leads the way in clean energy — solar, wind, biodiesel, geothermal — that country is going to win the race in the 21st-century global economy,” the U.S. is “going to need some of the old, traditional energy sources as we're developing these new ones and ramping them up.” The question is, the President says, “are we going to be able to put together a package that includes safe, secure nuclear power; that includes new technologies so that we can use coal—which we have in abundance and is very cheap, but often is adding to our greenhouse gases—can we find sequestration technologies that clean that up; can we identify opportunities to increase our oil and natural gas production in a way that is environmentally sustainable?” He says he hopes his “Republican friends, but also Democrats, say to themselves, let's be practical and let's do both. . . . Over time I think the transition is going to be more and more clean energy and over time fossil fuels become less prominent in our overall energy mix. But we've got to do both.”

February 11, 2010
The White House Council of Economic Advisers releases the Economic Report to the President for 2010. In the section on energy and climate change, the report affirms administration policy of achieving a low-carbon economy “through a market-based approach to reducing greenhouse gases combined with government incentives to promote research and development of new clean energy technologies.”

February 12, 2010
Seven federal agencies issue a combined Funding Opportunity Announcement of up to $129.7 million over five years to create a regional research center that will develop new building efficiency technologies and work with local partners to implement the technologies in area buildings. The agencies are working together to leverage funding and resources to promote regional growth through an Energy Regional Innovation Cluster (E-RIC) that is centered around an Energy Innovation Hub focused on developing new technologies to improve the design of energy-efficient building systems. The Energy Innovation Hub, one of three proposed by the Administration and funded by Congress in the FY10 budget, will bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers, ideally working under one roof, to conduct research and work to solve priority technology challenges that span work from basic research to engineering development to commercialization readiness. The E-RIC chosen under the funding opportunity will be based at a university, DOE national laboratory, nonprofit organization, or private firm, partnering closely with local or state government officials, and leveraging existing expertise of local architects, builders, and manufacturers. DOE is providing up to $22 million for this project in the first year, with up to $100 million over the next four years.

February 14, 2010
Secretary Chu appears on the show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The Department and Oak Ridge National Laboratory worked with the builders to offer technical assistance as they designed and built a super high efficiency home and a neighborhood learning center in the Washington, D.C area. The builders used the latest "green" technologies, including an insulated concrete form foundation, triple-layer insulated windows, hybrid electric water heaters and a geothermal heat pump, compact fluorescent lighting, and solar panels for electricity.

February 15, 2010
A public/private Study Group administered by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and a broad group of public and private interests finds that continuation of the oil and gas drilling moratoria on much of the outer continental shelf and some onshore public lands would result in an alternative domestic energy future that “increases the cost and restricts the availability of domestic oil products and natural gas” in all economic sectors and regions of the country. Costs to the economy, according to the group, would be in the trillions of dollars.

February 16, 2010
President Obama, in a speech to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 26 in Lanham, Maryland, with Secretary Chu in attendance, announces that DOE has offered conditional commitments for a total of $8.33 billion in loan guarantees for the construction and operation of two new nuclear reactors at a plant in Burke, Georgia. The two new 1,100 megawatt Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant will supplement the two existing reactor units at the facility. The project is scheduled to be the first U.S. nuclear power plant to break ground in nearly three decades. “This is a significant step by the Obama Administration,” says the Secretary, “to restart our domestic nuclear industry, helping to create valuable long-term jobs and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.”

February 17, 2010
Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman addresses the opening session of the second annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Alexandria, Virginia, and discusses DOE's commitment to helping achieve the President's goals of reducing nuclear dangers and expanding the use of nuclear energy in a manner that minimizes the risks of proliferation. The Deputy Secretary also speaks about the Department's commitment to management excellence.

February 17, 2010
Arun Majumdar, director of ARPA-E discusses adoption of transformational energy technology at the winter meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. “I'd be kidding myself if I said it would happen five years from now,” Majumdar says. “I think it is very easy to see 20 years from now what a home run is like. It's the in-between that's difficult.”

February 18, 2010
Vice President Biden, in a speech to the National Defense University, discusses nuclear security issues, noting that “the spread of nuclear weapons is the greatest threat facing our country.”

February 19, 2010
Secretary Chu, at the Vestas wind power manufacturing facility in Windsor, Colorado, delivers remarks on the anniversary of the Recovery Act.

February 19, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that DOE is making selection of awards for more than $8 million to 43 cities and towns across the country to develop or expand local energy assurance plans that will improve electricity reliability and energy security in these communities. These emergency preparedness plans, funded under the Recovery Act, will help ensure local governments can recover and restore power quickly following any energy supply disruptions. This is the first time that DOE will provide grants to local communities for energy assurance planning. The Local Energy Assurance Planning (LEAP) funds will allow local governments to hire and train staff and expand their capabilities to respond to a variety of energy emergencies such as blackouts, hurricanes, floods, ice storms, or possible terrorist attacks.  Each community will identify and assess energy supply disruption scenarios, train personnel on energy infrastructure and supply systems, and increase their knowledge of local energy interdependencies to reduce their response, restoration, and recovery time.

February 19, 2010
The Department’s Inspector General, Gregory Friedman, in a Special Report to Secretary Chu on implementing the weatherization assistance program under the Recovery Act, informs the Secretary that “only $368.2 million (less than 8 percent) of the total award of $4.73 billion” has been spent by the states. Friedman concludes that “the Nation has not, to date, realized the potential economic benefits of the $5 billion in Recovery Act funds allocated to the Weatherization Program. The job creation impact of what was considered to be one of the Department's most “shovel ready” projects has not materialized. And, modest income home residents have not enjoyed the significant reductions in energy consumption and improved living conditions promised as part of the massive Recovery Act weatherization effort.“

February 22, 2010
Secretary Steven Chu begins a four-day trip to the Middle East to meet with senior government officials, research and scientific leaders, and members of the private sector as part of the Administration's efforts to continue strengthening U.S. partnerships within the region. At his first stop in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, he meets with Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali al Naimi, King Abdullah, and other government leaders. He also visits the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology to discuss the latest in energy technology research and development.  Secretary Chu, in addition, delivers remarks at the International Energy Forum Secretariat.

February 22, 2010
Secretary Chu announces conditional commitments for more than $1.37 billion in loan guarantees under the Recovery Act to BrightSource Energy, Inc., to support the construction and start-up of three utility-scale concentrated solar power plants. The new plants will generate approximately 400 megawatts (MW) of electricity using the company's innovative, proprietary technology. This would nearly double the existing generation capacity of this type of renewable energy in the U.S. The three-plant Ivanpah Solar Complex will be located on federally-owned land in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California, near the Nevada border, and will be the world's largest operational concentrated solar power complex. Once operational, the project will supply clean electric power to approximately 140,000 California homes.

February 22, 2010
Secretary Chu, following the “vigorous discussion” on his Facebook site after his February 16 post about President Obama's announcement of a loan guarantee for what will become the first nuclear power plant to break ground in nearly three decades, posts an affirmation of nuclear power on his site entitled “Why We Need More Nuclear Power.”

February 22, 2010
Inèz Triay, DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, and Governor of Utah Gary Herbert agree to suspend shipments of depleted uranium from DOE’s Savannah River Site to a privately-owned waste site in Utah. Governor Herbert had complained that the depleted uranium posed a potential health hazard. An initial shipment was made in December 2009.

February 23, 2010
Secretary Chu, on the second day of his trip to the Middle East, visits King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, on the Red Sea coast near Jeddah. His host is Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali al Naimi, who is Chair of the KAUST Board of Trustees. KAUST is an international, graduate-level research university dedicated to science and technology that opened in September of 2009.

February 24, 2010
Secretary Chu, on the third day of his trip to the Middle East, is in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where he meets with UAE Minister of Energy Mohammed bin Dha'en al Hamli and other government leaders. The Secretary signs an Implementing Agreement on nuclear energy and nonproliferation with UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr. Anwar Gargash. The Secretary tours Masdar City, the world's first carbon-neutral zero waste city, before delivering a speech to students and faculty from the Masdar Institute for Science and Technology. He ends the day with a meeting with His Highness Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

February 25, 2010
Secretary Chu on the final day of his trip to the Middle East, is in Doha, Qatar, where he signs a Memorandum of Understanding on Renewable and Alternative Energy with Deputy Prime Minister and Energy & Industry Minister Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah. The agreement provides a framework for bilateral cooperation with the Ministry and other Qatari institutions on clean energy innovation. He then meets with Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. The Secretary participates in a roundtable focused on renewable energy, hosted by the Qatar National Food Security Program. He then travels to the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) and delivers a speech on climate change and the path to a global clean energy future to approximately 300 QSTP students, faculty, and government officials.

February 25, 2010
NNSA announces that it has signed an interagency agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to evaluate the use of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel made from U.S. surplus weapons plutonium in TVA's Sequoyah and Browns Ferry nuclear power reactors. Converting the plutonium to spent fuel is an essential step in U.S. efforts to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-grade plutonium withdrawn from the nuclear weapons program. The U.S. program is complemented by parallel efforts to dispose of an equal quantity of Russian surplus weapon-grade plutonium.

February 25, 2010
NNSA dedicates the National Security Computing Center (NSCC) at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The NSCC is a DOE user facility for top-secret level applications that require high-performance computing. Its unique capabilities will be applied to help solve pressing national security problems such as cyber defense, vulnerability assessments, informatics (network discovery), space systems threats, and situational awareness. The system can also be used to provide high-fidelity, physical simulations, and advanced imagery processing.

February 26, 2010
Senior representatives from DOE attend a regional energy meeting hosted by the Colombian Ministry of Energy in Bogotá, Colombia. The meeting brings together public and private representatives from the Andean region, as well regional multilateral organizations, including the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States and the U.S.-Colombia Chamber of Commerce, to discuss the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA).

March 2, 2010
President Obama, in a speech on energy efficiency at Savannah Technical College in Savannah, Georgia, announces the Home Star Energy Efficiency Retrofit Program. Modeled on the Energy Star program, Home Star would apply not to appliances but to the home itself. Rebates would be made available for the installation of energy efficient building supplies and systems—windows, a heating unit, insulation in the attic, a new roof, and the like—for 50 percent of the cost of each upgrade up to $1,500. The $6 billion rebate program requires approval by Congress before it can be implemented.

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March 2, 2010
Secretary Chu, at the inaugural ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, announces that $100 million in Recovery Act funding will be made available to accelerate innovation in green technology, increase America's competitiveness and create new jobs. The ARPA-E's third round of funding opportunity is focused specifically on three technology areas: Grid-Scale Rampable Intermittent Dispatchable Storage (GRIDS), Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (ADEPT), and Building Energy Efficiency Through Innovative Thermodevices (BEET-IT). 

March 2, 2010
The Department releases the charter for the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. The Blue Ribbon Commission will conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the nation's used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste.

March 3, 2010
Secretary Chu, in testimony before the House Committee on Science and Technology, discusses DOE’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request.

March 3, 2010
The Department files a motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to withdraw the license application for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain with prejudice.

March 4, 2010
Secretary Chu, in testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, discusses DOE’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request. On the Obama administration’s decision to abandon Yucca Mountain as a storage site for high-level nuclear waste, the Secretary reiterates that the President “has made it very clear that it is not an option.” Secretary Chu says a possible alternative would be impermeable salt domes similar to those used by DOE to store oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. “Even though the continents are drifting all around it below, those things have been stable for tens of millions of years, up to hundreds of millions of years,” he says. Yucca Mountain “is a very different type of site that has fissures. And that rock will be saturated with water if the climate changes.” The Secretary also tells reporters after the hearing that DOE will make a decision on the FutureGen clean-coal project by the end of the month. “We are trying to give them every opportunity to be successful, but eventually we will have to make a decision,” he says. “We are working with [the FutureGen Industrial Alliance] with the hope that they can come up with the necessary assets needed.”

March 4, 2010
Matt Rogers, senior advisor to the Secretary, in testimony before a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources oversight hearing, discusses Recovery Act implementation.

March 4, 2010
Thomas P. D'Agostino, NNSA administrator, in testimony before Energy and Water Development Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, discusses NNSA’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request.

March 5, 2010
President Obama issues a statement on the 40th anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “Today, the threat of global nuclear war has passed,” the President notes, “but the danger of nuclear proliferation endures, making the basic bargain of the NPT more important than ever: nations with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, nations without nuclear weapons will forsake them, and all nations have an “inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear energy. Each of these three pillars—disarmament, nonproliferation and peaceful uses—are central to the vision that I outlined in Prague of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and seeking a world without them.”

March 5, 2010
President Obama, in a speech at OPOWER, a company that works with utilities to help customers understand their energy costs and saving money on their energy bills, in Arlington, Virginia, discusses clean energy jobs.

March 5, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that DOE has offered a conditional commitment for a $72 million loan guarantee to SAGE Electrochromics, based in Faribault, Minnesota. The deal will support the financing of the construction and operation of a 250,000 square foot, high volume manufacturing facility to produce SageGlass®, an energy-saving window technology for commercial use.  This new facility will be built next to SAGE's existing production facility, enabling the company to expand production and lower costs. SageGlass® allows natural light in while controlling unwanted solar heat and glare and can be used in building windows, skylights, and curtain walls. The technology consists of a series of thin ceramic material layers deposited onto sheets of glass, forming an electrochromic device that allows the user to switch the window between a clear state and a highly tinted state using a low-voltage electrical current.

March 5, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that DOE has offered a conditional commitment on a $117 million loan guarantee to finance the construction and start-up of an innovative 30 megawatt (MW) wind energy project in Kahuku, Hawaii. Kahuku Wind Power, LLC will install twelve 2.5 MW wind turbine generators along with a battery energy storage system for electricity load stability. To date, DOE has conditionally offered or closed 12 loans or loan guarantees. 

March 5, 2010
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issues a report evaluating the joint DOE/EPA Energy Star program to identify products that decrease greenhouse emissions and lower energy costs. Given concerns that the program is vulnerable to fraud and abuse, GAO conducted proactive testing to (1) obtain Energy Star partnership status for bogus companies and (2) submit fictitious products for Energy Star certification. The investigation showed that Energy Star is “for the most part a self-certification program.” Of the 20 bogus products submitted, 15 received certification, including a gas-powered alarm clock.

March 8, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman addresses the plenary session at the International Conference on Access to Civil Nuclear Energy in Paris, France.

March 8, 2010
Secretary Chu announces selections for the award of approximately $40 million in total to two teams led by Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co. and San Diego-based General Atomics for conceptual design and planning work for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP). The results of this work will help the Administration determine whether to proceed with detailed efforts toward construction and demonstration of the NGNP. If successful, the NGNP Demonstration Project will demonstrate high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology that will be capable of producing electricity as well as process heat for industrial applications and will be configured for low technical and safety risk with highly reliable operations.

March 8, 2010
The Department’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) announces that it is teaming with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, Oregon State University, The Ohio State University, and the University of New Mexico to form the Institute for Nuclear Energy Science and Technology (I-NEST). The institute's goal is to help define INL's long-term nuclear energy research and development strategy. The institute comprises four Centers of Research and Education (COREs) that focus on nuclear energy areas: fuels and materials, space nuclear research, fuel cycle, and safety and licensing. Each CORE will be led by two researchers—one each from INL and one of the partner universities. I-NEST will be based at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies in Idaho Falls.

March 9, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that NRG Energy has been selected to receive up to $154 million, including funding from the Recovery Act, post-combustion capture and sequestration project located in Thompsons, Texas. The project will demonstrate advanced technology to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. It will also assist with enhanced oil recovery efforts from a nearby oil field. NRG will construct a 60-megawatt carbon capture demonstration facility at the company's W.A. Parish Unit 7. The federal funding will be matched by NRG.

March 9, 2010
President Obama meets in the White House with a group of thirteen senators, Secretary Chu, and other Cabinet members to discuss climate change legislation. “We're moving on a very short fuse. We're moving very rapidly,” Senator John Kerry (D-MA) tells reporters after the 90-minute meeting. “We're now down to dealing with specific language and negotiating with various interested parties.”  Senator Lindsey Graham, who is working with Kerry and Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) on a bill, says “the administration has exceeded my expectations in terms of reaching out on offshore drilling [and] nuclear power.” He adds that the White House has been “very reasonable when it comes to looking at how you can price carbon and make it more business-friendly.”

March 10, 2010
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and DOE announce new guidance on the tax treatment for grantees receiving Recovery Act funding under the $3.4 billion Smart Grid Investment Grant program. Under the guidance released today, the Internal Revenue Service is providing a safe harbor under section 118(a) of the Internal Revenue Code for corporations receiving funding under the program. With the determination that Smart Grid Investment Grants to corporations are non-taxable, corporate utilities will be able to launch their investments with a clear indication of the tax status for their projects. This decision allows D0E to move forward quickly to finalize grant agreements over the coming weeks.

March 10, 2010
Kathleen Hogan, DOE deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, in testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, discusses appliance efficiency legislation.

March 11, 2010
Cathy Zoi, DOE assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, in testimony before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, discusses the creation of jobs related to energy efficiency.

March 12, 2010
The Department issues two Request for Applications for scholarships and fellowships as part of its efforts to recruit and train the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers. The Department's Nuclear Energy University Programs will provide approximately $5 million for scholarships and fellowships for students enrolled in two-year, four-year and graduate engineering and science programs related to nuclear energy at accredited U.S. universities and colleges. 

March 16, 2010
An op-ed on energy efficiency by Secretary Chu appears in a new report by the World Economic Forum and IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates entitled “Energy Vision 2010: Towards a More Energy Efficient World.”

March 16, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman distributes an "end-state vision for safety and security reform" within the Department. In safety performance. contractors will be "provided the flexibility to tailor and implement safety programs in light of their situation without excessive Federal oversight or overly prescriptive Departmental requirements." In security performance, contractors will be "provided the flexibility to tailor and implement security programs in light of their situation and to develop corresponding risk- and performance-based protection strategies without excessive Federal oversight or overly-prescriptive Departmental requirements."

March 16, 2010
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) submits to Congress a National Broadband Plan. In the section on Energy and the Environment, the FCC says that “broadband and advanced communications infrastructure will play an important role in achieving national goals of energy independence and efficiency . . . . as the foundation of a smarter electric grid and as a platform for innovation in smart homes and buildings, especially if utilities unlock energy data.” The FCC calls for collaboration with the Department in studying the communications requirements of electric utilities to inform federal Smart Grid policy. The Department also “should consider consumer data accessibility policies when evaluating Smart Grid grant applications, report on the states’ progress toward enacting consumer data accessibility and develop best practice guidance for states.” President Obama issues a statement commending the plan.

March 16, 2010
The Governor’s Wind Energy Coalition, a bipartisan group of 29 state governors, releases its 2010 Recommendations. The governors call on Congress and the Obama administration to adopt a renewable electricity standard; develop new interstate electric transmission system infrastructure as needed to provide access to renewable energy resources both on-shore and offshore; fully support coastal, deep water, and offshore wind energy technology and transmission research and development; streamline permitting processes for both offshore and on-shore wind energy development projects; expand DOE’s work with the states and the wind industry to accelerate innovation; and extend the Treasury Department grant program in lieu of the investment tax credit and adopt a long-term renewable energy production tax credit with provisions to broaden the pool of eligible investors.

March 17, 2010
The Department releases a new report highlighting the benefits of the Recovery Act to small businesses throughout the clean, renewable energy industry and environmental management sectors. The report found that as of early March 2010, small businesses have been selected to receive nearly $5.4 billion in funding across a number of Recovery Act and related programs, including loans, loan guarantees, grants, contracts, and tax incentives, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Treasury. Secretary Chu hosts a conference call with reporters to discuss the report. “Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, they are the engines of job creation and innovation, and we need their ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit to keep our country competitive,” the Secretary tells reporters. The Secretary also discusses the White House meeting on March 9 on climate change legislation. “The comprehensive energy and climate bill that we seek is something that will be a very important step,” he says. “It will liberate a lot of capital. That capital is now sitting on the sidelines because we are in limbo, and liberating that capital will drive immediate investments that will create more jobs.”

March 17, 2010
Secretary Chu, in a conference call with reporters, highlights Department's support for small business, noting that DOE to date has directed $5.4 billion in stimulus funding to companies with fewer than 500 employees. The Secretary also tells reporters that it is critical for Congress to pass legislation that puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions and expresses optimism that a bill will pass by the end of the year.

March 17, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman, in remarks to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, discusses energy issues and the Middle East.

March 17, 2010
Assistant Secretary for Policy and International Affairs David Sandalow delivers the keynote address at the Technology and Rare Earth Metals Conference held in Washington, D.C.

March 18, 2010
EPA  announces that it will conduct a comprehensive research study to investigate the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing in the recovery of natural gas may have on water quality and public health.

March 19, 2010
DOE and EPA outline a series of steps to further strengthen the ENERGY STAR® program. In addition to third-party testing already underway, EPA and DOE have launched a new two-step process to expand testing of ENERGY STAR® qualified products. The Department has begun testing of some of the most commonly used appliances, which account for more than 25% of a household's energy bill, and both agencies are now developing a system to test all products that earn the ENERGY STAR label.

March 22, 2010
The Departments of Energy and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation (NSF) announce the launch of a joint research program to produce high-resolution models for predicting climate change and its resulting impacts. Called Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction Using Earth System Models (EaSM), the program is designed to generate models that—significantly more powerful than existing models—can help decision-makers develop adaptation strategies addressing climate change. These models will be developed through a joint, interagency solicitation for proposals.

March 22, 2010
Secretary Chu, NNSA Administrator Thomas P. D'Agostino, members of the Tennessee congressional delegation, and local officials dedicate the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF)—a new, one-of-a-kind storage facility for weapons-grade uranium—at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The ultra-secure uranium warehouse replaces multiple aging buildings with a single state-of-the-art storage facility. HEUMF was built to consolidate HEU from locations across the Y-12 complex into a state-of-the-art facility that will reduce operating costs and is designed to address current and future threats. The largest construction project at Y-12 in more than 40 years, the $549 million building was completed in 2008 and began receiving material for storage at the end of January. HEUMF is a large (approximately 300 ft. by 475 ft.) reinforced concrete structure that will provide storage capacity for thousands of containers of material to be held in specially designed storage racks. The Secretary gives the keynote address.

March 23, 2010
Secretary Chu, at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, announces that DOE has issued a five-year extension to its current management and operating contractor, UT-Battelle, LLC, for the continued operation of the laboratory. The contract extension will run through March 31, 2015, and has an annual value of over $1.4 billion. The Secretary also announces that the Department's Environmental Management program has spent more than $1.5 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds on cleanup projects around the country—25 percent of the program's total—creating an estimated 14,400 jobs since the start of the Recovery Act.

March 23, 2010
The Department announces that it has finalized a cost-shared $90 million cooperative agreement with USEC Inc. to provide support for the continued development and demonstration of the American Centrifuge technology. The agreement provides for the manufacturing and operation of advanced centrifuges in a cascade configuration to demonstrate the commercial viability of its American Centrifuge Plant. The costs will be shared between DOE and USEC. The Department's $45 million share will be met by taking title (but not immediate possession or custody) to a number of depleted uranium tails.  This transfer of depleted uranium tails to DOE will enable USEC to release up to $45 million of encumbered funds held as required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for financial assurance for the ultimate disposition of the material.

March 23, 2010
The Wall Street Journal publishes an op-ed by Secretary Chu on small modular reactors.

March 24, 2010
The Department announces that it has issued subpoenas to three companies who were identified as selling certain torchiere lamps that failed to meet federal energy efficiency standards. Under the subpoenas, Target Corporation, Adesso, Inc., and Habitex Corporation are required to submit detailed information about the design of these products and how the companies marketed and sold them in the U.S. 

March 24, 2010
The U.S. Department of the Interior, DOE, and the Army Corps of Engineers sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) committing the federal agencies to cooperate more closely and aligning priorities to support the development of environmentally sustainable hydropower. In the MOU, the agencies agree to focus on increasing energy generation at federally-owned facilities and explore opportunities for new development of low-impact hydropower.

March 24, 2010
The Department announces two new Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) to support university and college efforts to build or expand their school's nuclear science and engineering basic research or education capabilities. Under the Nuclear Energy University Programs, DOE will provide approximately $14.5 million to upgrade university level research reactors and purchase general scientific equipment and instrumentation.

March 24, 2010
The Governors' Wind Energy Coalition, a bipartisan group of 27 governors, issues a report, Great Expectations: U.S. Wind Energy Development, containing recommendations that would promote "green economic development, job creation, and energy security... through the use of domestic renewable energy resources." In a cover letter to President Obama and Congress, the governors note that they "share a common concern that our dependence on imported energy sources poses unacceptable and unnecessary risks to the nation’s energy, economic and national security." The governors urge the expansion of DOE's work with the states and the wind industry to accelerate innovation.

March 24, 2010
The Pew Charitable Trust releases Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race? analyzing investment and growth in the worldwide clean energy industry. The report finds that China in 2009 for the first time surpassed the U.S. in overall clean energy finance and investment, with China investing $34.6 billion and the U.S. $18.6 billion.

March 25, 2010
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, co-chaired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton and former National Security Advisor General Brent Scowcroft, holds its first meeting in Washington, D.C. The Blue Ribbon Commission is conducting a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and will provide recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the nation's used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. Secretary Chu tells the panel to take a broad look at waste options but notes that "this is not a siting commission."

March 25, 2010
Inéz Triay, DOE assistant secretary for environmental management, in testimony before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, discusses the Office of Environmental Management’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request.

March 26, 2010
President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in a phone conversation, agree to meet in Prague, the Czech Republic, on April 8, to sign the Treaty between the U.S. and the Russian Federation on Measures to Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (the “New START Treaty”). The new Treaty will contain limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear forces significantly below the levels established by the START treaty signed in 1991, and the Moscow Treaty signed in 2002. The President delivers remarks to the press following the phone conversation.

March 26, 2010
Secretary Chu, while visiting Seaway Manufacturing Corporation, an energy-efficient window manufacturing company in Erie, Pennsylvania, highlights the tax credits available to American families as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Taxpayers are eligible for up to $1,500 in tax credits for a range of home energy efficiency improvements — such as adding insulation, installing energy-efficient windows, or replacing water heaters.

March 26, 2010
The Department announces that it has opened an investigation to determine whether certain air conditioners and heat pump products manufactured by Air Con International comply with federal energy efficiency standards. The subpoena issued requires Air Con to submit detailed information about the energy consumption of its products and how Air Con marketed and sold them in the U.S.

March 26, 2010
NNSA announces its new acquisition strategy decision for key contracts. Consistent with all departmental and federal contract competition policies, NNSA will conduct a competition resulting in a single contract for the management of the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Pantex Plant, with an option for the phase-in of Tritium Operations performed at the Savannah River Site.  NNSA also announces that it is contemplating noncompetitively extending the contract for the management and operation of the Kansas City Plant, located in Kansas City, Missouri, for up to five years. 

March 29, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the availability of $37.5 million in U.S. funding over the next five years to support the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center. Funding from DOE will be matched by the grantees to support $75 million in total U.S. research that will focus on advancing technologies for building energy efficiency, clean coal including carbon capture and storage, and clean vehicles. The Clean Energy Research Center (CERC) will be located in existing facilities in both the U.S. and China and will include an additional $75 million in Chinese funding. President Obama and President Hu Jintao formally announced the establishment of the CERC during the President's trip to Beijing in November 2009. 

March 29, 2010
NNSA announces that the U.S. and Italy have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to help prevent the smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive material through the global maritime system. NNSA will work with the Customs Agency of the Italian Republic under a cost-sharing arrangement to help secure cargo containers passing through several Italian ports, including Genoa and Gioia Tauro.

March 29, 2010
The Department announces that it has selected CH2M Hill Newport News Nuclear, LLC (CHN) to perform waste processing at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project at DOE’s Idaho Site near Idaho Falls. The contract is estimated at approximately $592 million. CHN will be responsible for processing and disposing of transuranic waste and mixed low-level waste being stored at the Idaho Site’s Transuranic Storage Area (TSA). The contract will run through September 30, 2015 under a Cost-Plus-Award-Fee contract with performance-based incentives.

March 30, 2010
President Obama and four other leaders of the G20 economic forum, following a meeting of their advisors in Ottawa, issue a joint letter to their G20 colleagues on the main economic tasks ahead. On energy, they state that action is “needed to improve access to diverse, reliable, affordable and clean sources of energy which are critical for sustainable growth. We must therefore reinvigorate our work to improve the functioning of energy markets and to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that distort markets and impede investment in clean energy sources for the future.”

March 30, 2010
The Department announces that it is requiring AeroSys, Inc., to stop distributing two product models—one air conditioner and one heat pump—that DOE testing found to consume more energy than allowed under federal efficiency standards. This is the latest step in the Department's investigation into whether AeroSys has been selling products in the U.S. that violate minimum appliance efficiency standards. This is the first time that DOE has told a company or manufacturer that it must halt the distribution of products that fail to meet minimum conservation standards.

March 30, 2010
The Department’s National Energy Technology Laboratory releases initial findings from the May 2009 expedition of the Gulf of Mexico Hydrates Joint Industry Project indicating that gas hydrate, a potentially immense energy resource, occurs at high saturations within reservoir-quality sands in the Gulf of Mexico. Gas hydrate is a unique solid substance comprised of natural gas (almost exclusively methane) in combination with water. Prior to the expedition, there was little documentation that gas hydrate occurred in resource-quality accumulations in U.S. waters.

March 31, 2010
The Department announces that the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will build an advanced biofuels process development facility aimed at speeding the commercialization of advanced biofuels by allowing researchers and the private sector to test and integrate innovative technologies. The facility—funded with nearly $18 million from the Recovery Act—will be a publicly available facility where researchers can integrate process steps and test innovative technology pathways, such as those being developed at DOE's Office of Science Bioenergy Research Centers. This facility will be the only one of its kind available for public use.

March 31, 2010
President Obama and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, with Secretary Chu in attendance, announce at Andrews Air Force Base that the administration will expand oil and gas development and exploration on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to enhance the nation’s energy independence while protecting fisheries, tourism, and places off U.S. coasts that are not appropriate for development. “I want to emphasize,” the President says in his remarks, “that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies on homegrown fuels and clean energy. And the only way this transition will succeed is if it strengthens our economy in the short term and the long term. To fail to recognize this reality would be a mistake.” The President also states that the new fuel economy standards in cars and trucks announced on May 19, 2009, will be finalized on April 1. President Obama, in addition, announces that the federal government will lead by example in replacing older cars in the federal fleet with fuel-efficient hybrids and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The U.S. General Services Administration will replace 5,603 of the least fuel-efficient cars and trucks in the federal fleet with fuel-efficient hybrids, doubling the number of hybrids in the federal fleet without increasing the total number of vehicles. The Department is helping lead the way on this initiative by replacing 753 vehicles with hybrids in 2010. This will bring the total number of hybrid vehicles at DOE to 888, even as DOE begins to reduce the overall size of its vehicle fleet. The President notes that making the announcement at Andrews highlights that energy is a national security issue.

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April 1, 2010
The U.S. Department of Transportation and EPA jointly establish new federal rules that set the first-ever national greenhouse gas emissions standards and will significantly increase the fuel economy of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. Starting with 2012 model year vehicles, the rules together require automakers to improve fleet-wide fuel economy and reduce fleet-wide greenhouse gas emissions by approximately five percent every year. Fuel economy standards will reach an estimated 34.1 mpg for the combined industry-wide fleet for model year 2016.

April 1, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that the Department has finalized higher energy efficiency standards for residential water heaters, pool heaters, and direct heating equipment such as gas fireplaces. The new standards will save consumers up to $10 billion and prevent up to 164 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 30 years.

April 1, 2010
NNSA announces that Cray Inc. has been awarded the contract to build NNSA’s next-generation supercomputing platform. The new platform, named Cielo, will support all three NNSA national laboratories — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. With a projected platform cost of less than $54 million, Cielo is the next generation capability class platform for NNSA’s Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program. Cielo will be installed in third quarter of 2010, with additional capability planned for 2011. The architecture of Cielo will be based on Cray’s next generation “Baker” architecture. The platform will be housed at the Strategic Computing Complex facility at Los Alamos.

April 5, 2010
An explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia kills 29 workers.

April 5, 2010
Sixteen power companies and the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association, file suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit asking the court to order DOE to “immediately suspend collection of fee payments to the Nuclear Waste Fund.”

April 6, 2010
Secretary Chu joins Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Pentagon for the rollout briefing of the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which, as Gates says, “outlines a balanced and comprehensive approach to dealing with the role of nuclear weapons in America's national security.” He notes that the U.S. “must make much-needed investments to rebuild our aging nuclear infrastructure, both facilities and personnel.” He therefore has “asked for nearly $5 billion to be transferred from the Department of Defense to the Department of Energy over the next several years to improve our nuclear infrastructure and support a credible modernization program.” Secretary Chu discusses “several key principles” in the NPR that will guide future U.S. decisions on stockpile management. The U.S., he says, “will not conduct nuclear testing and will seek ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.” The U.S. also “will not develop new nuclear weapons.” The NPR, the Secretary notes, “calls for the modernization of nuclear weapons infrastructure and the sustainment of the science, technology and engineering base which is required to support the full range of nuclear security missions. This is reflected in the president's budget request, which includes a 13.4 percent increase in the funding for the NNSA.” President Obama issues a statement on the release of the NPR.

April 6, 2010
The Department awards a competitive task order for the demolition and disposition of the DOE Oak Ridge Reservation’s East Tennessee
Technology Park’s Building K-33 to LATA-Sharp Remediation Services, LLC, of Westerville, Ohio. The firm fixed-price task order is valued at $51 million is funded under the Recovery Act and is expected to be complete by March 1, 2012. Demolition and disposition activities at Building K-33 include; siding removal, building demolition to the slab, and packaging and transportation of all associated wastes to onsite waste disposal facilities operated by DOE.

April 7, 2010
Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Inés Triay joins with U.S. House Majority Whip, Congressman James E. Clyburn, to award a total of nearly $9 million to nine Historically Black Colleges and Universities in South Carolina and Northeast Georgia. The funding will be used to develop academic programs that promote minority involvement in science and technical research fields, which will help support the mission of DOE's Office of Environmental Management.

April 7, 2010
The Department releases its Open Government Plan highlighting DOE initiatives to maintain and increase transparency, increase participation between DOE, its program offices, sites and the American public, and increase collaborative efforts between DOE and its stakeholders.

April 7, 2010
An op-ed by Vice President Joe Biden entitled “A Comprehensive Nuclear Arms Strategy” is published in the Los Angeles Times.

April 8, 2010
President Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia meeting in Prague sign the New START Treaty on nuclear arms control.

April 8, 2010
Secretary Chu, while visiting a Pepco engineering and service center in Rockville, Maryland, announces that DOE is awarding nearly $100 million for 54 smart grid workforce training programs that will help prepare the next generation of workers in the utility and electrical manufacturing industries. These projects will leverage more than $95 million in funding from community colleges, universities, utilities, and manufacturers to develop and implement training programs. The selectees estimate that the programs will train approximately 30,000 Americans. The workers will help to modernize the nation's electrical grid and implement smart grid technologies in communities across the country.

April 8, 2010
NNSA announces the removal of the final highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Chile, making it the fifth country to remove all of its HEU since President Obama in a speech in Prague on April 5, 2009, called for an international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years.

April 8, 2010
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issues a report evaluating the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The GAO finds that NNSA faces “difficult scientific and technical challenges, which could limit the extreme temperatures and pressures that can be achieved using NIF's 192 lasers and, thus, delay or prevent ignition at NIF. As a result, successful ignition at NIF during the first attempt, scheduled for late 2010, remains unlikely, according to independent experts.” The GAO also notes that, “Weak management by NNSA has allowed the cost, schedule, and scope of ignition-related activities to increase substantially, and further increases are possible.” NNSA, in response to the GAO, finds that overall the report is “fair and properly reflects the significant progress NIF has made.”

April 12, 2010
Vice President Biden hosts leaders and officials from 11 nations at a lunch meeting in advance of the Nuclear Security Summit. Those attending include heads of government and other representatives from nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that are members of the Non-Aligned Movement. The purpose is to exchange views on nuclear security and proliferation issues and the urgency of addressing global risks of nuclear terrorism. The Vice President leads off the meeting with remarks.

April 13, 2010
The European Union organization overseeing design and construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), experimental nuclear fusion facility designed to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power, signs an architect and engineer contract for the facility worth 150 Euros ($204 million). Total project costs currently are estimated at $14 billion.

April 13, 2010
President Obama leads off the Opening Plenary Session of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. Leaders from 47 nations as well as the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the European Union gather in Washington, D.C. — the largest gathering of heads of state and government in Washington’s history. The goal of the Nuclear Security Summit is to highlight the global threat of nuclear terrorism and agree to steps to be taken together to secure nuclear material and prevent illicit nuclear trafficking.

April 13, 2010
The U.S., Mexico, and Canada, at the Nuclear Security Summit, agree to work together, along with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to convert highly enriched uranium fuel to low enriched uranium fuel in Mexico’s research reactor.

April 13, 2010
President Obama issues a statement after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announces at the National Security Summit that Russia is shutting down the ADE-2 reactor, its final plutonium reactor.

April 13, 2010
Attendees at the close of the National Security Summit issue a Communiqué pledging to “strengthen nuclear security and reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism.” Success in this, they note, “will require responsible national actions and sustained and effective international cooperation.”  The summit also issues a Work Plan as guidance for national and international action including through cooperation within the context of relevant international forums and organizations. They state that the next Nuclear Security Summit will be in the Republic of Korea in 2012. President Obama, at a press conference, says, “We have just concluded an enormously productive day.” The White House issues a Key Facts on the summit, a Highlights of the National Commitments made at the summit, and a Nuclear Security Summit Work Plan Reference Document.

April 13, 2010
NNSA announces the signing of an agreement in Buenos Aires between the U.S. and Argentina to begin a cooperative effort to detect, deter, and interdict illicit smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive material. The Megaport Initiative agreement paves the way for NNSA to work with Argentine Customs to install radiation detection equipment and associated infrastructure at the Port of Buenos Aires.

April 13, 2010
The State of Washington files suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the legality of DOE’s decision to withdraw the application for the Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository.

April 14, 2010
Stephanie Mueller, DOE’s press secretary, issues a statement in response to the suit filed April 13 questioning the legality of DOE’s decision to not move forward on the Yucca Mountain repository. “We are confident,” she says, “that we have the legal authority to withdraw the application for the Yucca Mountain repository.” Noting that the parties and the Court need additional time, the press secretary says the Department proposes “to halt temporarily any actions to shut down Yucca Mountain simply to provide that time.” She adds that Yucca Mountain, as Secretary Chu has said consistently, “is not an option.”

April 14, 2010
Vice President Biden hosts a group of over 20 leaders from the American and international nuclear industry to encourage them to adopt and promote higher nuclear security standards.

April 14, 2010
Secretary Chu, in a speech at the Nuclear Security Conference 2010 hosted by the Nuclear Energy Institute, discusses the role of the private sector in securing nuclear materials.

April 14, 2010
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Thomas D’Agostino testifies before the House Armed Services Committee on NNSA’s role in implementing the President’s nuclear security agenda.

April 14, 2010
DOE and EPA jointly announce changes to the ENERGY STAR® product certification process to ensure that only products meeting the ENERGY STAR® requirements can receive an ENERGY STAR® label. These changes accelerate steps DOE and EPA have initiated over the past several months to bolster the verification, testing, and enforcement aspects of the ENERGY STAR® program.

April 14, 2010
The Department's Federal Energy Management Program releases its Federal Fleet Management Guidance, meeting a requirement of President Obama's Executive Order 13514 on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance. This is the first comprehensive guidance to address the environmental impact of the Federal fleet and will help agencies develop petroleum and greenhouse gas emissions reduction strategies. In signing E.O. 13514, the President called on federal agencies to reduce petroleum fuel use by 2 percent each year from 2005 through 2020, for a total 30 percent reduction.

April 15, 2010
Secretary Chu, on the first day of the two-day Energy and Climate Ministerial of the Americas meeting in Washington, D.C., announces a series of partnerships and other initiatives to address clean energy and energy security in the Western Hemisphere as part of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA). The new projects focus on clean energy cooperation, technical assistance and financing, renewable energy, and electricity infrastructure and earthquake preparedness. ECPA was launched by President Obama and other Western Hemisphere leaders on April 19, 2009, at the Fifth Summit of the Americas.

April 15, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the twenty collegiate teams selected to compete in the next DOE Solar Decathlon that will be held in Washington, D.C. in fall 2011.

April 15, 2010
NNSA announces that its Pantex Plant has developed a new process and special tooling that will accelerate the dismantlement of the B53 weapons system. The dismantlement program had to meet the requirements of NNSA’s Seamless Safety for the 21st Century (SS-21) process.

April 15, 2010
NNSA announces that it has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on nuclear safeguards and other nonproliferation topics with Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. The Memorandum is a significant step in implementing the commitment by President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama November 13, 2009, to expand nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security cooperation.

April 15, 2010
The House Energy and Commerce Committee passes Home Star legislation to provide incentives to homeowners who make their homes more energy efficient. President Obama issues a statement.

April 16, 2010
Secretary Chu and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praise growing cooperation on energy and climate issues among the nations of the Western Hemisphere in an op-ed published by the Miami Herald. Their piece also appears in Spanish in La Opinión and in a number of newspapers across the hemisphere.

April 16, 2010
Secretary Chu, at the Energy and Climate Ministerial of the Americas, hosts three bilateral meetings, with Canadian Minister of Natural Resources Christian Paradis, Chilean Minister of Energy Ricardo Raineri Bernain, and Venezuela's Minister of the People's Power for Energy Rafael Ramirez and other members of the Venezuelan delegation.

April 20, 2010
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces the selection of four companies to collaborate in $6.2 million of research into advanced lithium-ion batteries.

April 20, 2010
An explosion and fire occur on the Deepwater Horizon, a semisubmersible oil rig drilling an exploration well in the Gulf of Mexico at a depth of about 5,000 feet some 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. 11 of the 126 member crew are missing on the rig owned by Transocean as a contractor to BP.

April 21, 2010
Vice President Biden begins five days of administration events around the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day with the announcement in a speech of the selection of 25 communities for up to $452 million in Recovery Act funding to "ramp-up" energy efficiency building retrofits. Under DOE's Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative, communities, governments, private sector companies, and non-profit organizations will work together on concentrated and broad-based retrofits of neighborhoods and towns—and eventually entire states.

April 21, 2010
More than one hundred top technology and venture capital sector executives, in a letter to the House and Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittees for Energy and Water, urge Congress to continue to support DOE’s Advance Projects Research Agency–Energy (ARPA-E). “We agree,” the executives state, “that a clean, domestic energy supply and infrastructure made possible by green technologies are the foundations for America’s economic recovery and the jobs of tomorrow. Specifically, a steadfast federal investment in . . . ARPA-E and the high-risk, high-payoff projects it supports will help us ensure our ongoing national security and global competitiveness.”

April 22, 2010
President Obama issues a statement on the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day. The President also delivers remarks at an Earth Day reception in the Rose Garden of the White House.

April 22, 2010
Secretary Chu, on the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day, announces that the Department will invest more than $200 million over five years to expand and accelerate the development, commercialization, and use of solar and water power technologies throughout the U.S. The investments include $125 million for photovoltaic manufacturing research, $40 million for photovoltaic supply chain development, $4.5 million for the National Administrator of the Solar Instructor Training Network, and $39 million for marine and hydrokinetic technologies.

April 22, 2010
Secretary Chu participates in an Earth Day online chat on washingtonpost.com. He answers questions on a number of topics, from energy efficiency to clean energy manufacturing.

April 22, 2010
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig on fire in the Gulf of Mexico sinks. A major oil spill response is activated, that includes a flotilla of vessels, protective boom, dispersant for use at sea, and plans for relief wells. President Obama is briefed in the Oval Office by a number of senior officials, and the White House issues a statement.

April 23, 2010
The Department announces the closing of a $528.7 million loan with Fisker Automotive for the development and production of two lines of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). The loan will support the Karma, a full-size, four-door sports sedan, and a line of family oriented models being developed under the company's Project NINA program. Fisker, a startup based in southern California, expects to manufacture the Karma and Project NINA lines at a recently shuttered General Motors factory in Wilmington, Delaware.

April 24, 2010
The Coast Guard confirms that oil is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from the damaged well that was being drilled by the Deepwater Horizon.

April 26, 2010
The Department announces that the signing by the U.S. and the United Arab Emirates of a memorandum of understanding to promote collaboration on clean and sustainable energy technologies. Signed at DOE by Deputy Secretary Poneman and Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar, Abu Dhabi's multifaceted renewable energy initiative, the agreement establishes a framework for cooperation in three key areas—carbon capture and sequestration, water and bio-fuels, and building technology.

April 26, 2010
Under Secretary Kristina Johnson, at the National Hydropower Association's annual conference in Washington D.C., states that the Obama administration is committed to doubling hydropower capacity. She notes that it is “not very well known that hydropower is an underdeveloped resource.”

April 27, 2010
President Obama tours the Siemens Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing Plant in Fort Madison, Iowa, which received nearly $3.5 million in Recovery Act tax credits for clean energy manufacturing jobs. The President then deliver remarks before approximately 230 employees and 100 White House guests.

April 27, 2010
The Department issues a “Proposed Determination” in the Federal Register concerning the feasibility of issuing energy conservation standards for high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps used in stadium, street lights, and industrial applications. The Department’s analysis indicates that “standards would result in significant cumulative energy savings over the analysis period (2017 to 2046)—at least 2.8 quads. This is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of approximately 14 million U.S. homes.”

April 28, 2010
President Obama tours POET Biorefining in Macon, Missouri, and delivers remarks before approximately 70 employees and 30 White House guests.

April 28, 2010
Secretary Chu testifies before the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development of the Senate Committee on Appropriations on current energy policies and future energy goals.

April 28, 2010
NNSA celebrates its 10-year anniversary with a series of events aimed at highlighting a decade of success across the nuclear security enterprise. The centerpiece of the program is an agency-wide ceremony a the DOE's Forrestal Building featuring remarks by Secretary Chu, Deputy Secretary Poneman, Congressman Mac Thornberry, NNSA Administrator Thomas P. D'Agostino, Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher, and former Administrators John Gordon and Ambassador Linton Brooks.

April 28, 2010
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approves the Cape Wind renewable energy project on federal submerged lands in Nantucket Sound off the Massachusetts coast but requires the developer of the $1 billion wind farm to agree to additional binding measures to minimize the potential adverse impacts of construction and operation of the facility. The Cape Wind project would be the first wind farm on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.

April 29, 2010
Vice President Biden and Secretary Chu, at a Recovery Act cabinet meeting, announce that DOE is awarding $106 million in funding through ARPA-E for 37 transformational energy research projects. This second round of ARPA-E-funded research projects focuses on three critical areas: 1) “electrofuels” — biofuels from electricity, 2) better batteries— Batteries for Electrical Energy Storage in Transportation (“BEEST”), and 3) zero-carbon coal: Innovative Materials and Processes for Advanced Carbon Capture Technologies (“IMPACCT”).

April 29, 2010
President Obama, at an event in the White House Rose Garden, discusses the “BP oil spill” in the Gulf of Mexico, noting that he has “been receiving frequent briefings from members of [the] Cabinet and White House staff.”  The President states that “while BP is ultimately responsible for funding the cost of response and cleanup operations, my administration will continue to use every single available resource at our disposal, including potentially the Department of Defense, to address the incident.”

April 29, 2010
NNSA convenes more than 120 senior federal leaders for a first of its kind, two-day Executive Summit aimed at identifying best practices, learning leadership techniques, and discussing the future of management across the nuclear security enterprise.

April 30, 2010
President Obama makes a statement in the White House Rose Garden updating the federal response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He says that he has “dispatched the Secretaries of Interior and Homeland Security, as well as the Administrator of the EPA, my Assistant for Energy and Climate Change Policy, and the NOAA Administrator to the Gulf Coast to ensure that we continue to do everything necessary to respond to this event.” The President adds that there are “now five staging areas to protect sensitive shorelines; approximately 1,900 federal response personnel are in the area; and more than 300 response vessels and aircraft on the scene 24/7. We've also laid approximately 217,000 feet of protective boom, and there are more on the way.”

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May 2, 2010
President Obama, in a speech at Venice, Louisiana, a staging point for Gulf of Mexico oil spill activities, declares that “every American affected by this spill should know this: Your government will do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to stop this crisis.” At the spill site in the gulf, workers begin drilling a relief well designed to intercept and permanently seal the leaking oil well.

May 3, 2010
The 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference opens at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. President Obama issues a statement.

May 3, 2010
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics from Durham, North Carolina, and Albuquerque Academy from Albuquerque, New Mexico, respectively, win the high school and middle school competitions for DOE’s National Science Bowl held at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. First Lady Michelle Obama asks the bonus questions in the championship middle school match and speaks to the more than 500 students and 100 teacher/coaches about the importance of science education to the nation's economic and technological future.

May 3, 2010
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denies a request for a preliminary injunction that would stop DOE from dismantling the Yucca Mountain repository project for the storage of high-level nuclear waste while the move is challenged in court.

May 3, 2010
The Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) announces a two-year extension of the Washington TRU Solutions LLC management and
operations (M&O) contract. As the WIPP M&O contractor, Washington TRU Solutions is responsible for managing the National Transuranic (TRU) Waste Program, which includes retrieval, characterization, transportation, and disposal activities at sites throughout the complex.

May 5, 2010
The Department announces that 48 research and development projects across the country have been selected as award winners of the Industrial Energy Efficiency Grand Challenge. The grantees will receive a total of $13 million to fund the development of transformational industrial processes and technologies. The funding will be matched by more than $5 million from private industry.

May 5, 2010
EIA announces that In 2009 energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. saw their largest absolute and percentage decline (405 million metric tons or 7.0 percent) since the start of EIA’s comprehensive record of annual energy data in 1949. “The large decline in emissions was driven by the economic downturn, combined with an ongoing trend toward a less energy-intensive economy and a decrease in the carbon-intensity of the energy supply,” says EIA Administrator Richard Newell.

May 6, 2010
The Department releases a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting information on rare earth metals and other materials used in the energy sector. The request is specifically focused on rare earth metals — lanthanum, cerium, and neodymium — and several other metals, including lithium and cobalt. The responses to the RFI will help inform DOE's understanding of supply and demand for these materials, opportunities for developing substitutes, and the potential for using these materials more efficiently.

May 6, 2010
The Departments of Energy and Agriculture jointly announce up to $33 million in funding for research and development of technologies and processes to produce biofuels, bioenergy and high-value biobased products.

May 6, 2010
The House passes the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act that provides incentives to homeowners who make their homes more energy-efficient. President Obama issues a statement.

May 7, 2010
Under Secretary Kristina Johnson, at a White House Energy Innovation meeting, announces that $60 million in funding from the Recovery Act is available to continue supporting innovative small business research and development leading to deployment of clean energy technologies. This is a Phase II funding opportunity under DOE’s Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) program for companies that have already demonstrated successful results with new technologies and can now show potential to meet market needs.

May 7, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selections of projects for investment of up to $62 million over five years to research, develop, and demonstrate Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems capable of providing low-cost electrical power. This funding will support improvements in CSP systems, components, and thermal energy storage to accelerate the market-readiness of this renewable energy technology.

May 7, 2010
The Department's Office of the General Counsel issues guidance on the imposition of civil penalties for violations of Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) energy-efficiency standards and certification obligations for appliances. Manufacturers failing to properly certify that their
products meet the standards could face up to $500,000 in fines.

May 9, 2010
BP suspends efforts to place a containment dome over the main leak point of the well spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico because a build up of hydrates prevents successful placement.

May 10, 2010
President Obama meets with Secretary Chu and a number of other Cabinet members, as well as senior staff, in the White House Situation Room to review BP’s efforts to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and decide on next steps to ensure all is being done to contain the spread and mitigate the environmental impact. The President is pleased to hear that some of Secretary Chu’s ideas have helped shape a better understanding of the dimensions of the problem, and he asks the Secretary to lead a team of top administration officials and government scientists to Houston for an extensive dialogue with BP officials to continue to aggressively pursue potential solutions.

May 10, 2010
President Obama submits to Congress the U.S.-Russian bilateral Agreement for Cooperation in the field of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy (also known as a 123 Agreement) signed in Moscow on May 6, 2008.

May 10, 2010
The Department, the largest civilian contracting agency within the federal government, convenes its 11th Annual Small Business Conference & Expo at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Drawing more than 1,700 participants, an all-time high for this event, the three day conference and expo will present information to help small businesses across the country capitalize on Recovery Act funding, grant opportunities, contracting openings, and subcontracting options.

May 11, 2010
The first Policy Committee meeting of the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC) is held in Washington, D.C., to promote global collaboration on energy-saving programs and policies. Officials from 15 countries and the European Commission attend. Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Cathy Zoi is selected to serve a two-year term as the first Chair of the IPEEC Policy Committee. The partnership was launched at the Group of 8 (G8) Energy Ministers Meeting in Rome on May24, 2009.

May 11, 2010
EIA releases the complete version of the Annual Energy Outlook 2010 (AEO2010), which includes 38 sensitivity cases that show how different assumptions regarding market and policy drivers affect the Reference case projections that EIA previously released in December, 2009. In addition to considering alternative scenarios for oil prices, economic growth, and the uptake of more energy-efficient technologies, the AEO2010 includes cases that examine the impact of changes in selected policies, such as the extension of existing policies that are currently scheduled to sunset as well as the sensitivity of natural gas shale production to variations in drilling activity and the size of the resource base.

May 12, 2010
Secretary Chu and Secretary of the Interior Salazar, at the request of President Obama, travel to Houston to participate in meetings with DOE and national lab staff, industry officials, and other engineers and scientists involved in finding solutions to cap the flow of oil and contain the spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “Department of Energy scientists from the National Laboratories have been working with the operations experts at the BP Command center on ways to determine what is happening inside the BOP (Blowout Preventer) atop the damaged wellhead,” the Secretary says. “They are using the extensive resources of the lab network, including high powered supercomputers to assist with imaging and sampling of the seafloor; measuring pressures in the blowout preventer stack; and analyzing the riser structure and fluid flows.” DOE laboratory personnel have been assisting the effort for the past week and a half.

May 13, 2010
President Obama submits the New Start Treaty on nuclear arms control signed with President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia on April 8. President Obama also speaks with President Medvedev by phone, stressing the importance of completing the ratification process in both countries as soon as possible.

May 19, 2010
The National Research Council issues three reports emphasizing why the U.S. should act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change." These reports show that the state of climate change science is strong," says Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences." But the nation also needs the scientific community to expand upon its understanding of why climate change is happening, and focus also on when and where the most severe impacts will occur and what we can do to respond."

May 19, 2010
Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Warren F. Miller, Jr., testifies before a House Committee on Science and Technology hearing on "Charting the Course for American Nuclear Technology: Evaluating the Department of Energy's Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap."

May 20, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selection of 42 university-led research and development projects for awards totaling $38 million. These projects, funded over three to four years through DOE’s Nuclear Energy University Program, will help advance nuclear education and develop the next generation of nuclear technologies.

May 20, 2010
Secretary Chu announces DOE’s first conditional commitment for a front-end nuclear facility. The $2 billion loan guarantee will support AREVA's Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility near Idaho Falls, Idaho, which will supply uranium enrichment services for the U.S. nuclear power industry. The facility will use advanced centrifuge technology instead of the more energy-intensive gaseous diffusion process. Although Eagle Rock will be only the second plant to use this technology in the U.S., it has been employed in Europe for about 30 years to enrich uranium for the commercial power market. The project's technology uses 95 percent less electricity than the gaseous diffusion technology it replaces, reducing both energy use and environmental effects.

May 21, 2010
President Obama signs a Presidential Memorandum in the Rose Garden at the White House directing the EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation to create a first-ever National Policy to increase fuel efficiency and decrease greenhouse gas pollution from medium- and heavy-duty trucks for Model Years 2014-2018. The President also directs DOE to provide increased support for deployment of advanced vehicles, including electric vehicles

May 21, 2010
Secretary Chu delivers the Commencement Address at Washington University.

May 21, 2010
Secretary Chu, at the request of President Obama, postpones a scheduled four-day trip to China, to stay in the country to continue his work on response efforts to the BP oil spill. “Finding a solution to this crisis is a matter of national importance,” the Secretary says. “I want to continue to play a role in assisting in the efforts and stopping this leak as soon as possible.”

May 22, 2010
President Obama, in his Weekly Address, announces that he has signed an executive order establishing the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. The purpose of this Commission, the President says, “is to consider both the root causes of the disaster and offer options on what safety and environmental precautions we need to take to prevent a similar disaster from happening again.”  Bob Graham, a Democrat and former senator and governor of Florida, and William K. Reilly, former EPA administrator, are the co-chairs. They are to report back in six months with recommendations.

May 24, 2010
NNSA announces that it has awarded two of NNSA’s most important Information Technology contract orders to small business contractors. OnPoint Consulting, Inc., has been awarded a $52 million order for operation of NNSA’s Information Assurance Response Center located in Las Vegas, Nevada, a facility that continuously monitors all activity going through the Nuclear Security Complex computer firewall system, providing intrusion detection and event forensics. Metrica Team Venture has been awarded a $70 million order for Information Technology and Cyber Support for NNSA Office of Chief Information Officer Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

May 25, 2010
The Department's Energy Information Administration releases its International Energy Outlook 2010 projecting that world marketed energy consumption will grow 49 percent between 2007 and 2035, driven by economic growth in the developing nations of the world. Renewables will be the fastest growing source of new electricity generation, increasing by 3.0 percent per year, followed by coal-fired generation, which increases by 2.3 percent per year. Petroleum and other liquid fuels will remain the largest energy source worldwide through 2035, though projected higher oil prices erode their share of total energy use from 35 percent in 2007 to 30 percent in 2035.

May 25, 2010
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future conducting a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle begins its second two-day meeting in Washington, D.C.

May 25, 2010
President Obama speaks with Secretary Chu by telephone from Air Force One. The Secretary briefs the President on his scientific and technical assessment of BP's plans for a possible “top kill”—an effort to stop the flow of oil by injecting heavy drilling fluids into the well—and what the next steps will be if BP's "top kill" fails to stop to leak. The Secretary, who is in Houston, has been leading a team of top scientists who have been scrutinizing BP's plans to stop the leak and providing expert advice and ideas to help better inform BP's approach and maximize the chances for success. BP is now conducting crucial diagnostic pressure tests inside the blowout preventer before the "top kill" moves forward. The Secretary and his team are evaluating that data in real-time as it is coming in. They are also helping analyze multiple backup plans if the "top kill" does not work.

May 25, 2010
Secretary Chu, Chief Economist to the Vice President Jared Bernstein, and Matt Rogers, senior advisor to the Secretary hold a conference call with reporters to preview President Obama’s trip the following day to the Solyndra, Inc., plant, a solar panel manufacturing facility under construction in Fremont, California. Through the Recovery Act, the Department offered a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra, Inc., to support the construction of a commercial-scale manufacturing plant for its proprietary solar photovoltaic panels.

May 26, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman participates in the groundbreaking ceremony for Nissan North America's advanced battery manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Tennessee. On January 28, DOE announced the closing of a $1.4 billion loan with Nissan North America to retool the Smyrna factory to build advanced electric automobiles and an advanced battery manufacturing facility.

May 26, 2010
NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino, at the Tennessee Valley Corridor National Technology Summit, highlights the agency’s national security role in light of the recently released Nuclear Posture Review, a new START Treaty, the Nuclear Security Summit, and the President’s FY2011 budget request.

May 26, 2010
President Obama visits the Solyndra, Inc., solar panel manufacturing facility under construction in Fremont, California, and gives remarks on clean energy and the economy.

May 27, 2010
President Obama, in remarks to the press in the East Room of the White House, announces a six-month moratorium on drilling new deepwater wells and a suspension of the issuance of new permits. He states that the “federal government has been in charge of the response effort” to the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. “BP is operating at our direction,” he notes. “Every key decision and action they take must be approved by us in advance.” The President observes that, “As we devise strategies to try and stop this leak, we’re also relying on the brightest minds and most advanced technology in the world. We’re relying on a team of scientists and engineers from our own national laboratories and from many other nations — a team led by our Energy Secretary and Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Stephen Chu.”

May 27, 2010
NNSA unveils a new $60 million Heating Systems Modernization project at Sandia National Laboratories and the start of demolition of an 18,000-square-foot steam plant that has been part of the skyline at Sandia for more than 60 years.

May 27, 2010
The U.S. Air Force successfully launches the first IIF series of Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, which carry improved nuclear detonation detection instruments built by Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory for the NNSA.

May 28, 2010
President Obama issues a statement welcoming the agreements reached at the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime. The White House also issues a statement by National Security Advisor General James L. Jones.

May 28, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman announces the selection of a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for an award of up to $122 million over five years to establish and operate a new Nuclear Energy Modeling and Simulation Energy Innovation Hub. The Hub, which includes partners from universities, industry, and other national labs, will use advanced capabilities of the world's most powerful computers to make significant leaps forward in nuclear reactor design and engineering. The Hub will be located at the ORNL site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

May 28, 2010
Secretary Chu concludes several days in Houston monitoring the “top kill” attempt to stop the oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico, analyzing the data as it comes in and helping to develop strategies to give it the best chances of success. In the days leading up to the top kill attempt, the Secretary and his team of scientists provided expert advice and technical support to test the assumptions behind BP's work and to offer analytical rigor. When diagnostic and pressure tests were conducted to inform BP's decision on whether to attempt the top kill, the Secretary and DOE scientists offered their assessment of the results as well as advice on what to do moving forward. DOE is also offering its resources and technical assistance to the Flow Rate Technical Team. President Obama visits the Louisiana gulf coast and in remarks discusses the oil spill.

May 29, 2010
BP announces that “top kill”, despite 30,000 barrels of heavy mud pumped into the well, has not overcome the flow of oil from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico. BP begins plans for deployment of a containment cap—known as Lower Marine Riser Package containment cap—from which oil and gas can be piped to the surface. President Obama issues a statement, noting that he has discussed the situation with Secretary Chu and other top officials.

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June 1, 2010
President Obama meets at the White House with the co-chairs of the National Commission on the BP oil spill, former Senator Bob Graham of Florida and former EPA Administrator Bill Reilly, and delivers remarks in the Rose Garden. The President promises a comprehensive investigation into the causes of the spill as well as the relationships between government regulators and the oil industry.

June 2, 2010
The Department announces in the Federal Register its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed Texas Clean Energy Project, a coal-fueled electric power and chemicals production plant integrated with carbon dioxide (CO 2) capture and geologic sequestration, near Odessa, Texas. Secretary Chu announced in December 2009 that DOE was conditionally awarding the project $350 million in grant funds to partially cover the estimated $1.73-billion cost of the project. The Department will not officially release the grant funds until the EIS is completed. The Department selected the project for an award of financial assistance through a competitive process under Round 3 of the Clean Coal Power Initiative program.

June 3, 2010
The Department releases a Fact Sheet on simulations done by the National Center for Atmospheric Research showing the potential for oil from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico to reach the Atlantic Ocean at some point in the future. No projections are made as to when, where, or whether any of it would make landfall or at what concentrations. Because of the effect of dispersants, mixing, and a range of other biological and physical factors, any oil that reaches the Atlantic would be at a much lower concentration.

June 3, 2010
The Department announces that three manufacturers—Aspen Manufacturing, Inc., Summit Manufacturing, and Advanced Distributor Products—must stop distributing sixty-one heat pump models and one air conditioner model that DOE has determined do not comply with federal energy conservation standards. The manufacturers also must notify all of their customers that have been sold noncompliant units. The Department determined that these models were noncompliant based on certification information submitted to DOE for these manufacturers.

June 3, 2010
The Department hosts a major Energy Efficiency Conference for industry and government leaders in Istanbul, Turkey. The two-day conference, co-sponsored by the American-Turkish Council, focuses on the future of energy efficiency in Southeast Europe and the Caucasus while showcasing cutting-edge technologies, identifying best practices, and providing guidance to both businesses and governments on reducing costly energy consumption.

June 4, 2010
The Department announces that 34 projects in 27 states have been selected to receive $29 million under the Recovery Act to develop and expand weatherization training centers across the country.

June 4, 2010
Following successful placement of the Lower Marine Riser Package containment cap on the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, oil and gas begins to flow to a receiving vessel on the surface.

June 4, 2010
NNSA announces that a delegation of DOE and State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom" (ROSATOM) officials from Russia completed a week-long effort aimed at sharing best practices in nuclear security.

June 7, 2010
The Department announces in the Federal Register its intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the American Electric Power Service Corporation's (AEP) proposed Mountaineer Commercial Scale Carbon Capture and Storage Project, a commercial scale carbon dioxide (CO 2) capture and storage system at AEP's existing Mountaineer Power Plant located near New Haven, West Virginia. Secretary Chu announced in December 2009 that DOE was conditionally awarding the project $334 million in grant funds to cover an estimated half of the cost of the project. The Department will not officially release the grant funds until the EIS is completed. The Department selected the project for an award of financial assistance through a competitive process under Round 3 of the Clean Coal Power Initiative program.

June 8, 2010
Secretary Chu, as part of the Obama administration's ongoing commitment to transparency surrounding the response to the BP oil spill, announces that DOE is providing online access to schematics, pressure tests, diagnostic results, and other data about the malfunctioning blowout preventer. The information is posted at energy.gov/oilspilldata.

June 8, 2010
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the governors of 10 East Coast states sign a Memorandum of Understanding that formally establishes an Atlantic Offshore Wind Energy Consortium to promote the development of wind resources on the Outer Continental Shelf.

June 9, 2010
The United Nations Security Council, in response to Iran’s continued refusal to comply with its international obligations regarding its nuclear program, adopts Resolution 1929, imposing a strong, broad-based new set of sanctions on Iran. President Obama delivers remarks in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House, and a fact sheet is issued.

June 9, 2010
Secretary Chu sends a letter to Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) regarding Senator Lugar's “Practical Energy and Climate Plan Act of 2010.”

June 9, 2010
NNSA announces that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Croatia. The MOU will allow NNSA to help equip Croatia’s strategic points of entry — such as border crossings, airports, and seaports—with new radiation detection systems and train Croatian Customs in the use and maintenance of this equipment.

June 9, 2010
NNSA holds the 2010 NNSA Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Symposium in Washington, D.C. The theme of the conference is “Reducing the Global Danger of Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

June 9, 2010
The Department’s Environmental Management program announces that the final shipment of DOE radioactive waste has been removed from the GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s Vallecitos Nuclear Center, marking the end of cleanup activities at the site. Accelerated by Recovery Act funds, the two-and-a-half-year project removed approximately 2,303 cubic feet of radioactive waste from the State of California.

June 10, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the offer of a $102.2 million conditional commitment for a loan guarantee to U.S. Geothermal, Inc., to construct a 22-megawatt geothermal power project in Malheur County, in southeastern Oregon. The project will use improved technology to extract energy from rock and fluids in the earth's crust more efficiently. The technology, referred to as a supercritical binary geothermal cycle, is estimated to be more efficient than traditional geothermal binary systems, allowing lower-temperature geothermal resources to be used for power generation.

June 10, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that three projects have been selected to receive up to $612 million from the Recovery Act—matched by $368 million in private funding—to demonstrate large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) from industrial sources. The projects—located in Texas, Illinois, and Louisiana—were initially selected in October 2009 for phase one research and development grants. Following successful completion of their Phase 1 activities, these three projects were identified as the most promising industrial CCS projects through a competitive process and will now enter into Phase 2 with additional funding to begin design, construction, and operation.

June 11, 2010
The Department announces that 20 communities have been selected for more than $60 million in funding under the Recovery Act to implement local energy efficiency and renewable energy programs that will reduce energy use by American homes, vehicles, and businesses. Local governments, nonprofit organizations, and quasi-governmental organizations are among the recipients for the competitive grants, administered under DOE's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program.

June 14, 2010
President Obama tours the Gulf Coast areas hit by the oil spill

June 14, 2010
Secretary Chu visits the University of Maine in Orono and tours the university's Advanced Structures and Composites Center where he is briefed on its 10-year plan to design and deploy deepwater wind technology that could pave the way for the first floating commercial wind farm in the U.S.

June 14, 2010
NNSA Administrator Thomas P. D’Agostino highlights the strong U.S.-Georgian cooperation on nuclear security issues during a day-long visit to the Republic of Georgia. In addition to meeting with senior Georgian government officials, D’Agostino tours several nuclear security projects funded through NNSA’s Second Line of Defense (SLD) Program, including the Red Bridge Border Crossing with Azerbaijan — the earliest SLD-deployment in Georgia.

June 14, 2010
Secretary Chu joins with other federal officials in convening a group of federal and independent scientists to discuss new analyses and data points obtained over the past several days to produce updated flow rate estimates from the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

June 14, 2010
The General Services Administration signs the final lease agreement for a new campus to house the NNSA Kansas City manufacturing operations. The campus will be located at the northeast corner of Missouri Highway 150 and Botts Road, eight miles south of the NNSA’s current location. A phased move is scheduled to begin in late 2012. The campus of buildings will house about 2,500 workers in 1,509,950-rentable-square-feet of space. The government lease includes an annual rent of $61,558,772.00. Total contract value over the 20-year term is $1,231,175,440.00.

June 15, 2010
The Department and other involved agencies announce an improved estimate of how much oil is flowing from the leaking BP well based on updated information and assessments by a scientific team convened the previous day. The scientists estimate that the most likely flow rate of oil is between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day. BP, at the direction of the federal government, is implementing multiple strategies to significantly expand the leak containment capabilities at the seafloor even beyond the upper level of the improved estimate. The Lower Marine Riser Package cap currently in place can capture up to 18,000 barrels of oil per day. At the direction of the federal government, BP is deploying a second containment option, called the Q4000, which could expand total leak containment capacity to 20,000-28,000 barrels per day. Overall, the leak containment strategy that BP was required to develop projects containment capacity expanding to 40,000-53,000 barrels per day by the end of June and 60,000-80,000 barrels per day by mid-July.

June 15, 2010
President Obama announces his selection of Michael R. Bromwich to lead efforts to accelerate reforms in the regulation and oversight of offshore oil drilling.

June 15, 2010
Secretary Chu announces a conditional commitment to provide a partial guarantee for a $98.5 million loan by John Hancock Financial Services to the Nevada Geothermal Power Company (NGP) for the 49.5 megawatt NGP Blue Mountain Geothermal Project in Humboldt County in northwestern Nevada. The project consists of a geothermal well field, fluid collection, and injection systems that enable energy to be extracted from rock and fluid below the Earth's surface and a power plant that converts geothermal energy into electricity. The project has a 20-year power purchase agreement to sell electricity and renewable energy credits to Nevada Power Company. This is the first DOE loan guarantee through the Financial Institution Partnership Program ("FIPP"), a program supported by the Recovery Act. In a FIPP financing, DOE provides a guarantee for up to 80 percent of a loan provided to a renewable energy project by qualified financial institutions. These long-term lenders apply on behalf of the project sponsors or developers and are required to hold at least 20 percent of the credit exposure to the project, aligning their interests with DOE and project sponsors. FIPP was designed to expedite the loan guarantee process for renewable energy generation projects that use commercial technologies and to expand credit capacity for the financing of U.S. renewable energy projects.

June 15, 2010
NNSA announces a new steam plant has been brought online at the Y-12 National Security Complex, replacing a coal-fired plant in operation since the 1950s.

June 15, 2010
President Obama, in prime time from the Oval Office, speaks to the nation on the BP oil spill and the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. The leak, he notes, “has tested the limits of human technology,” which is why “just after the rig sank” he “assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge — a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s Secretary of Energy. Scientists at our national labs and experts from academia and other oil companies,” the President says, “have also provided ideas and advice. As a result of these efforts, we’ve directed BP to mobilize additional equipment and technology. And in the coming weeks and days, these efforts should capture up to 90 percent of the oil leaking out of the well. This is until the company finishes drilling a relief well later in the summer that’s expected to stop the leak completely.” Noting that “we need better regulations, better safety standards, and better enforcement when it comes to offshore drilling,” the President asserts that the “larger lesson” is the “need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels.” He adds that this is not “some distant vision for America. The transition away from fossil fuels is going to take some time, but over the last year and a half, we’ve already taken unprecedented action to jumpstart the clean energy industry. As we speak, old factories are reopening to produce wind turbines, people are going back to work installing energy-efficient windows, and small businesses are making solar panels. Consumers are buying more efficient cars and trucks, and families are making their homes more energy-efficient. Scientists and researchers are discovering clean energy technologies that someday will lead to entire new industries.”

June 17, 2010
Secretary Chu testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the New START Treaty.

June 17, 2010
Secretary Chu announces awards totaling more than $76 million in funding from the Recovery Act to support advanced energy-efficient building technology projects and the development of training programs for commercial building equipment technicians, building operators, and energy auditors.

June 17, 2010
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Steering Group, on the closing day of a two-day meeting in Accra, Ghana, approves unanimously several transformative changes to reflect global developments that have occurred since the Partnership was established in 2007. The transformation includes a new name — the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation — and the establishment of a new Statement of Mission.

June 18, 2010
NNSA Administrator Thomas P. D’Agostino, during a visit to the Czech Republic, highlights the role NNSA plays in implementing the President’s nuclear security agenda.

June 18, 2010
The Department announces that five more states have reached a significant milestone under the Recovery Act—completing weatherization work for more than thirty percent of the homes they have planned. New Hampshire, New Mexico, Montana, Minnesota, and Utah join Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Vermont, and Washington, which met the milestone in May.

June 22, 2010
The co-chairs of the bipartisan National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling name Richard Lazarus, a law professor at Georgetown University, as executive director. Lazarus specializes in environmental law.

June 22, 2010
The U.S. District Court in New Orleans strikes down the six-month moratorium on deepwater oil and natural gas drilling that President Obama announced May 27 following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Ruling that the drilling ban was “arbitrary and capricious,” the court prohibits the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service — recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement — from enforcing it.

June 22, 2010
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack releases a report outlining both the current state of renewable transportation fuels efforts in the U.S. and a plan to develop regional strategies to increase the production, marketing and distribution of biofuels. The report provides information on current production and consumption capacities as well as projections to meet the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) mandate to use 36 billion gallons of biofuel per year in the nation's fuel supply by 2022.

June 23, 2010
NNSA announces that it is considering extending the contracts for the management and operation of the NNSA’s Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The one-year contract extensions will run from October 1, 2010, through September 30, 2011. The one-year extension allows the Contract Competition Source Evaluation Board to complete the competitive process leading to award of a follow-on contract for the combined management of Y-12 and Pantex, with an option for the phase-in of Tritium Operations performed at the Savannah River Site.

June 23, 2010
NNSA announces that it has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on nuclear safeguards and other nonproliferation topics with the Kuwait National Nuclear Energy Committee (KNNEC). NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino and KNNEC’s Secretary General, Dr. Ahmad Bishara, sign the memorandum at a ceremony at DOE headquarters in Washington.

June 24, 2010
NNSA announces it recently completed a successful test of a Joint Test Assembly (JTA) for the W87 warhead. The test was conducted in close working cooperation with the U.S. Air Force. The W87 JTA flew from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on board a Minute Man III missile. The Air Force assesses missile performance and reliability and NNSA assesses the same for the warhead.

June 27, 2010
At the G-20 Toronto Summit, leaders of the G-20 nations reaffirm their commitment to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies made on September 25, 2009, at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.

June 28, 2010
The Department announces the investment of up to $24 million for three research groups to tackle key hurdles in the commercialization of algae-based biofuels. The selections will support the development of a clean, sustainable transportation sector. The Department also releases the National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap.

June 28, 2010
NNSA announces that excess titanium at its Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee will be used by the U.S. Army to develop a new generation of lightweight protective body armor for combat soldiers.

June 29, 2010
President Obama hosts a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators about the need to pass energy and climate legislation this year. The President makes clear his view that a full transition to clean energy will require more than just the government action taken so far. It will require a national effort to change the way energy is produced and used. The President tells the Senators that he still believes the best way to transition to a clean energy economy is with a bill that makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses by putting a price on pollution — because when companies pollute, they should be responsible for the costs to the environment and their contribution to climate change. Not all of the Senators agree with this approach.

June 29, 2010
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board denies DOE's March 3, 2010, motion to withdraw the license application for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain with prejudice. The board rules that the Department does not have the authority under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to withdraw the application.

June 30, 2010
The National Research Council, in the third in a series of reports on the FreedomCAR program, calls for the sustained support of a balanced portfolio of nearer-term and longer-term options, including research on fuel cells and hydrogen technologies. This research, the report contends, could provide sufficient information for the auto industry to make decisions about the marketability of hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2015.

Top of page

July 1, 2010
President Obama and Vice-President Biden received a briefing from Secretary Chu and other senior administration officials on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

July 2, 2010
The U.S. and Vietnam sign an agreement in Hanoi to begin a cooperative effort to deter, detect, and interdict illicit smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive material. “This agreement represents a major step toward achieving our goal of equipping 100 ports with radiation detection equipment by 2015 and implementing President Obama’s nuclear security agenda,” says Kenneth E. Baker of NNSA. This effort is part of the NNSA’s Second Line of Defense Program, which works collaboratively with foreign governments at border crossings, airports, seaports and other points of entry to install specialized radiation detection equipment and associated communications equipment.

July 2, 2010
The Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announces a new study from the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences, a research venture between ORNL and the University of Tennessee, that demonstrates how knowledge of biological systems can be derived by computational interrogation of genomic sequences. The results have implications for areas ranging from medicine to bioenergy.

July 3, 2010
President Obama, in his weekly video address,  announces the offer of a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee of $400 million to Abound Solar Manufacturing, LLC, to manufacture state-of-the-art thin-film solar panels, the first time this new manufacturing technology for Cadmium-Telluride panels would be deployed commercially anywhere in the world.  Funded by the Recovery Act, this project includes two facilities, one in Longmont, Colorado, and the other in Tipton, Indiana. The President also announces the offer of a conditional commitment to Abengoa Solar Inc. for a $1.45 billion loan guarantee to finance the construction and start-up of a concentrating solar power generating facility. The Solana, Arizona, plant will add 250 megawatts (MW) of capacity to the electrical grid using parabolic trough solar collectors and an innovative six-hour thermal energy storage system—the first of its kind in the country. Once operational, the Solana project will supply clean electric power to approximately 70,000 homes, reducing overall CO2 emissions by 475,000 tons.

July 7, 2010
The Department announces the selection of ten projects aimed at developing advanced technologies for capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal combustion. The projects, valued at up to $67 million over three years, focus on reducing the energy and efficiency penalties associated with applying currently available carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to existing and new power plants. The selections will focus on improving efficiency and reducing the added costs to electricity at power plants with carbon capture systems to less than 30 percent for a new pulverized coal plant and 10 percent for a new advanced gasification plant.

July 7, 2010
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) announces that a group of ANL and automotive industry researchers have determined that a fuel-injected racing car engine fueled by E-85, an ethanol-based fuel, outperforms the same engine with a carburetor and leaded racing fuel. Specifically, the group, dubbed Project Green, demonstrated during benchmark testing a seven percent improvement in the torque and speed of a General Motors' CT525 LS3 fuel-injected engine with a catalytic convertor attached to the exhaust system and renewable E-85 in the fuel tank. The General Motors engine is a popular choice among circle track racers.

July 8, 2010
The Department announces approximately $18.2 million through its Nuclear Energy University Program to help educate the next generation of nuclear scientists and engineers and to strengthen nuclear research and education capabilities at U.S. universities and colleges. The Department will provide $5 million in scholarships and fellowships to 117 U.S. nuclear science and engineering students, and nearly $13.2 million to 39 U.S. universities and colleges in 27 states to purchase new equipment or to upgrade their research reactors.

July 8, 2010

President Obama tours the facilities of Smith Electric Vehicles in Kansas City, Missouri, and delivers remarks on the economy to workers. Smith Electric Vehicles is an all-electric, zero emissions commercial truck manufacturer that received a $32 million Recovery Act grant to build all-electric trucks. The award, which is part of the $2.4 billion in Recovery Act advanced battery and electric vehicle grants the President announced in August 2009, is helping Smith Electric establish operations at a re-purposed jet engine overhaul facility at the Kansas City International Airport, the first of as many as 20 regional assembly plants Smith Electric plans to open in the U.S.

July 8, 2010
Secretary Chu, Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announce the site of the new Solar Demonstration Zone to demonstrate cutting-edge solar energy technologies. The zone will be located in the southwest corner of the Nevada Test Site, a former nuclear weapons testing site, on lands owned by the U.S. Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management and administered by NNSA. Secretaries Chu and Salazar sign an interagency Memorandum of Understanding that will enable DOE to develop the site. DOE will use the site to demonstrate innovative Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies that concentrate the sun's energy and capture that energy as heat, which then drives an engine or turbine to produce electrical power. 

July 8, 2010
NNSA announces that it has completed the initial phase of a new Security Reform Initiative. The reforms replace existing Departmental security policies, which contain some areas that leave room for broad interpretation that has resulted in wide and varied security protection strategies.

July 8, 2010
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejects the U.S. Department of the Interior’s request to stay the June 22nd lower-court order that struck down the six-month moratorium on deepwater oil and natural gas drilling that President Obama announced May 27 following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

July 9, 2010
President Obama in remarks given at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, calls on Congress "to invest $5 billion more in . . . clean energy manufacturing tax credits, more than doubling the amount that we made available last year." The President states that "this investment would generate nearly 40,000 jobs and $12 billion or more in private sector investment, which could trigger an additional 90,000 jobs."

July 9, 2010
Department researchers win 39 of the 100 awards given out this year by R&D Magazine for the most outstanding technology developments with promising commercial potential.

July 12, 2010
Secretary Chu announces 43 cutting-edge research projects aiming to dramatically improve how the U.S. uses and produces energy. The projects focus on accelerating innovation in green technology in grid-scale energy storage, power electronics, and building efficiency, and are funded with $92 million from the Recovery Act through ARPA-E.

July 12, 2010
The Department's Savannah River National Laboratory announces that a team of microbiologists from the lab is working with Tuskegee University and Mississippi State University to decrease mold growth in flooded homes through improved prevention and cleanup.

July 12, 2010
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issues an audit report critical of the Department's Loan Guarantee Program. The GAO finds that DOE has "broadly indicated the program’s direction but has not developed all the tools necessary to assess progress." The Department has "treated applicants inconsistently and lacks mechanisms to identify and address their concerns."

July 12, 2010
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar issues new suspensions of deepwater drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, saying a pause is needed to ensure that oil and gas companies first implement adequate safety measures to reduce the risks associated with deepwater drilling operations and are prepared for blowouts and oil spills. Like the deepwater drilling moratorium lifted by the District Court on June 22, the deepwater drilling suspensions ordered applies to most deepwater drilling activities and could last through November 30.

July 13, 2010
NNSA announces the launch of a new web tool to help countries implement their safeguards commitments under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol (AP). NNSA’s new AP Declaration Helper utilizes a simple, web-based interface to assist safeguards managers to determine which information to report. The AP Declaration Helper was developed by NNSA’s International Nuclear Safeguards and Engagement Program (INSEP) with support from Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

July 13, 2010
Secretary Chu, at the direction of President Obama, arrives in Houston to oversee the well integrity test and continue his efforts as part of the Administration-wide ongoing response to the BP Oil Spill. The Secretary, National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen, and the federal science team direct BP to temporarily delay the well integrity tests until concerns from the scientific community are addressed and adequate assurances provided that there would be no irreparable harm to the wellbore as a result of the testing procedures. This is the Secretary's sixth trip to Houston since the spill.

July 14, 2010
President Obama is updated by phone from Secretaries Chu, Napolitano and Salazar as well as Administrator Jackson, National Incident Commander Allen, and Carol Browner on the BP oil spill response efforts. Based on new information and analysis, Secretary Chu and other scientists conclude that the well integrity test, delayed from the previous day, should now proceed with several modifications and safety requirements. Once the tests conclude, containment efforts will resume with the new capping stack and other equipment, with the potential to capture up to 80,000 barrels per day.

July 14, 2010
The Department releases a report on the economic impact of Recovery Act investments in advanced batteries and vehicles.  The report, "Recovery Act Investments: Transforming America's Transportation Sector," documents how Recovery Act funds are being matched with private capital to create new jobs, construct new plants, add new manufacturing lines, install electric vehicle charging stations across the country, and help build the emerging domestic electric vehicle industry from the ground up.

July 14, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that $30 million in funding from the Recovery Act and FY 2010 budget appropriations will be made available to qualified small businesses to support the commercialization of promising new technologies. The funding builds on DOE's existing efforts under the Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR) to develop near-term clean energy technologies and support American small businesses that will play an important role in building the clean energy economy of the future.

July 15, 2010

President Obama delivers remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony at Compact Power, Inc. a subsidiary of LG Chem Ltd., a battery plant in Holland, Michigan. The plant is the ninth of nine new advanced battery factories to start construction as a result of the $2.4 billion in Recovery Act advanced battery and electric vehicle awards. Once fully operational, the Compact factory will produce battery cells to support 53,000 Chevy Volts a year.

July 16, 2010
Secretary Chu cancels a planned trip to Kokomo, Indiana, to tour Delphi Automotive Systems manufacturing plant with Mayor Greg Goodnight. The Secretary remains in Houston due to ongoing well integrity tests following the fitting of a new cap on the leaking BP oil will in the Gulf of Mexico. The planned trip was part of a nationwide initiative led by President Obama and members of the cabinet to highlight the nation's success in launching an advanced battery and electric vehicle manufacturing industry in the U.S.

July 16, 2010
President Obama updates the press on the oil spill in the Gulf and the new cap that was fitted over the oil well earlier in the week. The new cap and the additional equipment being placed in the Gulf will provide for the containment of 80,000 barrels a day, which should allow for the capture of nearly all the oil until the well is killed. Prior to installation of the new cap, an average of about 25,000 barrels a day were being collected.

July 16, 2010
The Department issues two Preliminary Notices of Violation (PNOV) to Bechtel Jacobs Company, LLC (BJC), the environmental management and integration contractor for DOE's East Tennessee Technology Park located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as part of an ongoing effort to ensure DOE contractors maintain a safe and healthy workplace for employees and maintain stringent information security standards. The first PNOV cites BJC for three violations of the Department's classified information security program requirements arising from the unauthorized removal and unlawful attempt by a former BJC employee to sell classified matter to a foreign government. The second PNOV is issued for four violations of DOE's worker safety and health regulations governing electrical safety and hazardous energy control requirements that are applicable to electrical power distribution operations.

July 16, 2010
Battery industry veteran Dr. Ralph Brodd is selected  to lead the Kentucky-Argonne National Battery Manufacturing Research and Development Center. The center is a partnership among Argonne National Laboratory, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky. "Dr. Brodd literally has written the book on advanced battery technologies, and I am excited by his willingness to help us develop a renowned battery manufacturing research and development center here in the Commonwealth,” says Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. The center will help develop and deploy a domestic supply of advanced battery technologies for vehicle applications that will aid in securing U.S. energy independence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help in strengthening the economy.

July 16, 2010
Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Evan Bayh (D-IN) send a letter to Secretary Chu urging him to expeditiously consider loan guarantee applications to rebuild the nation’s rare earth supply chain and manufacturing sector. The bipartisan letter, signed by 20 senators, applauds DOE for their commitment to developing a long-term strategy to ensure a stable and adequate supply of rare earths. “Rare earth metals are used in high-tech American weapons programs, throughout the Pentagon’s supply chain and for essential renewable energy technologies,” says Bayh.

July 19, 2010
Secretary Chu hosts the first-ever Clean Energy Ministerial, bringing together for two days ministers and stakeholders from more than 20 countries to launch or join new initiatives that will accelerate the world's transition to clean energy technologies.

July 19, 2010
Secretary Chu announces a series of initiatives underway at the Department to more broadly implement cool roof technologies on DOE facilities and buildings across the federal government. The Secretary also issues a letter to the heads of other federal agencies, encouraging them to take similar steps at their facilities. To offer additional support for federal and commercial building operators that are looking to install cool roofs, DOE releases its Guidelines for Selecting Cool Roofs, which provides technical assistance on types of roofing materials and how to select the roof that will work best on a specific facility.

July 20, 2010
The Department announces 15 research and deployment partnerships to help improve the energy efficiency of American homes by providing technical assistance to ongoing retrofit projects. Each partnership will receive up to $30 million for the first eighteen months, followed by up to $20 million per year for three potential one-year extensions. This effort will support the Department's Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative, announced in April by Vice-President Biden.

July 20, 2010
At the Clean Energy Ministerial, Secretary Chu announces that the U.S. is helping launch more than 10 international clean energy initiatives. The initiatives will eliminate the need to build more than 500 mid-sized power plants world-wide in the next 20 years. The initiatives are intended to help cut energy waste; deploy smart grid, electric vehicle, and carbon capture technologies; support renewable energy markets; expand access to clean energy resources and jobs; and support women pursuing careers in clean energy.

July 20, 2010
President Obama announces that the federal government will reduce greenhouse gas pollution from indirect sources, such as employee travel and commuting, by 13 percent by 2020. This commitment expands beyond the Administration’s greenhouse gas reduction target from direct sources announced on January 29, 2010, such as federal fleets and buildings, by 2020. Cumulatively, greenhouse gas pollution reductions from federal government operations will total 101 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the emissions from 235 million barrels of oil.

July 21, 2010
President Obama meets with Secretary Chu and other senior Administration officials to receive a briefing on the administration-wide response to the Deepwater BP Oil Spill. Secretary Chu wraps up the briefing with an overview of the ongoing work by the federal science team to collect and analyze acoustic, sonar and seismic data.

July 21, 2010
The Department's Sandia National Laboratories announces a climate-change study that models the near-term effects of declining rainfall in each of the 48 U.S. continental states by linking climate change to economics.

July 22, 2010
The Department hosts an electric vehicle workshop at DOE Headquarters in Washington, DC, bringing together more than 150 city officials, vehicle manufacturers, utility companies and other stakeholders.

July 22, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selections of six projects that aim to find ways of converting captured carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial sources into useful products such as fuel, plastics, cement, and fertilizers. These projects are funded by $106 million from the Recovery Act and $156 million in private cost-share. Converting CO2 into other useful products can help reduce carbon emissions in areas where long-term storage of CO2 is not practical.

July 22, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman announces an award of up to $122 million over five years to a multidisciplinary team of scientists to establish the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), an Energy Innovation Hub aimed at developing new methods of generating  fuels directly from sunlight. JCAP will be led by the California Institute of Technology in partnership with the Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. JCAP research will be directed at the discovery of the functional components necessary to assemble a complete artificial photosynthetic system: light absorbers, catalysts, molecular linkers, and separation membranes.

July 22, 2010
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announces that the Senate will not consider a comprehensive energy bill or a comprehensive climate change bill in the current session. The Senate, instead, will focus on a much narrower bill addressing oil-spill prevention and a incentives for alternative-energy and efficiency programs.“This is not the only energy legislation we’re going to do,” the Senator says. “This is what we can do now.” Reid blames Republicans for preventing a broader bill. “Many of us want to do a thorough, comprehensive bill,” he says. “Unfortunately at this time, we don’t have a single Republican to work with in achieving this goal.”

July 27, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman, in remarks at the White House Energy Security Stakeholders Forum, announces a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department and the U.S. Department of Defense to accelerate clean energy innovation and enhance national energy security. The Memorandum, signed by the Deputy Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn broadly covers efforts in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy, water efficiency, fossil fuels, alternative fuels, efficient transportation technologies and fueling infrastructure, grid security, smart grid, storage, waste-to-energy, basic science research, mobile/deployable power, small modular reactor nuclear energy, and related areas.

July 27, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that the Department has finalized a $117 million loan guarantee for Kahuku Wind Power, LLC, the owner and operator of the Kahuku Wind Power project. The project includes the development of a 30 megawatt (MW) wind power plant that will supply electricity to approximately 7,700 households per year.  According to company estimates, the project, located in Kahuku, Hawaii, will create over 200 jobs on the island of Oahu. The Kahuku wind power plant uses twelve 2.5 megawatt Liberty wind turbine generators manufactured by Clipper Windpower of Carpinteria, California, and a 10-megawatt battery energy storage system manufactured by Xtreme Power Inc. of Kyle, Texas.

July 27, 2010
The Department’s Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education releases the results of a survey of U.S. nuclear engineering enrollments and degrees indicating that degrees awarded declined in 2009 but overall enrollments increased.

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August 2, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that the Department will award a total of $188 million to small businesses in 34 states to develop technologies in areas such as the smart grid, energy-efficient buildings, industrial energy use, advanced renewables, cleaner fossil power, carbon cycle measurement, and high-performance computing. Funded through DOE’s Small Business Innovation Research program (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer program (STTR), the 201 awards will support the development of prototype or pilot operations for technologies that have successfully passed the proof of concept stage.

August 2, 2010
Secretary Chu offers AES Energy Storage, LLC, a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee for $17.1 million to support the construction of a 20 megawatt (MW) energy storage system using advanced lithium-ion batteries. The AES project, located in Johnson City, New York, will help provide a more stable and efficient electrical grid for the state's high-voltage transmission network.

August 3, 2010
The Department’s Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) announces that it will begin testing a prototype radiation detector system at DOE's Savannah River Site that may be deployed to U.S. container seaports. Container operations use large (40 feet high) straddle carriers to move cargo containers from the dock to railroad cars or trucks. SRNL has developed radiation detector systems that straddle carriers can drive through. Depending on the system in use, the detectors will either alarm at any radiation above background, or alarm and identify the isotopes responsible for the excess radiation. SRNL is responsible for the design, fabrication, integration and testing of the prototype.

August 3, 2010
USEC Inc. announces that it has submitted a comprehensive update to its application with the DOE Loan Guarantee Program to help finance construction of the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. The update "reflects the significant steps taken by USEC to address concerns expressed by DOE about our application for a $2 billion loan guarantee last year." On August 4, 2009, the Department and USEC Inc. announced an agreement to delay a final review on the company's loan guarantee application.

August 4, 2010
The Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory announces it has completed the first of four major environmental cleanup projects funded by the Recovery Act. The $13 million project involved demolition of an 18,000-square-foot former nuclear fusion research facility. After months of work gutting the building and removing such hazards as asbestos, lead paint, waste pipes, and mercury switches, demolition of the facility began in May and proceeded quickly. As part of the cleanup, a nearly new backup diesel generator was removed from the building and later donated to a nonprofit hospital in North Dakota.

August 5, 2010
Secretary Chu and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) announce an award of $1 billion in Recovery Act funding to the FutureGen Alliance, Ameren Energy Resources, Babcock & Wilcox, and Air Liquide Process & Construction, Inc. to build FutureGen 2.0, a clean coal repowering program and carbon dioxide (CO2) storage network. Fund recipients will repower Ameren's 200 megawatt coal power plant in Meredosia, Illinois, with advanced oxy-combustion technology. Oxy-combustion burns coal with a mixture of oxygen and CO2 instead of air. The project will provide performance and emissions data for future commercial guarantees, and establish operating and maintenance experience for future large-scale commercial projects. In addition, project partners, working with the State of Illinois, will establish a regional CO2 storage site in Mattoon, Illinois, and a CO2 pipeline network from Meredosia to Mattoon that will transport and store more than 1 million tons of captured CO2 per year. The initial FutureGen plan called for a new, 275- MW integrated gasification, combined cycle power plant that would capture and sequester 90 percent of its carbon dioxide and conventional air pollutant emissions.

August 5, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that 150 students have been selected to receive graduate fellowship awards as part of a new DOE Graduate Fellowship program. Each graduate fellow will be provided with tuition, living expenses, and research support for three years to academic institutions across the country. The goal of the fellowship program is to encourage students to pursue graduate degrees in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, engineering, and environmental and computer sciences. Each fellow will be provided $50,500 per year for up to three years to support tuition, living expenses, research materials and travel to research conferences or to DOE scientific user facilities. Support for the fellowship is provided in part by the Recovery Act.

August 5, 2010
NNSA announces a reorganization of its Defense Programs office aimed at creating a sustainable organizational structure that maximizes NNSA’s ability to address the future of the nuclear weapon deterrent. As part of that reorganization, NNSA also announces the formation of a new Defense Programs Science Council that will be responsible for investigating and exploring cross-cutting science issues and opportunities across the nuclear national security enterprise.

August 9, 2010
Energy Secretary Steven Chu announces a $43 million loan guarantee for Beacon Power Corporation's 20 megawatt flywheel energy storage plant in Stephentown, New York, to help improve the stability and reliability of New York State's electric grid. Beacon's flywheel system is designed to perform frequency regulation on utility grids by absorbing and discharging energy to balance power generation and consumption on the electric grid. Beacon estimates that a 20 megawatt flywheel-based frequency regulation plant will reduce carbon dioxide emissions up to 82 percent over its 20-year life compared to a coal, gas, or pumped hydro plant.

August 9, 2010
The Department's Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) announces that Terry A. Michalske, has been name director of the laboratory. Dr. Michalske has more than 30 years of experience in the fields of energy science, solar energy, nanotechnology, and biomolecular analysis, principally for DOE's Sandia National Laboratories.

August 10, 2010
The Department announces the members of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB). Disbanded during the previous administration, the SEAB is reestablished under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The twelve-member board comprised of scientists, business executives, academics, and former government officials will serve as an independent advisory committee to Secretary Chu on DOE's basic and applied research, economic and national security policy, educational issues, operational issues, and other activities as directed by the Secretary.

August 10, 2010
Secretary Chu provides a short update on efforts to seal the damaged BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

August 10, 2010
EPA announces that a public meeting on hydraulic fracturing scheduled for August 12th in Syracuse, New York, has been cancelled. Some 1,200 people had registered to attend the all-day meeting, and several hundred were scheduled to testify. Crowds of 5,000 people or more were expected to rally and demonstrate outside the meeting. The EPA says it cancelled the meeting because local officials "did not feel they could arrange the necessary security for the potential protests and rallies outside the meeting itself."

August 10, 2010
The Department’s Argonne National Laboratory takes a significant step in reducing its legacy waste this week by ridding itself of a 22,000-pound device once associated with a historic reactor. The device—called a shield plug—was used to seal and shield the Chicago Pile-5 reactor. CP-5 allowed for great strides in nuclear physics and materials research; it attracted scientists from across the world and served as a model for research reactors here and abroad. It was largely dismantled more than a decade ago after 25 years of use. The shield plug has been in storage for more than 12 years; the laboratory was unable to remove it until its radiation levels fell below a certain threshold.

August 11, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that NNSA has dismantled the last W62 nuclear warhead. The Secretary made the announcement after personally participating in the final W62 dismantlement during a visit to NNSA’s Pantex Plant outside Amarillo, Texas. Completed a full year ahead of schedule, the W62 dismantlement program safely and securely took apart the retired 1970s era warhead.

August 11, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selection of 15 projects to develop technologies aimed at safely and economically storing carbon dioxide in geologic formations. Funded with $21.3 million over three years, the selections will complement existing DOE initiatives to help develop the technology and infrastructure to implement large-scale CO2 storage in different geologic formations across the nation.

August 11, 2010
Town officials of Mattoon, Illinois, in a letter to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) state that Mattoon will no longer participate in the FutureGen, a clean coal and carbon storage project. The officials state that the action is based on DOE’s decision announced August 5 to retrofit an existing power plant in another Illinois town, instead of building a new experimental plant in Mattoon, and to use Mattoon only as a sequestration site.“The citizens, neighbors near the site, business leaders and community leaders in Coles County are nearly unanimous in the belief that the pursuit of FutureGen
2.0, as proposed, is not in our best interest,” Angela Griffin, president of the local economic-development group, tells Durbin.

August 12, 2010
Secretary Chu announces a new loan guarantee solicitation for renewable energy manufacturing projects. The Commercial Technology Manufacturing Systems and Components solicitation is supported by the Recovery Act through Section 1705 of the Loan Guarantee Program. The solicitation will seek applications for projects that manufacture commercial technology renewable energy systems and components, such as wind turbine systems, blades, or solar photovoltaic components.

August 12, 2010
President Obama's Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), co-chaired by the EPA  and DOE, delivers recommendations to President Obama on overcoming the barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years (Executive Summary and Final Report). The findings and recommendations include: 1) CCS is viable, 2) a carbon price is critical, 3) Federal coordination should be strengthened, and 4) the issue of long-term liability needs more scrutiny. CCS is a group of technologies for capturing, compressing, transporting and permanently storing power plant and industrial source emissions of carbon dioxide.

August 13, 2010
The Department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory announces the selection of the general contractor for construction of laboratory-office buildings for the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), which will be the world’s most advanced storage ring light source when complete in 2015. Brookhaven’s currently operating light source, NSLS, draws each year about 2,200 researchers from 400 universities, government labs, and companies to study a wide range of materials, from catalysts, to computer chips, to biological molecules. NSLS-II will deliver world-class intensity and brightness, producing x-rays 10,000 times brighter than the current NSLS. NSLS-II will help scientists explore the challenges they face in developing new materials with advanced properties.

August 16, 2010
President Obama tours ZBB Energy Corporation in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, and delivers remarks to workers.  ZBB Energy Corporation is expanding the production of advanced zinc bromide flow batteries and intelligent power control platforms for renewable energy storage with the help of a $1.3 million Recovery Act State Energy Program loan. The company is using the Recovery Act loan to help fund a $4.5 million factory renovation that they anticipate will triple their capacity to manufacture flow batteries and power systems. 

August 16, 2010
Secretary Chu dedicates the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world's first and most powerful X-ray laser, at DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The LCLS produces pulses of X-rays more than a billion times brighter than the most powerful existing sources. The LCLS is able to view matter on a scale of individual atoms, and on time scales fast enough to see atomic motion and changes in the chemical bonds between them. This improved understanding of the behavior of matter at the nanoscale and in ultrafast time intervals will provide scientists with an ability to manipulate matter in ways they have been unable to before. The LCLS is a $420 million project funded by the Department with construction led by SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in partnership with Argonne National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Recovery Act provided $53.6 million to accelerate the construction of scientific instruments for the LCLS and to develop an additional instrument.

August 16, 2010
The Department announces the selection of Fluor-B&W Portsmouth LLC as the prime contractor for the decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (GDP) in south-central Ohio. The contract is valued at $2,079,800,451 over 10 years, which includes an initial five-year contract period plus a potential five-year extension depending on contractor performance and the government’s need. Work will include decontaminating and demolishing the three massive process facilities at the site — X-333, X-330, and X-326 — along with cleaning up and remediating contaminated soils and groundwater.

August 17, 2010
The Department's Sandia National Laboratories is selected as one of four institutions to develop new supercomputer prototype systems for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). To meet the increasing advanced computing needs for the U.S. Department of Defense, DARPA launched the Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) program. The goal of the UHPC program is to overcome current limiting factors, such as power consumption and architectural and programming complexity, by developing entirely new computer architectures and programming models. The aim is to produce a more energy-efficient computer that delivers 100 to 1,000 times more performance and is easier to program than current systems.

August 19, 2010
Secretary Chu announces award selections for approximately 120 organizations across the country that will receive nearly $120 million to drive innovation under the Department's Weatherization Assistance Program. These investments will enable successful weatherization agencies to expand their programs and will support new pilot projects to demonstrate innovative weatherization delivery and financial models and new technologies. The Secretary also announces that the program has reached a new milestone, weatherizing more than 31,600 homes across the country in June 2010. After ramping up the previous year, the Weatherization Assistance Program is weatherizing homes at its optimal run rate of approximately 25,000 homes per month.

August 19, 2010
The Department issues a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to contractor Washington Closure Hanford (WCH) for violations of DOE's worker safety and health program regulations in 2009 at DOE's Hanford Site in southeast Washington State.

August 19, 2010
Officials from DOE, the State of Illinois, Ameren, Babcock & Wilcox, American Air Liquide, and the FutureGen Alliance, meeting in Chicago, discuss the next steps for the FutureGen 2.0 carbon capture and storage project in Illinois. Following the decision by the town of Mattoon in Coles County, Illinois, announced on August 11, to no longer participate, the remaining members affirm that the project remains on track for obligation before the end of September. Preparations will then begin for the repowering of Unit 4 at the Ameren facility in Meredosia, Illinois, with construction set to begin in 2012. At the same time, following DOE best practices, a site selection process will be conducted to locate a site for the carbon sequestration research, repowering workforce training facility, visitor center, and long term CO2 repository. "While we regret Coles County's decision not to participate in this first of its kind carbon capture and storage project, the Mt. Simon geological formation extends over much of downstate Illinois and offers many other possible locations for storage." says James Markowsky, assistant secretary for fossil energy at DOE. "We are encouraged by the response we've received from interested communities so far and look forward to working with the project team as they select a new sequestration center over the coming months."

August 23, 2010
The U.S. Department of State hosts the first multilateral event under the Global Shale Gas Initiative (GSGI). Seventeen different countries send representatives to attend the two-day GSGI Conference to discuss the importance of shale gas as a lower-carbon fuel option that can help reduce CO2 emissions while ensuring energy security and economic development.

August 23, 2010
Thomas D’Agostino, NNSA administrator, joins senior officials from the U.S. Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security and members of Nevada’s congressional delegation for a ceremony to announce the new name of DOE’s 1,360 square mile facility located 65-miles northwest of Las Vegas. The new name for the site — the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) — better reflects the diversity of nuclear, energy, and homeland security activities being conducted there.

August 23, 2010
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announces that a research team has discovered how loops develop in graphene, an electrically conductive high-strength low-weight material that resembles an atomic-scale honeycomb. Structural loops that sometimes form during a graphene cleaning process can render the material unsuitable for electronic applications. Overcoming these types of problems is of great interest to the electronics industry. The team used quantum molecular dynamics to simulate an experimental graphene cleaning process, as discussed in a paper published in Physical Review Letters. Calculations performed on ORNL supercomputers pointed the researchers to an overlooked intermediate step during processing.

August 23, 2010
The Department's Sandia National Laboratories announces that a study by lab researchers argues for a shift in the view that replacing the inefficient Edison light bulb with more efficient solid-state light-emitting devices (LEDs) would lower electrical usage worldwide. “Presented with the availability of cheaper light, humans may use more of it, as has happened over recent centuries with remarkable consistency following other lighting innovations,” notes Sandia lead researcher Jeff Tsao. “That is, rather than functioning as an instrument of decreased energy use, LEDs may be instead the next step in increasing human productivity and quality of life.”

August 24, 2010
Vice President Biden, joined by Secretary Chu, releases a report, The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation, which concludes that the Recovery Act’s $100 billion investment is transforming the economy, creating new jobs, and leading to advances in science and technology. The report lists four goals that Recovery Act funding has had a direct impact upon, including halving the cost of solar power by 2015, reducing the cost of electric vehicle batteries by 70 percent between 2009 and 2015, doubling the nation’s renewable energy and manufacturing capacity by 2015, and reducing the cost of a personal human genome map to under $1,000 within five years.

August 24, 2010
The Department announces that a team led by Pennsylvania State University will receive up to $122 million over the next five years to establish an Energy Innovation Hub focused on developing technologies to make buildings more energy efficient. The new Hub will be located at the Philadelphia Navy Yard Clean Energy campus and will bring together researchers from academia, two DOE National Laboratories, and the private sector to develop energy-efficient building designs intended to save energy, cut pollution, and position the U.S. as a leader in the industry. The Energy-Efficient Building Systems Design Hub is one of three Hubs that will receive funding in FY10.

August 24, 2010
The Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory announces that lab scientists studying a dispersed oil plume from the BP Gulf of Mexico spill at a depth between 3,600 and 4,000 feet and extending some 10 miles out from the wellhead found that microbial activity, spearheaded by a new and unclassified species, degrades oil much faster than anticipated. This degradation appears to take place without a significant level of oxygen depletion.

August 25, 2010
The Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory announces that researchers have developed a  process and related technology that could enhance the nation’s ability to use natural gas and vast methane hydrate energy resources. The method for rapidly forming methane hydrate, along with concurrent development of specialized nozzles to facilitate the process are breakthroughs that could lead to significant reductions in the cost of storing and transporting natural gas, potentially increasing utilization of domestic resources .

August 26, 2010
Vice President Biden announces in Manchester, New Hampshire, in an event with homeowners and workers, that 200,000 homes have been weatherized under the Recovery Act.

August 27, 2010
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces that a graphite foam technology developed at the lab that extends the life of light-emitting diode lamps has been licensed to LED North America. The company intends to use the graphite foam to passively cool components in LED lamps, which are increasingly in demand in applications such as street lights and parking garage lighting. LED North America specializes in providing LED lighting products for municipal, commercial and industrial applications.

August 27, 2010
Researchers using the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the Department’s Argonne National Laboratory publish findings that they have mapped the human adenovirus responsible for 10 percent of colds in addition to other, more harmful infections. The researchers used X-ray crystallography, a technique in which X-rays are beamed at a virus crystal, resulting in a diffraction pattern that helps scientists understand the virus' shape. Their findings are published in the journal Science.

August 31, 2010
Secretary Chu, at an event at Battelle headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, announces that two million smart grid meters have been installed across the country as a result of Recovery Act funding. An analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute estimates that the implementation of smart grid technologies, including smart grid meters, could reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent annually by 2030. The Secretary says that smart grid technologies “will give consumers choice and promote energy savings, increase energy efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy resources.”

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September 1, 2010
The Department’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility holds a groundbreaking to inaugurate the construction phase of its new $73.2 million Technology and Engineering Development Facility, or TEDF. The state-of-the-art facility, that will bring together scientists, engineers and technologists focused on research in the areas of nuclear physics, accelerator science, applied nuclear science and technology, and advanced superconducting radiofrequency instrumentation. Features of the new facility will include a 6,000-square-foot clean room that will be used for processing and preparing particle accelerator system components and three assembly lines for producing cryomodules (particle accelerating systems). The layout of the new facility will streamline the flow for testing, processing and assembling R&D and production accelerator systems.

September 2, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that two consortia—one led by the University of Michigan and one led by the West Virginia University—will receive a total of $25 million over the next five years under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC). The funding will be matched by the grantees to provide at least $50 million in total U.S. funding and will facilitate joint research and development of clean energy technologies by the U.S. and China. Chinese counterparts will contribute an additional $50 million, with combined funding from both countries totaling $100 million.  The University of Michigan's award will advance technologies for clean vehicles, while West Virginia University will use its funding to focus on the next generation of clean coal technologies, including carbon capture and storage.

September 2, 2010
Secretary Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announce research awards under a joint DOE-USDA program aimed at improving and accelerating genetic breeding programs to create plants better suited for bioenergy production. The research grants will be focused on fundamental investigations of biomass genomics, with the aim of harnessing lignocellulosic materials—i.e., nonfood plant fiber—for biofuels production.

September 2, 2010
The Department announces a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on proposed reforms designed to improve its energy efficiency certification and enforcement regulations. “This rulemaking a key step in the Department’s renewed commitment to systematic and robust energy efficiency enforcement,” says DOE General Counsel Scott Blake Harris. “Effective enforcement will conserve energy, save consumers money, and prevent manufacturers who break the law from having a competitive advantage over those that play by the rules.” 

September 2, 2010
The Department's Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, completes the removal of nuclear materials from two more facilities, significantly reducing its classified storage area and the cost of securing nuclear materials at the site. The 613,642-square-foot Alpha 5 Building (also known as 9201-5) and the 7,700-square-foot 9720-38 storage facility no longer carry nuclear designations, resulting in significant cost savings for operations

September 2, 2010
The Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) releases the 2009 NETL Accomplishments report describing energy research and technology development, including advances in clean fossil-based systems with carbon capture and storage. In commemoration of NETL’s 100th anniversary, the report also tells the story of the laboratory’s research over the past century. “Since the founding of its first predecessor laboratory in 1910, NETL has implemented a broad spectrum of complementary energy and environmental research to satisfy the energy needs of yesterday, today, and those of generations to come,” says DOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy James J. Markowsky. “Its research and technology development programs are vital in supporting the U.S. Department of Energy’s mission to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States.”

September 3, 2010
The Department announces that it has reached an agreement in principle with California's Department of Toxic Substances Control and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Lab (SSFL) site in Simi Valley. The SSFL, owned by the Boeing Company, is located 30 miles north of Los Angeles, California. Area IV was primarily used for DOE research and development activities.

September 3, 2010
The Department's Inspector General, Gregory Friedman, in a report to Secretary Chu on DOE's electronic records, cites the continuing "weaknesses with the Department's ability to retain and manage electronic records." He states that Department programs, NNSA, and field sites have "not ensured that electronic records, including e-mail, were identified, stored and disposed of properly."

September 7, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selection of 22 projects that will accelerate carbon capture and storage (CCS) research and development for industrial sources. Funded with more than $575 million from the Recovery Act, these R&D projects complement other industrial demonstration projects underway.  The selections include projects from four different areas of CCS research and development: 1) large scale testing of advanced gasification technologies; 2) advanced turbo-machinery to lower emissions from industrial sources; 3) post-combustion CO2 capture with increased efficiencies and decreased costs; and 4) geologic storage site characterization.

September 7, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that the Department’ Sandia National Laboratories is investing $8.5 million in four projects that have reached Stage III of the Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems (SEGIS) program. Initiated in 2008, the SEGIS program is a partnership that includes DOE, Sandia National Laboratories, industry, utilities and universities. Under the program, projects are emphasizing complete system development for solar technologies, for instance, how to move designs of intelligent system controls towards commercialization and how best to integrate expanded solar resources onto the grid while maintaining or improving power quality and reliability. The selections are part of the Department's ongoing work to improve the nation’s electrical grid reliability and increase amounts of solar energy supplied to the grid.

September 7, 2010
Secretary Chu announces a partial guarantee for a $98.5 million loan to the 49.5 megawatt Blue Mountain geothermal project in Humboldt County in northwestern Nevada. The loan guarantee is being issued to John Hancock Financial Services to support a loan to a subsidiary of the Nevada Geothermal Power Company. The Blue Mountain project consists of a geothermal well field and fluid collection and injection systems that enable energy to be extracted from rock and fluid below the Earth's surface, and a power plant that converts geothermal energy into electricity. The project has a 20-year power purchase agreement to sell electricity and renewable energy credits to the Nevada Power Company. The loan guarantee is issued under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP), a DOE program supported by the Recovery Act. FIPP is designed to expedite the loan guarantee process for renewable energy generation projects that use commercial technologies and to expand credit capacity for financing of U.S. renewable energy projects. In a FIPP financing, DOE provides a partial guarantee for up to 80 percent of a loan provided to a renewable energy project by qualified financial institutions.

September 7, 2010
The Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory announces that this summer it attracted a record number of student interns, giving them the opportunity to conduct research in a wide range of disciplines. More than 1,300 students interned in both technical and nontechnical fields. In addition to students, a record number of postdocs — 415 — are working at Los Alamos this year.

September 8, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the investment of up to $16.5 million for two major biomass research and development initiatives that will support the expansion of renewable transportation fuels production. The first initiative will invest up to $12 million over three years for four projects to advance technologies for the thermochemical conversion of biomass into advanced biofuels that are compatible with existing fueling infrastructure. The second initiative provides up to $4.5 million for three projects that support research focused on designing landscapes that produce bioenergy feedstock while protecting air, soil, water, and wildlife resources and enhancing ecosystem services.

September 8, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the creation of the Carbon Capture and Storage Simulation Initiative with an investment of up to $40 million from the Recovery Act. The partners in this initiative are a number of DOE national laboratories and universities: the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), NETL's Regional University Alliance (Carnegie Mellon University, Penn State University, University of Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia University), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The initiative will develop a comprehensive, integrated suite of validated computational models for accelerating CO2 capture technology development and deployment; and a defensible, science-based methodology and tools that can be used to quantify residual risk and long-term liability at CO2 storage sites post-closure.

September 8, 2010
NNSA announces that construction has started on a new state-of-the-art campus to house the multi-million dollar manufacturing plant in south Kansas City. The $687 million Kansas City Responsive Infrastructure, Manufacturing, and Sourcing (KCRIMS) campus will house roughly 2,500 employees and consists of manufacturing, laboratory, office, and warehouse space. The new campus, being constructed at 14500 Botts Road, is eight miles south of the NNSA’s current location at the Bannister Federal Complex. A phased move is scheduled to begin in late 2012.

September 9, 2010
Secretary Chu announces selections for more than $37 million in funding to accelerate the technological and commercial readiness of emerging marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technologies, which seek to generate renewable electricity from the nation's oceans and free-flowing rivers and streams. The 27 projects range from concept studies and component design research to prototype development and in-water device testing. This funding seeks to advance the ability of marine and hydrokinetic energy technologies to contribute to the nation's electricity supply.

September 9, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the investment of $28.5 million to 12 states and territories to support energy efficiency projects. The competitively selected states will receive awards through DOE's State Energy Program to help create a sustainable transformation in the market for energy-saving, whole-building improvements in residential and commercial buildings.

September 9, 2010
NNSA announces that it has monitored the elimination of more than 400 metric tons (MT) of Russian highly enriched uranium (HEU) — the equivalent of more than 16,000 nuclear weapons — under a landmark nuclear nonproliferation program. The 1993 U.S.-Russian HEU Purchase Agreement is now 80 percent complete. The agreement requires the Russian Federation to convert weapons-origin HEU into LEU in Russia. The LEU is then delivered to the U.S. where it is fabricated into nuclear fuel and used in commercial reactors to generate approximately 10 percent of all electrical power nationwide.

September 9, 2010
The White House announces the release of Federal Agency Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans, which work to achieve the environmental, economic and energy goals called for in the Executive Order on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance (Executive Order 13514) signed by President Obama on October 5, 2009. Federal agencies were required to submit their plans to the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Management and Budget. Agencies were asked to develop, implement, and annually update a plan that prioritizes sustainability actions based on a positive return on investment for the American taxpayer and to meet energy, water, and waste reduction targets.

September 9, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman visits DOE's Portsmouth Site, in Piketon, Ohio, to mark the the start-up of operations at the Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride Conversion Plant (DUF6). Depleted uranium hexafluoride has been generated in the U.S., beginning in the mid-1940s, as a byproduct of enriching uranium for both civilian and military applications. The DUF6 facility will convert more than 250,000 metric tons of this depleted uranium hexafluoride into a safer form for reuse or disposal.

September 9, 2009

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, (SRNS) DOE's Management and Operating (M&O) contractor at the Savannah River Site announces the signing of an agreement with Hyperion Power Generation Inc. that could lead to deployment of a small modular nuclear reactor at the site.

September 10, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selection of six transformational energy research and development projects that could revolutionize how the country uses, stores, and produces energy. Funded with $9.6 million from the Recovery Act, the projects round out the selections made by ARPA-E. The $9.6 million is being awarded to projects that could improve energy efficiency in buildings by reducing loads on air conditioners; reduce costs associated with generating electricity from solar power; and improve efficiency and power density of electric machines.

September 10, 2010
The Department’s  National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announces  the release of a new report that assesses the electricity generating potential of offshore wind resources in the U.S. According to the Assessment of Offshore Wind Energy Resources for the United States, 4,150 gigawatts of potential wind turbine nameplate capacity (maximum turbine capacity) from offshore wind resources are available in the United States. The estimate does not describe actual planned offshore wind development, and the report does not consider that some offshore areas may be excluded from energy development on the basis of environmental, human use, or technical considerations. According to the DOE's Energy Information Administration, in 2008 the nation’s total electric generating capacity from all sources was 1,010 gigawatts.

September 10, 2010
The Department's Sandia National Laboratories announces that a device developed by researchers at the lab that shoots a blade of water capable of penetrating steel is being sent to U.S. troops in Afghanistan to help them disable deadly improvised explosive devices, or IEDs — the No. 1 killer and threat to troops in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. Sandia licensed the patent-pending technology to a small minority-owned business, TEAM Technologies Inc. The Albuquerque-based company made its first shipment of about 3,000 new water disruptors to Afghanistan this summer. “The fluid blade disablement tool will be extremely useful to defeat IEDs because it penetrates the IED extremely effectively,” said Greg Scharrer, manager of the Energetic Systems Research Department at Sandia. “It’s like having a much stronger and much sharper knife.”

September 13, 2010
The Department announces 27 proposed penalties against companies selling products in the U.S. without certifying that they comply with energy efficiency or water conservation standards. The 27 companies include manufacturers, importers, and private labelers of appliance, plumbing, and lighting products. Collectively, the proposed penalty fees are over $3.5 million, though these fines may be reduced if the companies quickly comply with certification requirements.

September 13, 2010
President Obama calls A123 Systems in Livonia, Michigan, from the Oval Office to congratulate them on opening the nation’s first manufacturing facility to mass-produce electric vehicle batteries. The plant opening was made possible by a $249 million Recovery Act advanced battery grant the company received in August 2009. Secretary Chu attends the opening and tours the production facility. "A123 Systems is leading the way to a brighter future," the Secretary says in his blog. "It is building factories in Livonia, Romulus, and Brownstown. It has already hired 200 local workers since last August and it expects to hire more than 3,000 people by 2012. Today marks an important milestone for A123 Systems, as they open the largest lithium-ion automotive battery production facility in North America. This will help make sure the cars of the future are built right here in America."

September 13, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that DOE is awarding more than $5 million to support U.S. wind energy development. Two projects receiving a total of $3.4 million over two years will improve short-term wind forecasting, which will accelerate the use of wind power in electricity transmission networks by allowing utilities and grid operators to more accurately forecast when and where electricity will be generated from wind power. Three additional projects are receiving a total of more than $1.8 million to boost the speed and scale of midsize wind turbine technology development and deployment.

September 13, 2010
Secretary Chu travels to the Department's Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls to speaks to the employees.

September 14, 2010
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that emptying, cleaning, and permanently closing the 22 underground liquid radioactive waste tanks at DOE's Savannah River Site is likely to cost significantly more and take longer than estimated in the December 2008 contract between DOE and Savannah River Remediation, LLC (SRR). Originally estimated to cost $3.2 billion, SRR notified DOE in June 2010 that the total cost to close the 22 tanks had increased by more than $1.4 billion or 44 percent. The GAO finds that much of this increase is because DOE's cost estimate in the September 2007 request for proposals that formed the basis of the December 2008 contract between DOE and SRR was not accurate or comprehensive.

September 15, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the selection of five projects to build and strengthen "innovation ecosystems" that will accelerate the movement of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies from university laboratories into the market. This is the first time the Department is funding this type of university-based commercialization effort. The projects will receive a total of $5.3 million in federal funding over three years, which will be leveraged with grantee investments to support $9 million in total projects. The projects announced are led by universities or nonprofits based in five states, and convene a total of 80 project partners, uniting universities, business, finance, government, research institutes, economic development organizations, accelerators, and national laboratories. The projects were selected based on the following objectives:  nurturing and mentoring entrepreneurs; pursuing intellectual property protection for technological innovations; engaging the surrounding business and venture capital community; and integrating sustainable entrepreneurship and innovation across university schools and departments.

September 15, 2010
Secretary Chu announces $20 million in funding to research, develop, and demonstrate cutting-edge geothermal technologies that could reduce U.S. demand for fossil fuels, cut carbon pollution, and create new jobs in geothermal manufacturing and operations. These seven projects will demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of non-conventional geothermal energy technologies in three research areas: low temperature fluids, geothermal fluids recovered from oil and gas wells, and highly pressurized geothermal fluids.

September 15, 2010
Secretary Chu announces $57 million, including nearly $11 million under the Recovery Act, to support clean energy technology commercialization projects for 33 small businesses across the country. These projects, funded as part of DOE's Small Business Phase III Xlerator program, will help small businesses develop manufacturing processes to scale up production of their new, proven technologies. The awards include funding for renewable energy resources, advanced vehicle technologies, industrial and building energy efficiency, a modernized electricity grid, cleaner fossil fuels, and the next generation of nuclear power.

September 15, 2010
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approves final revisions to the agency’s “Waste Confidence” findings and regulation, expressing the NRC’s confidence that "the nation’s spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored for at least 60 years beyond the licensed life of any reactor and that sufficient repository capacity will be available when necessary." The previous rule was that spent nuclear fuel could be stored for at least 30 years in onsite spent fuel basin or at either onsite or offsite independent spent fuel storage installations. The NRC also directs its staff to "initiate a long-term rulemaking to address impacts of storage at onsite storage facilities, offsite storage facilities or both for extended periods."

September 15, 2010
The Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory announces the use by researchers at the lab and Georgia Tech of small-angle neutron scattering to probe the structural impact of an acid pretreatment of lignocellulose from switchgrass. Pretreatment is an essential step to extract cellulose, which can through a series of enzymatic procedures be converted into sugars and then ethanol. The findings, published in the journal Biomacromolecules, could help scientists identify the most effective pretreatment strategy and lower the cost of the biomass conversion process.

September 16, 2010
Secretary Chu hosts his first Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) meeting. The inaugural meeting allows SEAB members to become better acquainted with DOE's policies and the issues that lie ahead. The Secretary Chu opens the meeting with introductory remarks highlighting a few of the major responsibilities of DOE, including developing technologies to make the U.S. competitive in the future, building up and strengthening the innovation chain, nuclear security, post-Cold War environmental clean-up, modernizing the energy infrastructure, and how we use and produce energy. Other issues of importance the Secretary noted that DOE must focus on include: energy innovation hubs, ARPA-E, $1per watt, CCS, small modular reactors (SMRs), and storage.

September 16, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the creation of the Simulation-Based Engineering User Center (SBEUC) that will facilitate collaborative computational research for energy applications. Funded with $20 million from the Recovery Act, the SBEUC will be primarily used for developing and deploying the simulation tools developed under the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Simulation Initiative. Located at the Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory, the SBEUC will be powered by a high-performance computer that will allow researchers to simulate phenomena that are difficult or impossible to probe experimentally.

September 16, 2010
NNSA announces that the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on preventing nuclear smuggling. Deputy Secretary Poneman and Korea Customs Service Commissioner Yoon Young-sun sign the memorandum at a ceremony at DOE headquarters in Washington.

September 16, 2010
Secretary Chu at the Montana Economic Development summit highlights how the Recovery Act has boosted energy projects across the state and why the state is in prime position to benefit from the shift towards a clean energy economy.

September 16, 2010
Secretary Chu, in an email to DOE employees, announces that Under Secretary Kristina Johnson and Matt Rogers, the Secretary's senior advisor for recovery act implementation, are leaving the Department. The Secretary names Cathy Zoi, the current assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, to serve as acting undersecretary.

September 17, 2010
Secretary Chu writes an editorial that appears in the Huffington Post on key challenges faced by the international community as it seeks the security of a world without nuclear weapons while working to encourage the peaceful use of nuclear power.

September 17, 2010
EIA announces plans to change its organizational structure. The reorganization, effective October 1, 2010, will align the organizational structure with the agency’s primary functional areas: statistics, analysis, communication, and management. It also will streamline EIA by reducing the number of organizations reporting directly to the EIA Administrator from eight to four, headed by Assistant Administrators.

September 19, 2010
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary Chu issue a statement regarding the permanent plugging of BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama also issues a statement.

September 20, 2010
Secretary Chu addresses the International Atomic Energy Agency's 54th General Conference in Vienna. In his remarks, the Secretary reiterates President Obama’s earlier April 2009 call to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, calls for “strengthening nonproliferation safeguards to increase the security of nuclear material around the world,” and discusses the “progress … made [by the U.S.] on disarmament.” The Secretary urges the IAEA to move forward on implementing an international fuel bank. The U.S., he notes, has contributed $50 million toward this purpose, and, with other member states, a total of $150 million has been pledged. The Secretary’s final point in his remarks asks the “IAEA, international institutions, and countries around the world” to “work together to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.”

September 20, 2010
The Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announces that the lab, the California Energy Commission, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District will invest up to $13.5 million to support the development of natural gas engines and vehicles. NREL will oversee the Natural Gas Engine Research and Development projects to develop highly efficient natural gas engines that meet or exceed 2010 emission standards; integrate natural gas engines into different chassis and vehicle platforms; and verify fuel efficiency, petroleum reduction, and emissions benefits in real-world operation. The focus is on medium and heavy-duty trucks and buses, which currently represent 22 percent of the fuel used in on-road vehicles.

September 20, 2010
The Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) holds a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the opening of four East Tennessee homes as laboratories for energy efficiency. This is a major milestone of the first ZEBRAlliance project, a public-private partnership founded by the laboratory and Schaad Companies, both a research project and a multi-faceted energy-efficiency education campaign. The four houses, located in the Wolf Creek subdivision in Oak Ridge, use about 55 to 60 percent less energy than conventional houses while maintaining similar amenities. Although the houses will remain unoccupied during the research period, appliance, lighting and water use will occur automatically in the experimental homes to simulate an average family's energy use. ORNL researchers will collect data to determine which technologies, either individually or as a group, are the most energy efficient.

September 20, 2010
The Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory announces that lab scientists are examining whether a variety of fish and invertebrates change their behavior during and after exposure to an electromagnetic field similar to those produced by marine and hydrokinetic power devices that capture energy from ocean waves, tides, currents, and rivers. Research began this summer and will continue for two years.

September 21, 2010
The Department’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announces that the laboratory has started phase II of the construction of the SRF Accelerator Test Facility to advance new technology that will be critical to the next generation of particle accelerators. The new facility, which will occupy three buildings and host a 460-foot-long test accelerator, will be the first of its kind in the U.S. Fermilab is using $52.7 million in funding from the Recovery Act to advance its Superconducting Radio-Frequency R&D program, which includes the construction of the test facility.

September 22, 2010
Secretary Poneman begins a three-day visit to Mongolia, meeting with government officials and members of the private sector to discuss energy issues. He also delivers remarks about the need to build a sustainable energy future at the Mongolian University of Science and Technology.

September 22, 2010
Secretary Chu and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar convene a meeting of top U.S. government scientists and key industry and stakeholder leaders to discuss how to strengthen capabilities for responding to potential blowouts of oil and gas wells in deep waters on the Outer Continental Shelf.

September 23, 2010
Secretary Chu, speaking at the inaugural GridWise Global Forum, announces the investment of more than $30 million for ten projects that will address cybersecurity issues facing the nation's electric grid. The projects funded address cyber security concerns from two approaches: 1) research and development on innovative cybersecurity solutions and 2) the establishment of the National Electric Sector Cybersecurity Organization.

September 23, 2010
The Department releases the findings of a new research study, the 2010 U.S. Smart Grid Vendor Ecosystem Report. The report highlights $2.75 billion in annual product sales in three key smart grid categories: Advanced Metering Infrastructure, Demand Response, and Distribution Grid Management. In addition to providing insight into spending patterns and market share in the sector, the report draws attention to a number of emerging industry dynamics shaping the future of the smart grid ecosystem.

September 23, 2010
The Department announces that it has taken action against Air-Con, International, requiring the company to stop selling certain air conditioning systems in the U.S. that have been shown to violate minimum energy efficiency appliance standards. In March 2010, the Department issued a subpoena requiring Air-Con to submit detailed information about the energy consumption of its products and how the company marketed and sold them in the U.S. Based on Air-Con's responses to the subpoena, the Department finds that the company imported and distributed nearly 2,000 air conditioning units rated at 10 SEER, while the federal standard requires a minimum 13 SEER rating. The proposed civic penalty is more than $230,000 for importing and distributing these inefficient cooling products.

September 23, 2010
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issues a report on geoengineering—large-scale deliberate interventions in the earth’s climate system to diminish climate change or its impacts—and its role in a broader strategy of mitigating and adapting to climate change. The GAO finds that "few geoengineering experiments or modeling studies have been conducted, and major uncertainties remain on the efficacy and potential consequences of geoengineering approaches." The GAO also notes that the federal government has "not developed a coordinated strategy" and recommends that the Office of Science and Technology Policy "establish a clear strategy for geoengineering research."

September 24, 2010
The Department, the American Lighting Association (ALA), and the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) announce the winners of the eighth-annual Lighting for Tomorrow competition at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Each lighting fixture and replacement lamp entry was evaluated based on color appearance, color rendering, appropriate measure of light intensity, efficiency, appearance, and style. Bonus points were earned for such merits as dark-sky friendliness, dimming features, sustainability features, and innovation. The lighting control entries were evaluated on functionality, value, ease of use and installation, innovation, ability to interface with other systems, and compatibility with existing fixtures. Additional bonus points in this category were available for energy savings potential, appearance, and sustainability.

September 27, 2010
Secretary Chu visits the Department’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in New Jersey and discusses the need for scientists to address the country’s energy issues, climate change, and how nuclear energy—both fission and fusion—could be solutions to energy challenges.

September 27, 2010
NNSA announces the successful commencing of operations of radiation detection equipment at the Port of Valencia in Spain. Installed as part of NNSA's nonproliferation Megaports Initiative in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, Spanish Customs, and the Port Authority of Valencia, the specialized equipment will help to detect smuggled or illicit shipments of nuclear and other radiological materials. With this equipment, the Port of Valencia will now be able to scan all import and export containers passing through the port for the presence of dangerous nuclear and radioactive materials.

September 27, 2010
The Department’s Sandia National Laboratories announces that researchers have developed a new system to monitor how clouds affect large-scale solar photovoltaic power plants. By observing cloud shape, size, and movement, the system provides a way for utility companies to predict and prepare for fluctuations in power output due to changes in weather. The resulting models will provide utility companies with valuable data to assess potential power plant locations, ramp rates, and power output.

September 28, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that the Department has signed final cooperative agreements with the FutureGen Industrial Alliance and Ameren Energy Resources that formally commit $1 billion in Recovery Act funding to build FutureGen 2.0. "Today's milestone will help ensure the U.S. remains competitive in a carbon-constrained economy, creating jobs while reducing greenhouse gas pollution," says the Secretary. "Developing innovative, cost-effective carbon capture and storage technologies is critical to the country's transition to a clean energy future." The FutureGen Industrial Alliance, working with the State of Illinois, will develop a permanent CO2 sequestration facility, research and visitors facilities, and a labor training center at the site. The Alliance will also build a CO2 pipeline network from Meredosia to the sequestration site.

September 28, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the release of a new proposed energy efficiency standard for residential refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers.   The standard, as proposed, could save consumers as much as $18.6 billion over thirty years. "These standards will help us once again dramatically reduce the energy used by refrigerators in American homes," notes the Secretary.  "As technologies continue to improve to meet these latest standards, we'll help to address climate change while saving families across the country billions of dollars." According to the Department's analysis, the proposed standards could save nearly 4.5 quads (quadrillion BTUs) over 30 years, equivalent to three times the amount of energy used in refrigerators and freezers in American homes in one year.

September 28, 2010
NNSA announces that it has completed disassembly and inspection of the first W84 at NNSA’s Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. This milestone marks the beginning of the disassembly and inspection process for the W84, a thermonuclear warhead that entered the stockpile in 1983. The disassembly and inspection process will confirm that the system, which has not been disassembled since 1998, has not experienced any safety-related aging issues.

September 28, 2010
The Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory releases BioEnergy Atlas, a Web portal that provides access to two bioenergy analysis and mapping tools. The visualization screening tools, BioPower and BioFuels Atlas, allow users to layer related bioenergy data onto a single map to gather information on biomass feedstocks, biopower, and biofuels potential, production, and distribution. BioEnergy Atlas is an improvement over current tools in that it enables more timely and accurate analysis of the potential of given sites to be successful biomass producers.

September 29, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that Department employees and contractors collected and donated more than 120,000 pounds of food and supplies during the federal government's second annual "Feds Feed Families" campaign.

September 30, 2010
As part of President Obama's new initiative to recruit teachers, Secretary Chu is featured in a Public Service Announcement (PSA) video recalling how his high school physics teacher inspired him to pursue a career in science. In the PSA, Secretary Chu shares how his teacher, Thomas Miner, changed his approach to learning, "He wasn't trying to teach us facts. He was actually trying to teach us a learning process.” Miner taught at Garden City High School in Garden City, NY from 1932 to 1966. He later served as Assistant Professor of Physics at Yeshiva University and as Associate Editor of The Physics Teacher. In 1980, he received the Robert A. Millikan Medal from the American Association of Physics Teachers for his contributions to the teaching of physics.

September 30, 2010
The Department notes that it has formally committed all $32.7 billion of Recovery Act grant and contract funding to clean energy projects by the September 30th deadline, as stipulated by the act. Program and procurement teams have obligated the funding and recipients have spent more than $7.7 billion (24.5%) of the funds to date. Successful collaboration with Treasury has supported nearly $7.5 billion in additional tax awards, including $5.2 billion in clean energy grants in-lieu of tax credits as well as $2.3 billion in clean energy manufacturing. DOE’s loan program has committed more than $15 billion in loan guarantees.

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October 2, 2010
President Obama in his Weekly Address discusses solar power and a clean energy economy. He also announces in the address that a company called BrightSource plans to break ground in California's Mojave Desert on “a revolutionary new type of solar power plant.”.

October 4, 2010
NNSA announces that the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) has brought the first of three Mobile Detection Assessment Response System robots online to improve security patrols at remote portions of NNSS. The robots operate at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour and can go for more than half a day of continuous use without having to be refueled. The robots can keep track of inventory, as well as gates, locks, and other barriers, by using radio frequency identification tags.

October 5, 2010
In response to the Federal Communications Commission's National Broadband Plan issued last spring, the Department releases two reports on the privacy and access implications of Smart Grid technologies and how they are likely to affect the communications needs of utilities. The first, Data Access and Privacy Issues Related to Smart Grid Technologies focuses on how legal and regulatory regimes are evolving to protect consumer privacy and choice while promoting the growth of innovative energy-management services and technologies that rely on detailed energy-usage data. The second, Communication Requirements of Smart Grid Technologies examines how the communications needs of utilities and the electrical grid are likely to evolve as Smart Grid technologies become more widely used. The Department issued two Requests for Information and held public meetings to inform these reports.

October 5, 2010
Secretary Chu and Council of Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Nancy Sutley announce plans to install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House Residence. These two solar installations will be part of a DOE demonstration project showing that American solar technologies are available, reliable, and ready for installation in homes throughout the country. Secretary Chu and Chair Sutley make the announcement during CEQ's 2010 GreenGov Symposium.

October 5, 2010
The Department releases a new manual containing comprehensive study of 11 geologic formations suitable for permanent underground carbon dioxide storage. Using data from DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships and other sponsored research activities, the Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory developed the manual to better understand the characteristics of geologic formations that could potentially be used for carbon capture and storage.

October 6, 2010
The Department announces the second annual ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit February 28 - March 2, 2011, at the Gaylord Convention Center outside Washington, D.C. The event will bring together key players from all sectors of the nation's energy innovation community to share ideas for developing and deploying clean energy technologies, and is being co-hosted by ARPA-E and Clean Technology and Sustainable Industries Organization (CTSI), with support from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and the Kauffman Foundation. The event will feature a technology showcase with more than 100 exhibits from ARPA-E-funded projects in areas such as grid-scale storage, power electronics, batteries for electric vehicles, building efficiency, advanced carbon capture, and electrofuels. The inaugural ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, held in March 2010, attracted more than 1,700 attendees from 49 states and 16 countries.

October 6, 2010
The Department and the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) jointly file a motion in U.S. District Court asking the court to approve and enter a judicial consent decree that imposes a new schedule for cleaning up waste from Hanford's underground tanks. The settlement also includes new milestones in the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA), an administrative order between DOE, Ecology, and EPA, which governs cleanup at DOE's Hanford Site. "Today's agreement represents an important milestone in the ongoing cleanup efforts at the Hanford Site," says Secretary Chu. "This will ensure our continued progress as we work to meet our commitments to the State of Washington to protect the environment, the public, and the Columbia River."

October 6, 2010
NNSA and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) announce that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) recently completed its first integrated ignition experiment. In the test, the 192-beam laser system fired 1 megajoule of laser energy into its first cryogenically layered capsule. With the completion of this test, NIF begins its next phase of the campaign to culminate in fusion ignition tests.

October 6, 2010
The FutureGen Industrial Alliance announces details of a process that will lead to the selection of an Illinois site for the storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) collected at FutureGen 2.0, a project that will advance the deployment of carbon capture and storage technology at an Ameren Energy Resources power plant in Meredosia, Illinois. The FutureGen Industrial Alliance is responsible for the selection of the new host storage site, which will include a geologic sequestration research complex, craft labor training center, and a visitor center. The storage site will be designed to accept and store the 1.3 million metric tons per year of CO2 captured at Ameren's Meredosia plant for at least 30 years. This site also will be capable of storing CO2 from other power and large industrial sources in the future.

October 6, 2010
The National Oil Spill Commission, established by President Obama on May 22, releases four new draft working papers prepared by its staff. Responding to staff criticisms regarding the administration's handling of the spill, Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Jeffrey Zients and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, issue a joint statement.

October 7, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the release of a report from the Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The report, Large-Scale Offshore Wind Power in the United States: Assessment of Opportunities and Barriers, includes a detailed assessment of the nation's offshore wind resources and offshore wind industry, including future job growth potential. The report also analyzes the technology challenges, economics, permitting procedures, and the potential risks and benefits of offshore wind power deployment in U.S. waters.

October 7, 2010
The Department announces that more than 30 individuals, teams and organizations across the federal government were selected to receive Federal Energy and Water Management Awards for efforts to implement sustainable strategies that improve energy, water, and vehicle fleet efficiency. The initiatives receiving awards today saved taxpayers almost $42 million in energy and water costs in 2009 and kept the equivalent of about 190,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. “As the single largest consumer of energy in the country, the Federal Government has a responsibility and an opportunity to lead by example in implementing clean energy projects that save taxpayers money, create new jobs, and reduce carbon pollution,” says Secretary Chu.

October 7, 2010
The Department announces that Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will receive $12.5 million over the next five years to lead a consortium on energy-efficient building technologies under the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center (CERC). The funding will be matched by the consortium partners to provide at least $25 million in total U.S. funding. Chinese counterparts will contribute an additional $25 million.

October 7, 2010
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory releases a new study documenting the design of and early experience with state-level renewables portfolio standard (RPS) programs in the U.S. that have been specifically designed to encourage solar energy. The study finds that these state-level RPS programs have already proven to be an important driver for solar energy deployment in the U.S., resulting in more than 250 megawatts (MW) of new solar capacity through the end of 2009. Currently, 29 states have enacted mandatory RPS policies that require retail electricity sellers to supply a minimum percentage or amount of their retail load with eligible forms of renewable energy.

October 8, 2010
Secretary Chu announces a conditional commitment to provide a partial guarantee for a $1.3 billion loan in support of the world's largest wind farm to date. The loan will finance the Caithness Shepherds Flat wind project, an 845 megawatt wind-powered electrical generating facility located  in eastern Oregon sponsored by Caithness Energy LLC and General Electric (GE) Energy Financial Services. The Caithness Shepherds Flat wind project consists of 338 wind turbines. The project will use GE's 2.5xl turbines, which are designed to provide high efficiency and increased reliability, maintainability, and grid integration. The wind farm is the first in North America to deploy these turbines, which have been used in Europe and Asia.

October 8, 2010
The Department issues a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC (SRNS) for five violations at the Savannah River Site of DOE's worker safety and health regulations and withheld $3.08 million in contract fee for significant failures in safety performance, including the matters associated with this enforcement action. The violations are associated with a nitric acid spill event that occurred in F area on August 18, 2009, and an electrical arc flash injury that occurred in D-area on September 23, 2009. The nitric acid spill event occurred while workers were draining a nitric acid line during decontamination and decommissioning work. A failure in a draining device released nitric acid, injuring five workers, four of whom sustained acid burns. The electrical arc incident occurred when a metal tool fell inside an energized 480 volt circuit breaker during troubleshooting and repair work. An electrical arc was generated, injuring an electrician who sustained first, second, and third degree burns.

October 8, 2010
The Department issues a Preliminary Notice of Violation (PNOV) to Parsons Infrastructure & Technology Group, Inc. for violations at the Savannah River Site of DOE's worker safety and health regulations with a proposed civil penalty of $70,000.  The violations are associated with an October 6, 2009, hand injury event that occurred while a Parsons worker was performing crane lubrication on a moving cable at the Salt Waste Processing Facility, resulting in the loss of three fingers. The PNOV cites two violations of DOE worker safety and health regulations in the areas of hazard assessment and abatement related to crane maintenance operations and worker training and information. Parsons is cited for failure to comply with 10 Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.) Part 851, Worker Safety and Health Program. DOE has grouped and categorized the deficiencies as two Severity Level I violations with a total base civil penalty of $140,000.

October 8, 2010
Constellation Energy informs DOE that it cannot move forward with the loan guarantee process regarding its plans to build a third nuclear reactor at the Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland because the proposed terms and conditions of the loan guarantee are unworkable. The company says the cost of the $7.5 billion loan guarantee that is calculated by the Office of Management and Budget is unreasonably burdensome and would create unacceptable risks and costs for the company.

October 10, 2010
The Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announces that scientists have discovered that beta cells, which make insulin in the human body, do not replicate after the age of 30. By using radioactive carbon-14 produced by above-ground nuclear testing in the 1950s and '60s, researchers determined that the number of beta cells remains static after age 30.Whether beta cells replicate after birth has remained an open issue, and is critically important for designing therapies for diabetes.

October 11, 2010
Senior NNSA officials travel to the Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk, Russia, to commemorate 15 years of cooperation on security at the largest nuclear complex in the world. At the Seversk facility, large quantities of highly enriched uranium and plutonium are produced, processed, and stored.

October 12, 2010
NNSA announces the removal of more than 450 kilograms (more than 1,000 pounds) of Russian-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) spent fuel from Poland. The nuclear material, enough to make more than 18 nuclear weapons, was sent back to Russia in a series of five shipments over 12 months and completes the largest spent fuel shipment campaign in NNSA’s history. The campaign also included the largest single shipment of HEU spent fuel (187 kilograms) and involved the entire fleet of spent fuel transportation casks used for transportation of Russian-origin HEU. “This major milestone brings us one step closer to achieving President Obama’s goal of securing all nuclear material around the world within four years,” says NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino.

October 12, 2010
Trans-Elect Development Company, based in Maryland, announces the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) backbone transmission project consisting of a $5-billion, high-voltage transmission line beneath the Atlantic Ocean for bringing power from offshore wind farms off the Mid-Atlantic coast to the mainland. The Mid-Atlantic region, according to the company, offers more than 60,000 MW of offshore wind potential in the relatively shallow waters of the outer continental shelf.

October 13, 2010
NNSA announces that it has authorized its Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, to begin dismantlement of the B53 weapons system. The B53 weapons system, which was introduced into the stockpile in 1962, served a key role in the United States’ nuclear deterrent until its final retirement in 1997. This megaton-class weapon is about the size of a mini-van and weighs approximately 10,000 pounds.

October 13, 2010
EIA releases the October 2010 Short-Term Energy Outlook and forecasts a modest rise in heating bills for many U.S. consumers during the upcoming winter. "EIA expects household bills for space-heating fuels will be about 3 percent higher than a year ago, with the average household spending $986 in the October through March winter heating season, an increase of $24 from last winter," says EIA Administrator Richard Newell. The higher bills primarily reflect higher fuel prices, although expected colder weather than last winter in the Northeast will also contribute to more fuel use. EIA expects the largest increases in fuel expenses to be in households using propane and heating oil. Households using electricity for space heating, particularly in the South, should see lower average fuel bills, in part due to expected warmer weather.

October 13, 2010
EPA waives a limitation on selling fuel that is more than 10 percent ethanol for model year 2007 and newer cars and light trucks. The waiver applies to fuel that contains up to 15 percent ethanol — known as E15 — and only to model year 2007 and newer cars and light trucks. This represents the first of a number of actions that are needed from federal, state, and industry towards commercialization of E15 gasoline blends.

October 13, 2010
Scholars with American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, and the Breakthrough Institute release a new report, Post-Partisan Power, which calls for revamping the nation's energy innovation system with the aim of making clean energy cheap. The new report calls for increasing federal innovation investment from roughly $4 today to $25 billion annually, and using military procurement, new, disciplined deployment incentives, and public-private hubs to achieve both incremental improvements and breakthroughs in clean energy technologies. The authors point to the nation's long history of bipartisan support for innovation.

October 14, 2010
Secretary Chu commends Universal Display Corporation (UDC) for selecting Canandaigua, New York, for the site of a new clean energy facility to manufacture next-generation lighting technologies. The Department awarded UDC a $4 million grant under the Recovery Act to bring its lighting technologies to pilot manufacturing scale. The Recovery Act funding for the project leveraged investments from UDC, its manufacturing partner Moser-Baer Technologies, New York's Smart System Technology and Commercialization Center, and municipal tax credits, to support a total investment of more than $17.5 million. At pilot scale, the facility will employ nearly 60 full-time employees in Upstate New York. The location will be the site for the nation's first pilot manufacturing line for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), a next-generation lighting technology with the potential to significantly reduce energy use in commercial and residential buildings.

October 14, 2010
The Department's Inspector General (IG), Gregory Friedman, in a report to Secretary Chu, finds that investigations at a local agency in Cook County, Illinois — the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County, Inc. (CEDA) — charged with overseeing $91 million in Recovery Act weatherization funding revealed "substandard performance in weatherization workmanship, initial home assessments, and contractor billing." The IG states that "these problems were of such significance that they put the integrity of the entire Program at risk."

October 15, 2010
NNSA officials meet with their counterparts from the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation to share best practices for managing and securing nuclear materials. The two-day exchange in Budapest, Hungary, is sponsored by NNSA’s Material Protection, Control, and Accounting program and is the fifth in a series of annual best practices meetings between NNSA and Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom), and the third to include experts from the U.K. Ministry of Defence and Atomic Weapons Establishment.

October 15, 2010
NNSA and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) host a ceremony at EDA Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to officially start production of a new dental implant that uses stronger alloys that allow it to bond more quickly to human bone. The new implant is made with nanotitanium, a metal that is stronger than conventional alloys and integrates much more quickly with human bone. The commercial product was developed and brought to market as a result of the Global Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (GIPP) program. NNSA’s GIPP program helps advance global nonproliferation efforts through collaborative research and development that applies the expertise of former weapons of mass destruction personnel to the development of civil-use technologies. The product was created under a three-year partnership between LANL, several Russian institutes, and New Mexico-based Manhattan Scientifics.

October 18, 2010
NNSA announces that its Office of Emergency Operations has developed and delivered a new X-ray image processing capability to the nation’s emergency response community. X-Ray Toolkit (XTK) is an application used by field responders and NNSA Laboratory experts to acquire, process, and analyze X-ray images obtained during a potential nuclear terrorism incident.

October 18, 2010
Secretary Chu attends the White House Science Fair celebrating the winners of a broad range of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) competitions. President Obama and senior administration officials view exhibits of students’ work, ranging from breakthrough basic research to new inventions, followed by remarks by the President to an audience of students, science educators, and business leaders on the importance of STEM education to the country’s economic future.

October 19, 2010
The Department announces the offer of a conditional commitment for a $350 million loan guarantee to develop the One Nevada Transmission Line (ON Line), the first transmission line project to be offered a conditional commitment by the Department’s Loan Programs Office. ON Line consists of a new 500 kilovolt (kV) AC transmission line that will run 235 miles from Ely, Nevada, to just north of Las Vegas, with a new substation located at the northern end of the line. The project will carry approximately 600 megawatts (MW) of electricity, including renewable energy resources in northern Nevada, and will integrate existing transmission systems in northern and southern Nevada. The ON Line project will be the first phase of the Southwest Intertie Project (SWIP) which, when fully completed, will carry approximately 2,000 MW of electricity and enable wind and solar resources in Wyoming, Idaho, and Nevada to power the southwest and California markets.

October 19, 2010
NNSA announces that its Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, successfully met and in a number of areas exceeded all Defense Program goals during Fiscal Year 2010. While the specific goals and numbers are classified, the Pantex Plant accomplished 126 percent of NNSA’s goal for planned stockpile dismantlements.

October 20, 2010
Department contractor and regulatory representatives mark the completion of cleanup work at Savannah River Site’s (SRS) M Area, nearly two years ahead of schedule. This area cleanup was the first at SRS to be completed with the help of Recovery Act funding. Work was part of a $1.6 billion investment of Recovery Act funds at SRS to accelerate cleanup and reduce the site’s footprint by 75 percent by 2011.

October 21, 2010
The Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 23rd Industry Growth Forum attracts nearly 500 investors, entrepreneurs, scientists, and policymakers to Denver. The three-day forum highlights clean energy industry technology and business developments. NREL also hosts the Clean Energy Opportunity Forum showcasing the latest clean energy opportunities in Colorado and across the country.

October 21, 2010
Chemists from the Department's Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University announce the discovery of the proton mechanism used by the flu virus to infect cells. The flu virus uses a shuttle mechanism to relay protons through a channel in a process necessary for the virus to infect a host cell. A full understanding of that mechanism could help medical researchers design drugs that stop protons from moving through the channel. The findings are published in the October 22 issue of the journal Science.

October 25, 2010
EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announce the first national standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the fuel efficiency of heavy-duty trucks and buses. EPA and DOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are proposing new standards for three categories of heavy trucks: combination tractors, heavy-duty pickups, and vans, and vocational vehicles.

October 25, 2010
The U.S. Department of the Interior approves the largest solar energy project ever to be built on U.S. public lands. When constructed, the Blythe Solar Power Project will produce up to 1,000 megawatts of solar power, or enough to power 300,000-750,000 homes. The project, proposed by Palo Verde Solar I, a subsidiary of Solar Millennium, LLC, will cover 7,025 acres of public lands eight miles west of Blythe in Riverside County, California.

October 26, 2010
The Department, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), and the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announce eight joint research awards totaling nearly $5 million to support the responsible siting and permitting of offshore wind energy facilities and ocean energy generated from waves, tides, currents, and thermal gradients. This research will address key information gaps regarding the potential environmental effects of renewable ocean energy.

October 26, 2010
Secretary Chu issues a statement on the opening of the Southeast Weatherization & Energy  Efficiency Training (SWEET) Center in Atlanta, Georgia. “The SWEET Center in Atlanta will play a critical role in training thousands of workers for new jobs, laying the foundation for continued growth in this developing industry,” notes the Secretary. “With help from the Recovery Act, this program will provide workers with the skills they need to offer local homeowners quality energy efficiency upgrades that will save them money by saving energy.” The Southface Energy Institute in Atlanta, Georgia received approximately $200,000 under the Recovery Act, distributed through the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority (GEFA). Southface was able to leverage that Recovery Act funding with private funding sources for a total investment of $600,000 toward the development of the SWEET Center and its weatherization training programs.

October 26, 2010
The Department and the White House Council on Environmental Quality host a workshop with the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative in Chicago focused on the siting of offshore wind power in the Great Lakes. The two-day workshop brings together wind developers, federal and state regulators, environmental advocates, and other regional stakeholders to discuss methods for ensuring greater clarity, certainty, and coordination of federal and state decision-making for offshore wind development in the Great Lakes.

October 27, 2010
Secretary Chu issues a statement on the groundbreaking of BASF's new production plant in Elyria, Ohio, for advanced lithium-ion battery materials, funded in part through DOE's Vehicle Technologies Program. “This groundbreaking is an illustration of how Recovery Act investments are creating jobs and building new industries here in the U.S.,” notes the Secretary, putting “Elyria at the forefront of innovation in America's automotive industry.” BASF Catalysts, LLC was awarded $24.6 million under the Recovery Act to establish a facility to produce 2,500 metric tons per year of nickel-cobalt-metal cathode materials, a critical component of lithium-ion batteries for electric and hybrid electric vehicles. The technology included in the batteries is licensed from DOE's Argonne National Laboratory, and when the plant is fully operational in 2012, it is expected to be the most advanced cathode materials production plant in North America.

October 27, 2010
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, (SRNS) DOE's Management and Operating (M&O) contractor at the Savannah River Site announces the signing of an agreement with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) to explore the potential of deploying a prototype of GEH’s Generation IV PRISM reactor as part of a proposed demonstration of small modular reactor technologies at the site.

October 27, 2010
Secretary of the Interior Salazar joins California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, an innovative "power tower" project in San Bernardino County, California. Located in Southern California’s Mojave Desert, Ivanpah will use solar “power tower” technology to produce up to 370 megawatts of clean, renewable energy for up to 277,500 homes. The project, which is supported in part by a $1.37 billion conditional commitment for a loan guarantee from DOE, consists of three solar thermal power units that use pivoting mirror fields to focus solar energy on power tower receivers near the center of each array which are filled with water. This concentrated heat causes the solar boilers to produce steam, which in turn drives a turbine which generates electricity for the transmission grid.

October 28, 2010
Secretary Chu issues a statement on the groundbreaking for a high-efficiency, energy recovery project at ArcelorMittal's Indiana Harbor steel mill in East Chicago, Indiana. The project is part of DOE's investments in industrial energy efficiency funded under the Recovery Act. “This project is creating new jobs in the Midwest,” notes the Secretary, “and by reducing energy use at the steel mill, it will lower operating costs at the facility and help to make the company more competitive.” ArcelorMittal received $31.6 million under the Recovery Act to improve the efficiency at its Indiana Harbor steel mill in East Chicago, Indiana. This funding is being matched by the company to support the $63.2 million Energy Recovery and Reuse Project.  The project will allow ArcelorMittal to install an efficient boiler system that will use the waste blast furnace gas generated during iron making operations to produce steam and electricity on-site.

October 28, 2010
Thomas D’Agostino, NNSA administrator, delivers the keynote address (full text) at a conference on nuclear forces and nonproliferation at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The conference, co-sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory, focuses on the United States’ evolving nuclear forces and international nonproliferation efforts. Specifically, participants discussed the implementation of the Nuclear Posture Review and long-term prospects for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

October 29, 2010
Secretary Chu, in a statement, commends the opening of the Nordex wind turbine manufacturing facility in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The facility is supported by funding from the Recovery Act. “Today's grand opening in Jonesboro is a sign of what's possible as we invest in the country's growing clean energy manufacturing sector,” says the Secretary. Under the Recovery Act, Nordex USA, Inc. received a tax credit for $22.2 million to assist in the creation of a wind turbine manufacturing facility in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The 150,000 square foot manufacturing plant is a world-class production facility and will build components for 2.5-megawatt wind turbines that belong to Nordex's third-generation turbine - the Gamma generation. The total planned investment for the site is $100 million, with further manufacturing capacity to be added in the second phase in line with market conditions.

October 29, 2010
Secretary Chu issues a statement commending the announcement by Merrill Technologies Group and Northern Power Systems of the first-ever utility-scale wind turbine manufactured and assembled in Michigan. Merrill Technologies' Saginaw, Michigan, manufacturing facility that supplied parts for the turbine was funded in part under the Recovery Act. Under the Recovery Act, Merrill Technologies Group received a $22 million 48C Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit to expand its production facilities to manufacture wind turbine nacelles, which are the parts of the turbines that sit above the tower and house the engine and other key turbine components. The company has invested $73 million in its Saginaw facility to produce these wind turbine components for Northern Power Systems' new 2.2-megawatt utility-scale wind turbine. Merrill Technologies is also using $3 million awarded through the Michigan Clean Energy Advanced Manufacturing (CEAM) program to purchase equipment for manufacturing commercial-sized wind turbine systems. The CEAM program was funded under the Recovery Act through DOE's State Energy Program.

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November 1, 2010
Secretary Chu begins a trip to Scotland and Ireland where he will meet with government and academic leaders, as well as American and Irish business leaders who are engaged in clean energy industries. Both Scotland and Ireland share similar energy challenges and resources with the U.S., including significant offshore wind energy potential. In addition to meetings, Secretary Chu will tour several facilities related to clean energy.

November 2, 2010
In mid-term elections, Democrats in the House lose 63 seats and Republicans take control 242 to 193. In the Senate, Democrats lose 6 seats and their margin is reduced to 53 to 47.

November 2, 2010
NNSA signs a new agreement with the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). The agreement provides a framework for greater technical cooperation between the U.S. and Europe in areas such as nuclear safeguards, border monitoring, nuclear forensics, export controls, and physical protection of nuclear materials facilities. It also calls for closer collaboration on research and development of nuclear security and nonproliferation technologies, and for enhanced coordination of outreach to third countries.

November 3, 2010
Secretary Chu tours the research facilities at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland. The university is playing a major role in wind and wave power research.

November 3, 2010
President Obama, asked in a press conference at the White House if there are areas that he would be willing to compromise on following the Republican takeover of the House and gains in the Senate, cites the issue of energy. "I think there are a lot of Republicans that ran against the energy bill that passed in the House last year, " the President notes. "And so it’s doubtful that you could get the votes to pass that through the House this year or next year or the year after. But that doesn't mean there isn't agreement that we should have a better energy policy. And so let’s find those areas where we can agree. We’ve got, I think, broad agreement that we’ve got terrific natural gas resources in this country. Are we doing everything we can to develop those? There's a lot of agreement around the need to make sure that electric cars are developed here in the United States, that we don't fall behind other countries. Are there things that we can do to encourage that? And there's already been bipartisan interest on those issues. There's been discussion about how we can restart our nuclear industry as a means of reducing our dependence on foreign oil and reducing greenhouse gases. Is that an area where we can move forward? We were able, over the last two years, to increase for the first time in 30 years fuel-efficiency standards on cars and trucks. We didn’t even need legislation. We just needed the cooperation of automakers and autoworkers and investors and other shareholders.  And that's going to move us forward in a serious way. So I think when it comes to something like energy, what we’re probably going to have to do is say here are some areas where there's just too much disagreement between Democrats and Republicans, we can’t get this done right now, but let’s not wait. Let’s go ahead and start making some progress on the things that we do agree on, and we can continue to have a strong and healthy debate about those areas where we don’t."

November 3, 2010
DOE and EPA release the 2011 Fuel Economy Guide, providing consumers with information about estimated mileage and fuel costs for model year 2011 vehicles. For the first time, the guide includes medium-duty passenger vehicles, which are generally large sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and passenger vans. These vehicles were not previously subject to fuel economy measurement and labeling requirements.

November 3, 2010
NNSA announces that it has standardized uniforms for Protective Forces in an effort to promote solidarity and a professional image across all of its sites. The new standardized uniform will permit bulk purchases, which is projected to save $500,000 within eight years. Strategic sourcing of inclement-weather uniform items will yield similar cost avoidance.

November 3, 2010
The Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory announces that scientists at Los Alamos and DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory have fabricated transparent thin films capable of absorbing light and generating electric charge over a relatively large area. The material, described in the journal Chemistry of Materials, could be used in the development of transparent solar panels.

November 4, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman represents the U.S. at the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC) Executive Committee Meeting in Jordan. The conference aims to advance cooperation among participating states to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy in a manner that meets high standards of safety, security, and nonproliferation.

November 4, 2010
NNSA announces announced that it has signed an agreement with Cameroon to begin a cooperative effort to deter, detect, and interdict illicit smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive materials. U.S. Ambassador Robert P. Jackson and Cameroon Minister of External Affairs, H.E. Henri Eyebe Ayissi sign the memorandum of understanding during a ceremony in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

November 4, 2010
The Department's National Energy Technology Laboratory announces that a field test has demonstrated that opportunities to permanently store carbon in unmineable seams of lignite may be more widespread than previously documented. The PCOR Partnership, one of seven partnerships in DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership Program, collaborated with Eagle Operating Inc. (Kenmare, N.D.) to complete the field test in Burke County, North Dakota. In March 2009, approximately 90 tons of CO2 were injected over 2 weeks into a coal seam 10-12 feet thick at a depth of approximately 1,100 feet. Testing demonstrated that the CO2 did not significantly move away from the wellbore and was contained within the coal seam for the duration of a 3-month monitoring period. This finding supports national efforts to potentially address climate change through long-term storage of CO2 in underground geologic reservoirs.

November 8, 2010
The Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) announce the successful removal of nearly 60 kilograms of spent nuclear fuel from an NRC licensed facility near San Diego, California. The facility includes a research reactor that supported government research for more than four decades but is permanently shut down and awaiting decommissioning.

November 8, 2010
The Department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announces that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) has set world records for neutron yield from laser-driven fusion fuel capsules and laser energy delivered to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) targets. On October 31 the NIF laser fired a shot of 300 trillion neutrons, the most neutrons ever yielded by a laser to date, and one step closer to the number of neutrons (about 10 to the 18th power) needed to reach fusion ignition. On November 2, a NIF team was able to use the laser to create a temperature of six million degrees Fahrenheit — the highest X-ray drive energy ever achieved in an indirect drive ignition target. The NIF team eventually hopes to create the first ever fusion ignition in a lab,

November 9, 2010
Vice President Biden and Secretary Chu announce the launch of the Home Energy Score pilot program and the release of the Workforce Guidelines for Home Energy Upgrades. The Home Energy Score will offer homeowners straightforward, reliable information about their homes' energy efficiency. A report (see a sample report) provides consumers with a home energy score between 1 and 10, and shows them how their home compares to others in their region. The Workforce Guidelines are a comprehensive set of guidelines for workers in the residential energy efficiency industry. The guidelines will help develop and expand the skills of the workforce, ensuring the quality of the work performed, while laying the foundation for a more robust worker certification and training program nationwide.

November 9, 2010
NNSA and the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom) conclude two days of consultations on U.S. and Russian efforts to dispose of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. Led by Rosatom Deputy Director General Ivan Kamenskikh, the Russian delegation meets with senior Department and NNSA officials in Washington and tours the Waste Solidification Building as well as the Process Assembly Facility under construction at DOE’s Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. This is the first time Russian officials have visited NNSA’s Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility.

November 10, 2010
NNSA announces that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has removed 80 percent of its special nuclear material requiring the highest level of security protection. The move is part of NNSA’s efforts to consolidate special nuclear material at five sites by the end of 2012, with significantly reduced square footage at those sites by 2017. The five receiver sites are the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Nevada National Security Site, the Savannah River Site, Y-12 Security Complex,  and the Idaho National Laboratory,

November 12, 2010
At the Seoul Summit, President Obama and the other G-20 Leaders reaffirm their commitment to the decision taken at the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit in 2009 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies in the medium term. The G-20 also agrees to take concrete steps to make the world’s physical oil markets more transparent and to continue to improve the regulation of financial oil derivative markets. These actions are expected to reduce the volatility of oil prices, thereby benefiting both energy producers and consumers.

November 12, 2010
President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, in Yokohama, announce new energy and nuclear security initiatives: the Energy-Smart Communities Initiative to support the energy-efficient buildings, transport, and electric power grids that will underpin sustainable development and long-term job creation for the Asia-Pacific region; the U.S.-Japan Clean Energy Policy Dialogue led by DOE and Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry at the senior official level that will bring together U.S. and Japanese experts to discuss policies on the development and deployment of clean energy technologies, including electric vehicles, transformative energy, and peaceful nuclear energy; and the U.S.-Japan Nuclear Security Working Group responsible for identifying and coordinating tangible outcomes for the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, including by promoting robust security for nuclear materials at civilian nuclear facilities and during transportation. A fact sheet also is issued summarizing discussions on the reduction of nuclear risks and reflects the commitment of the two governments to deepen their cooperation and collaboration in the fields of nuclear security, nuclear disarmament, and nuclear nonproliferation.

November 12, 2010
The Department announces the establishment of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Advisory Committee (ERAC). ERAC is a federal advisory committee whose members report directly to the Secretary with advice on the portfolio of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. ERAC is expected to meet twice a year. The meetings will be open to the public. The Committee is being established in accordance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

November 13, 2010
President Obama and other leaders of nations represented at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Yokohama, Japan, agree on an economic growth strategy that includes enhanced energy security and the promotion of energy-efficiency and low-carbon policies.

November 14, 2010
Secretary Chu, on the first day of a six-day trip to China and Japan to meet with government officials, business leaders, and others to discuss the Department's ongoing clean energy and scientific collaboration with both countries, tours clean energy businesses in Shanghai, including Huaneng Power's carbon capture and storage project.

November 16, 2010
The Department and the city of Washington, D.C., join together to celebrate the installation of the first public electric vehicle charging station in the city.

November 16, 2010
The FutureGen Alliance announces that six bidders — communities and counties — have submitted full proposals to host the carbon dioxide (CO2) storage site for the FutureGen 2.0 project. The storage site will receive and store CO2 emissions from an upgraded power plant in Meredosia, Illinois, and will also host carbon capture and storage research, education and training, and visitors’ facilities.

November 17, 2010
Secretary Chu announces an investment from the Department of more than $19 million for five projects aimed at optimizing the nation's electric grid. The projects will demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of smart grid technologies in three research areas: integrated modeling and analysis tools to automate distribution; advanced sensing, monitoring, and control technologies to enhance asset use and grid reliability; and voltage regulation for high penetration of renewable generation. The projects selected include proposals from Areva T&D, Inc. (Redmond, Washington), Boeing Company (Saint Louis, Missouri), ABB Inc. (Raleigh, North Carolina), Varentec, Inc. (North Andover, Massachusetts), and On-Ramp Wireless, Inc. (San Diego, California).

November 17, 2010
In a Joint Statement the co-chairs of the U.S.-Kazakhstan Energy Partnership announce the completion of the large-scale campaign to safely shut down Kazakhstan’s BN-350 plutonium production reactor, secure the spent fuel is produced, and then package and transport the spent fuel to a new secure storage facility. These activities were conducted in accordance with U.S.-Kazakhstan Presidential Joint Statements in 2006 and 2010. Deputy Secretary Poneman is the U.S. co-chair.

November 17, 2010
The White House in a fact sheet notes the administration's "extraordinary commitment to ensure the modernization of our nuclear infrastructure." The administration plans to invest more than $85 billion over the next decade to modernize the Department's nuclear weapons complex. This represents a $4.1 billion increase over the next five years relative to the plan provided to Congress in May. To begin this effort, President Obama requested $7 billion for NNSA in fiscal year 2011 — an increase of nearly 10 percent over the prior year. 

November 18, 2010
President Obama offers remarks at the beginning of a meeting of administration officials and congressional leadership on ratifying the New START treaty.

November 18, 2010
The Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) announces that atoms of antimatter have been trapped and stored for the first time in a magnetic bottle-like device by the ALPHA collaboration, an international team of scientists working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva, Switzerland. Scientists from LBNL and the University of California at Berkeley made key contributions to the ongoing international effort.

November 20, 2010
President Obama, in his weekly address, calls ratification of the New START treaty by the Senate this year “fundamental” to America’s national security.  Failure to ratify the treaty this year, the President notes, not only would mean losing U.S. nuclear inspectors in Russia, but also it would undermine the international coalition pressuring Iran, put to risk the transit routes used to equip U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and undo decades of American leadership and bipartisanship on nuclear security.

November 22, 2010
Secretary Chu announces an offer of a nearly $50 million conditional loan commitment to The Vehicle Production Group LLC (VPG). The conditional loan commitment will support the development of the six-passenger MV-1, a factory-built wheelchair accessible vehicle that will run on compressed natural gas. The vehicle will be produced at the Mishawaka, Indiana, AM General Plant. As a dedicated compressed natural gas vehicle, the MV-1 will use no gasoline and produce lower emissions than gasoline-fueled vehicles. Vehicle Production Group estimates that at full capacity, the project will produce approximately 22,650 vehicles per year. Between production, part suppliers, sales and marketing, the project is expected to create over 900 jobs.

November 22, 2010
NNSA and the Ministry of Interior (MOI) of the Republic of Bulgaria announce the commissioning of mobile radiation detection equipment to be deployed throughout Bulgaria as part of the cooperative effort to prevent the smuggling of nuclear materials.

November 22, 2010
EPA announces that it has finalized two rules related to the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide. The drinking water protection rule is designed to ensure that wells used for geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide are appropriately sited, constructed, tested, monitored, and closed. The greenhouse gas reporting rule will enable EPA to track the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered by facilities that carry out geologic sequestration. The EPA notes that the actions are "part of efforts to reduce barriers to widespread deployment of carbon capture and sequestration, an important set of technologies to combat climate change."

November 23, 2010
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announces a ‘Smart from the Start’ wind energy initiative for the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf to facilitate siting, leasing, and construction of new projects. "To fully harness the economic and energy benefits of our nation’s vast Atlantic wind potential," the Secretary says, "we need to implement a smart permitting process that is efficient, thorough, and unburdened by needless red tape."

November 29, 2010
Secretary Chu, in a speech at the National Press Club, says that the success of China and other countries in clean energy industries represents a new "Sputnik Moment" for the United States and requires a similar mobilization of America's innovation machine so that we can compete in the global race for the jobs of the future. "When it comes to innovation, Americans don't take a back seat to anyone — and we certainly won't start now," states the Secretary. "From wind power to nuclear reactors to high-speed rail, China and other countries are moving aggressively to capture the lead. Given that challenge, and given the enormous economic opportunities in clean energy, it's time for America to do what we do best: innovate. As President Obama has said, we should not, cannot, and will not play for second place.”

November 29, 2010
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a group of presidentially appointed experts from academia, non-governmental organizations, and industry, releases a report recommending that the U.S. craft a government-wide federal energy policy and update it regularly with strategic Quadrennial Reviews similar to those produced by the U.S. Department of Defense. The report, Accelerating the Pace of Change in Energy Technologies Through an Integrated Federal Energy Policy, provides a roadmap for the federal role in transforming the U.S. energy system within one to two decades — a transformation that is necessary, it concludes, for reasons of economic competitiveness, environmental stewardship, and national security. The report also finds that the Federal investment in energy-related research, development,
demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) is considerably less than in a number of other industrialized countries as a fraction of gross domestic product. It urges a substantial increase—to about $16 billion per year, from the current annual level of approximately $5 billion — and suggests that the President engage the private sector, consumer representatives, and Congress to explore options to provide about $10 billion of the additional funding through new revenue streams.

November 29, 2010
EPA announces that 13.95 billion gallons of ethanol and other renewable fuels will be blended into U.S. gasoline supplies in 2011. This is about 1 billion gallons more than the current renewable-fuels mandate. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 amended the Clean Air Act to increase the total required volume of renewable fuels each year, reaching a level of 36 billion gallons in 2022. The EPA finalizes a lower 2011 cellulosic biofuels volume, at 6.6 million gallons, than the statutory target due to slower than expected commercial availability. The EPA, however, "remains optimistic that the commercial availability of cellulosic biofuel will continue to grow in the years ahead."

November 30, 2010
Secretary Chu, during a live online chat at the White House, announces that 24 Recovery Act projects are receiving a total of $21 million in technical assistance to dramatically reduce the energy used in their commercial buildings. This initiative will connect commercial building owners and operators with multidisciplinary teams including researchers at DOE’s National Laboratories and private sector building experts. The teams will design, construct, measure, and test low-energy building plans, and will help accelerate the deployment of cost-effective energy-saving measures in commercial buildings across the U.S. The projects are funded with a public/private cost-sharing agreement, where the building owners and operators contribute at least 20 percent. Building owners and operators do not receive direct funding through the project, but instead get access to state-of-the-art technical guidance to implement energy efficiency technologies throughout the design, construction, and evaluation phases of their building and retrofit projects. This technical expertise includes energy modeling and energy performance verification by laboratory researchers and private sector experts. The Secretary also says that he would like to see the U.S. generate at least 20 percent of its electricity from renewable
sources by 2020, and 50 percent or more by 2050.

November 30, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the largest-ever awards of the Department's supercomputing time to 57 innovative research projects—using computer simulations to perform virtual experiments that in most cases would be impossible or impractical in the natural world. Specifically, the Department is awarding time on two of the world's fastest and most powerful supercomputers — the Cray XT5 ("Jaguar") at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the IBM Blue Gene/P ("Intrepid") at Argonne National Laboratory. Projects — were selected on a competitive, peer-review basis and evaluated for computational readiness. Selected projects were chosen for their potential to advance scientific discoveries, speed technological innovations, and strengthen industrial competitiveness and for their ability to make use of hundreds of thousands of processors to work in concert to do so. More than half of the projects are led by university researchers, with the remainder of the awards going to the government and industry scientists and engineers.

November 30, 2010
EIA releases Summary: U.S. Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Natural Gas Liquids Reserves, 2009, and notes that U.S. natural gas proved reserves, estimated as "wet" gas which includes natural gas plant liquids, increased by 11 percent in 2009 to 284 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), the highest level since 1971. "Shale gas development drove an 11 percent increase in U.S. natural gas proved reserves last year,... demonstrating the growing importance of shale gas in meeting both current and projected energy needs," says Richard Newell, EIA's Administrator. "Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania were the leading states in adding new proved reserves of shale gas during 2009."

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December 1, 2010
The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, an 18-member panel of current and former lawmakers, industry officials, and academics, created by President Obama and also known as Bowles-Simpson from the names of the co-chairs, issues its final report. The Commission recommends gradually increasing the per-gallon gas tax by 15 cents between 2013 and 2015. The current tax is 18.4 cents per gallon.

December 2, 2010
The Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) announces that researchers at NREL and the University of Colorado, Boulder, report the first designed molecular system that produces two triplet states from an excited singlet state of a molecule, with essentially perfect efficiency. The breakthrough could lead to a 35 percent increase in light-harvesting yield in cells for photovoltaics and solar fuels.

December 2, 2010
The Department's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory announces that scientists working with DOE’s Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource have found the first known living organism that incorporates arsenic into the working parts of its cells. The arsenic replaces phosphorus, an element long thought essential for life. The results are published online in Science Express.

December 3, 2010
The Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announces the dedication of a new Tennessee State-funded research facility at the laboratory. Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen joins officials from the University of Tennessee and DOE in the dedication. The Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences, a 31,000-sqare-foot facility, contains 82 offices and seven laboratories. Located adjacent to ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source, the Joint Institute will serve as an intellectual hub for the neutron science community and as a gateway that provides researchers access to the world's most powerful neutron scattering facilities.

December 6, 2010
President Obama, in a speech on the economy in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, declares that "our generation’s Sputnik moment is back." He notes that "if this is truly going to be our Sputnik moment, we need a commitment to innovation that we haven’t seen since President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon. And we’re directing a lot of that research into one of the most promising areas for economic growth and job creation — and that's clean energy technology. I don’t want to see new solar panels or electric cars or advanced batteries manufactured in Europe or in Asia.  I want to see them made right here in America, by American businesses and American workers."

December 6, 2010
Secretary Chu attends the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, participating in a conversation with Mexican Secretary of Energy Georgina Kessel about energy efficiency, the future of clean energy, and the two countries' bilateral cooperation to address shared climate change challenges. The conversation is moderated by U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual and is part of the Green Solutions showcase hosted by the Mexican government. Later in the day, the Secretary speaks at the U.S. Center to business leaders, government officials, and experts from around the world

December 6, 2010
The Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) both sign Administrative Orders on Consent (AOC) with the California Environmental Protection Agency that define the process for characterization and the cleanup end-state for portions of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL). The agreements come after more than 10 months of negotiations and extensive public comment on the conceptual framework for cleanup outlined in the Agreement in Principle and additional public comment on the legally enforceable process and procedures in the draft Administrative Order on Consent. Originally developed as a remote site to test rocket engines and conduct nuclear research, the 2,850-acre SSFL, located in the hills between Chatsworth and Simi Valley, is owned primarily by the Boeing Company, with small portions administered by the NASA. The former Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor agency to DOE, and DOE conducted nuclear research on nuclear-powered space vehicles and sodium coolant mediums at 10 small reactors at the Energy Technology Engineering Center—90 acres within SSFL Area IV—from the 1950s until 1988.

December 6, 2010
Secretary Chu issues a statement highlighting a ribbon cutting event at SBE, Inc.'s new production plant in Barre, Vermont. The plant will manufacture electric vehicles, direct current bus capacitors, components for next-generation advanced electric-drive vehicles. The facility was funded in part by a $8.5 million grant through the Recovery Act.

December 7, 2010
Secretary Chu participates in the New Millennium Nuclear Summit along with White House Advisor Carol Browner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Greg Jaczko, and members of the Congress as well as members of industry, labor, and non-governmental organizations. The forum on the future of nuclear energy in the U.S. is hosted by Third Way and the Idaho National Laboratory. The Secretary says that allowing nuclear energy to count towards a federal “clean-energy standard” for electricity generation might help encourage investments in new reactors.

December 8, 2010
The Department announces that a $428-million, five-year contract has been awarded to the Babcock & Wilcox Conversion Services, LLC, of Lynchburg, Virginia, for operation of the Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) facilities at DOE’s Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky, sites. The Portsmouth and Paducah facilities were designed to convert DOE’s 700,000 metric ton inventory of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) to a stable chemical form that is acceptable for transportation, beneficial reuse or disposal. The contract also calls for emptying and disposing of the 62,000 cylinders that have stored the DUF6.

December 9, 2010
The Department announces the first industrial plants in the country to be certified under the Superior Energy Performance program — a new, market-based industrial energy efficiency program. The energy management certification program is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and will serve as a roadmap for industrial facilities to help continually improve their efficiency and maintain market competitiveness. "This program is helping to lay the groundwork for broad improvements in industrial efficiency in the U.S. and internationally," says Secretary Chu.  "By implementing the latest energy management practices and technologies as part of the Superior Energy Performance certification program, these U.S. companies are saving money, reducing carbon pollution, and making their businesses more competitive in the global marketplace."

December 9, 2010
NNSA announces that Washington Middle School in Cairo, Georgia, is selected as the initial school to institute the expansion of NNSA’s Laboratories K-12 Outreach Program. “NNSA is thrilled to help promote the sciences and new learning opportunities with K-12 students in communities throughout the U.S.,” says NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino. “Here at NNSA, we understand the importance of encouraging children of all ages to learn about math, science, and engineering so that the NNSA, other government agencies, and the private sector can recruit the best and the brightest from the next generation of professionals.”

December 9, 2010
The Department's Sandia National Laboratories announces that a benchtop version of the world’s smallest battery — its anode a single nanowire one seven-thousandth the thickness of a human hair — has been created by a team led by laboratory researchers. This experiment enabled researchers to study the charging and discharging of a battery in real-time and at atomic-scale resolution, thus enlarging understanding of the fundamental mechanisms by which batteries work

December 10, 2010
Deputy Secretary Poneman, representing the U.S. government, signs a joint statement with Russia's Director-General of the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom" Sergey Kirienko on the results of the Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Security Working Group meeting that took place on December 6-7, 2010. The Working Group meeting strengthened cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on civil nuclear energy and nuclear security.

December 10, 2010
President Obama announces his intent to nominate individuals to key Administration posts, including Peter B. Lyons as the Department’s Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy.

December 12, 2010
Secretary Chu, appearing on Platts Energy Week, a television program that airs in Washington and Houston, says that in working with the next Congress the administration will have to find "common ground" with the Republicans on energy issues. "Absent a price on carbon," he notes, referring to the failure to pass a comprehensive bill that would have put a price on carbon emissions, "what are the things you can do? Well, you can create a demand for this thing, whether it be wind or solar or any form of renewable energy [and] say, ‘This is where we are heading,’" Asked to grade his work so far at DOE, the Secretary points to start up of the ARPA-E and obligating more than $32 billion in Recovery Act funds within DOE’s deadline of 18 months. "In those two things," he observes, "I would give, I would say, an ‘A’."

December 13, 2010
NNSA announces the successful removal of more than 3,900 radiological sources, the largest single radiological source consolidation to date in Ukraine, from the Electron Gaz Plant in Zholtiy Vodi, Ukraine. The sources, which were left behind after the company operating the plant went bankrupt, have now been transferred to a new, high-security facility dedicated by U.S. and Ukrainian officials earlier this year

December 14, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the completion of a new cool roof installation on the Department’s Headquarters West Building.  There was no incremental cost to adding the cool roof as part of the roof replacement project and it will save taxpayers $2,000 every year in building energy costs. Cool roofs use lighter-colored roofing surfaces or special coatings to reflect more of the sun's heat, helping improve building efficiency, reduce cooling costs, and offset carbon emissions.

December 14, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that a $400 million loan guarantee has been finalized for Abound Solar Manufacturing, LLC, to manufacture state-of-the-art thin-film solar panels. The Abound Solar project represents the fifth Recovery Act loan guarantee project to close to date. The project, which includes facilities in Longmont, Colorado, and Tipton, Indiana, will use new manufacturing technology for Cadmium-Telluride panels that has never before been deployed commercially in the world. At full capacity, the project will be capable of producing 840 megawatts of solar panels each year.

December 15, 2010
The Department releases a report, Critical Materials Strategy, examining the role of rare earth metals and other materials in the clean energy economy. The report concludes that several clean energy technologies — including wind turbines, electric vehicles, photovoltaic cells, and fluorescent lighting — use materials at risk of supply disruptions in the short term. These risks are likely to decrease in the medium and long term. The report notes that of the materials analyzed, five rare earth metals (dysprosium, neodymium, terbium, europium, and yttrium), as well as indium, are assessed as most critical in the short term.

December 15, 2010
Attorney General Eric Holder announces that the Justice Department has filed a civil lawsuit against nine defendants, including BP, in the matter of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. In the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in New Orleans, the U.S. alleges violations of federal safety and operational regulations which caused or contributed to the oil spill that began on April 20, 2010, when an explosion and fire destroyed the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 50 miles from the Mississippi River delta.

December 16, 2010
Secretary Chu and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announce a comprehensive environmental analysis that has identified proposed "solar energy zones" on public lands in six western states most suitable for environmentally sound, utility-scale solar energy production. The detailed study, known as the Draft Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, was compiled over the past two years as part of the Obama administration's efforts to create a framework for developing renewable energy in the right way and in the right places. "This analysis will help renewable energy companies and federal agencies focus development on areas of our public lands that are best suited for large-scale solar development," say Secretary Chu. "Our early, 'Smart from the Start,' planning will help us site solar projects in the right places, and reduce conflicts and delays at later stages of the development process."

December 16, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the Department's intent to fund up to $50 million to test and demonstrate innovative technologies that will lead to cost-competitive solar energy technologies. The demonstration program will be a critical link between DOE's advanced technology development programs and full-scale commercialization efforts. The Department's Nevada National Security Site will serve as a proving ground for cutting-edge solar technologies, such as concentrating solar thermal power and concentrating photovoltaic energy, which can be used for utility applications in the Southwestern U.S. where there is an abundance of solar energy. The Solar Demonstration Zone in Nevada will complement the U.S. Department of the Interior's 24 existing Solar Energy Study Areas (SESAs) on public lands by providing essential data about the commercial viability of the most advanced solar technologies. The Department expects to announce the Funding Opportunity Announcement early in 2011.

December 16, 2010
Secretary Chu announces the Department is accepting applications for up to $184 million over three to five years to accelerate the development and deployment of new efficient vehicle technologies. Projects will span the broad spectrum of technology approaches, including advanced materials, combustion research, hybrid electric systems, fleet efficiency, and fuel technology.

December 16, 2010
Secretary Chu announces that a partial loan guarantee for a $1.3 billion loan has been finalized to support the world's largest wind farm. The loan will finance the Caithness Shepherds Flat project, an 845-megawatt wind generation facility located in eastern Oregon sponsored by Caithness Energy, LLC and GE Energy Financial Services. The Caithness Shepherds Flat wind project will use 338 GE 2.5xl wind turbines, which are designed to provide high efficiency, increased reliability, and grid integration. Once completed, the project will sell 100 percent of the power and renewable energy credits generated to Southern California Edison under 20-year fixed-price power purchase agreements.

December 16, 2010
As part of a White House Tribal Nations Conference, the Department announces the establishment of an Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs in order to more effectively engage tribal governments in our national energy priorities and promote tribal energy development. The new office will complement the work that is already being done by DOE’s Tribal Energy Program, which invests in projects to improve energy efficiency and develop geothermal, solar, biomass, and wind energy on tribal lands.

December 16, 2010
EIA releases the Annual Energy Outlook 2011 (AEO2011) Reference case presenting updated projections for U.S. energy markets through 2035. "Our Reference case projection shows the growing importance of natural gas from domestic shale gas resources in meeting U.S. energy demand and lowering natural gas prices," says EIA Administrator Richard Newell. "Energy efficiency improvements and the increased use of renewables are other key factors that moderate the projected growth in energy-related greenhouse gas emissions."

December 16, 2010
Basin Electric Power Cooperative of Bismarck, North Dakota, announces that a proposed demonstration project to capture emissions of carbon dioxide at its Antelope Valley Station coal-fired power plant will remain on hold until the economic viability of such a venture can be further developed. The Department awarded $100 million in funding toward the project in July 2009. A recent study by the company indicated that a demonstration-scale project could cost as much as $500 million.

December 17, 2010
Secretary Chu, following President Obama's recent proposal for a two-year pay freeze for all civilian federal workers, announces a decision to stop salary and bonus pool increases for site and facility management contractor employees, who manage day-to-day operations at certain DOE sites and facilities, including national laboratories. "As our nation continues to recover from these challenging economic times, households and small businesses across the country are making sacrifices," notes the Secretary. "In this spirit, we are asking our contractor employees, who are doing important research, operations, and environmental cleanup work, to join the federal workforce in playing a part." The freeze at the 28 sites and facilities is effective January 1, 2011, and is applicable to all facility-wide wage and salary increases. The action affects approximately 75,000 workers.

December 17, 2010
NNSA announces that the agency distributed more than $395 million in small business obligations for federal prime contracts in fiscal year 2010

December 17, 2010
The Department's Office of Science issues its annual evaluation of the scientific, technological, managerial, and operational performance of the contractors who manage and operate its ten national laboratories. These evaluations provide the basis for determining annual performance fees and the possibility of winning additional years on the contract through an “Award Term” extension. They also serve to inform the decisions the Department makes regarding whether to extend or to compete the management and operating contracts when they expire.

December 18, 2010
In his weekly address, President Obama calls on members of Congress to come together to ratify the new START treaty to reduce nuclear arsenals. The treaty has been under review by the Senate for over seven months.

December 20, 2010
The Department issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend its regulations governing compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The proposals focus primarily on DOE’s categorical exclusion provisions, and reflect the first update to these provisions in thirteen years. The Department proposes to establish 20 new categorical exclusions, and to remove two categorical exclusion categories, one environmental assessment category, and two environmental impact statement categories. Many of the 20 exclusions involve clean energy installations, including solar photovoltaic systems, solar thermal systems, wind turbines, ground source heat pumps, and drop-in hydroelectric systems.

December 20, 2010
The contractor of the Department’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Battelle Energy Alliance, releases two reports: INL-The First Five Years describing the laboratory’s progress since its creation five years ago and INL 2012-2021 Ten-Year Site Plan looking forward to where it is headed.

December 21, 2010
Secretary Chu announces a $1.45 billion loan guarantee for Abengoa Solar Inc.'s Solana project, the world's largest parabolic trough concentrating solar plant. Located near Gila Bend, Arizona, the 250-megawatt (MW) project is the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. capable of storing energy it generates. To accommodate the project's need for over 900,000 mirrors, a mirror manufacturing facility is being built outside of Phoenix. Solana will produce enough energy to serve 70,000 households.

December 22, 2010
The Department announces it is accepting applications for a total of up to $74 million to support the research and development of fuel cells for stationary and transportation applications. The solicitations include up to $65 million over three years to fund continued research and development (R&D) on fuel cell components, such as catalysts and membrane electrode assemblies, with the goal of reducing costs, improving durability, and increasing the efficiency of fuel cell systems. The funding also includes up to $9 million to conduct independent cost analyses that will assess the progress of the technology under current research initiatives and help guide future fuel cell and hydrogen storage R&D efforts.

December 22, 2010
NNSA announces the removal of 13 kilograms (28 pounds) of Russian-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) spent fuel from the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences in Serbia.  The shipment is the culmination of an eight-year effort to remove all HEU from Serbia and makes that nation the sixth country to eliminate all of its HEU since April 2009.

December 22, 2010
The U.S. Senate ratifies the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) by a vote of 71 to 26.

December 23, 2010
Secretary Chu announces a $17.1 million loan guarantee for the AES Westover facility. The loan guarantee will support the construction of a 20 megawatt (MW) energy storage system using advanced lithium-ion batteries. The AES project, located in Johnson City, New York, will help provide a more stable and efficient electrical grid for the state's high-voltage transmission network.

December 23, 2010
EPA  announces new greenhouse-gas (GHG) rules to take effect in January 2011. Industries that are large emitters of GHGs, and are planning to build new facilities or make major modifications to existing ones, must obtain air permits and implement energy efficiency measures or, where available, cost-effective technology to reduce their GHGs emissions. This includes the nation's largest GHG emitters, such as power plants, refineries, and cement production facilities. Emissions from small sources, such as farms and restaurants are not covered by these GHG permitting requirements.

December 31, 2010
NNSA announces the removal of 50 kilograms (111 pounds) of highly enriched uranium (HEU) fresh fuel from three sites in Ukraine. President Obama issues a statement congratulating President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych.

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