U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)

Summary: Energy sources supported by the US Department of Energy include bioenergy from wood, wood waste, straw, manure, sugarcane, and byproducts from agricultural processes; fossil fuels from coal, natural gas, and oil; and renewable energies from rain, tides, geothermal, hydropower, solar power, wind, and nuclear power.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) regulates and supports energy industries and research in the United States, combining economic, environmental, and energy security missions. The DOE promotes scientific and technological innovation for reliable, clean, and affordable energy production and the environmental cleanup of the national nuclear weapons complex. The DOE is the largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, providing more than 40 percent of total federal funding in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and the fusion energy sciences. Its national security priorities include ensuring the “integrity and safety” of the country’s nuclear weapons; promoting international nuclear safety; advancing nuclear nonproliferation; and providing safe, efficient, and effective nuclear power plants for the US Navy. The proposed fiscal 2024 budget for the DOE of $51.99 billion allotted $1.56 billion for the development of additional nuclear energy and $3.83 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Scope

The DOE manages more than 109,000 employees and contractors and operates, coordinates, or funds a network of laboratories, industrial and military test sites, and other facilities independently and in partnership with corporations, universities, state and local governments, and various other federal agencies and bodies. The DOE maintains an active interest in every form of energy generation and conservation, and all types of fuel sources, whether conventional, transitional, or experimental. Programs include such long-running, publicly promoted concepts as the Energy Star program, launched in 1992 to identify and grade energy-efficient household appliances with an eye on conservation. An even longer-run DOE program was started by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, promulgated by Congress to assign the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management to oversee the safe handling and storage of the waste products of nuclear weapons production, nuclear-powered naval vessels, and the commercial nuclear electric power industry complex.

The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) invests in technologies “that strengthen the economy, protect the environment, and reduce dependence on foreign oil,” according to the DOE mission statement for the division. EERE programs cover the development of energy conservation efforts for homes and other buildings, transportation, and manufacturing. On the production side, EERE makes key efforts in solar, wind, water, biomass, geothermal, and hydrogen and fuel cell technology.

Joint InitiativesFocusBiomass Research and Development Initiative: Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of AgricultureBiobased products, bioenergy research Leadership Forum: 21-nation climate change initiativeTransport, storage, and capture of Clean Power Initiative (CCPI): US government and industryCoal-based power, carbon capture, and storage Technology Exports Initiative: developing worldAccess to efficient energy servicesClimate Voluntary Innovative Sector Initiatives: Opportunities Now (VISION): public-private industry partnershipEnergy efficiency and emissionsEnergy Star^®: DOE and the Seal of energy efficiency on 1.5 billion productsFreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership: industry-government research initiativePetroleum-free cars and light trucksFueleconomy.gov: DOE and the EPAPractical information on fuel and vehiclesGeneration IV: internationalAvailability, climate change, air quality, security Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative: DOE and the state of Hawaii by the year 2030 2010: US government agencies and industriesIdentify sites for new nuclear , test regulatory processesResearch and development information technologiesEnergy efficiency improvements by 2020

High Energy Physics

The Office of High Energy Physics (HEP) supports scientific energy research on the constituents and architecture of the universe, large concentrations of particles in nature, and natural space sources of charged particles. Research areas include proton and electron accelerator-based physics, nonaccelerator physics, theoretical physics, and applied physics such as investment in and development of advanced technology. The Tevatron, the largest particle accelerator ever built in the United States, operated from 1983 through 2011. Located at DOE’s Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, experiments and discoveries at the Tevatron helped advance global scientific understanding of a number of advanced high energy physics problems. The 2011 shutdown came after the Tevatron’s capabilities were overtaken by such newer facilities as the Large Hadron Collider in Europe.

The DOE’s HEP program features physicists who study the behavior of subatomic particles at high energies. Although sometimes regarded as highly theoretical, the discipline has resulted in technologies with applications for everyday life, including medicine, advanced engineering, materials science, electronics, and energy production.

Nuclear Physics

Nuclear physics entails the study of atomic nuclei interactions, and their applications for science, power generation, and weaponry. Nuclear physics has diverse applications, for example it is used in medicine for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); in materials engineering for ion implantation; and in archaeology for radiocarbon dating. The DOE’s Office of Science nuclear physics program supports fundamental research on the nature of matter and energy and develops scientific knowledge, technologies, and trained manpower. The DOE uses its peer-reviewed research and development for nuclear-related national security, energy, and environmental quality.

Nuclear research focuses on atomic reactions, radioactivity, and isotope and heavy element synthesis. Quarks and gluons, cosmic rays and neutrinos, and supernovae are of interest in this DOE program. The Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee (NEAC), formerly the Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee (NERAC), began in 1998 to provide independent advice to the Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) on complex science and technical issues that arise in the planning, managing, and implementation of DOE’s nuclear energy program. The NEAC advises the NE regarding priorities and strategies in science and engineering development efforts. National policy concerning nuclear energy research can be requested from the Secretary of Energy or the assistant secretary for nuclear energy. The committee includes representatives from higher education, industries, foreign nationals, and government laboratories.

Fusion Energy

The application of nuclear fusion for electricity generation remains experimental, but if the physical and cost obstacles to its controlled use can be overcome, it would have tremendous potential. DOE Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) methods have long-range promise for fusion as an abundant, clean source of energy, recommended within the National Energy Policy. Fusion power is released by sustained burning of plasma, a state of matter essentially comprised of a gas with an abundance of charged particles; nuclear fusion is the process at work in the core of the sun, where immense pressures break down the natural repulsion of atomic nuclei and compress hydrogen atoms into helium—a reaction that emits tremendous amounts of energy in the form of heat, light, and the full spectrum of radioactive particles. The FES has implemented US support of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), now under construction in Cadarache, France. The most ambitious fusion project in history, ITER, which was being constructed in 2024, had an estimated construction cost of $20 billion over a 12-year period. Costs are borne by the seven ITER members: the European Union, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and the United States.

The ITER project goal is to operate a fusion energy power plant that will be capable of producing a heat energy output up to 10 times its energy input. The fusion process is obviously favored for this idea, as well as its zero emissions profile in terms of greenhouse gas. However, the obstacles to achieving practical application on a commercial scale are extremely steep; realization on that scale remains decades away. Experimental fusion reactors to date have produced bursts of energy for only fractions of a second. Since applied research began in the 1950s, no controlled fusion reactor has produced a self-sustained reaction, known as “break-even.”

The immense cost of ITER, and other fusion reactor experiments, stems both from the intensively engineered structures needed to contain a reaction that reaches a temperature similar to that of the sun’s core, and from the massive amounts of electricity needed to contain the plasma, either through extremely powerful magnetic fields or lasers.

A 2024 DOE report indicated that it is possible for the United States to achieve a net zero emissions power system by 2035. However, the report did not indicate how this will be achieved in terms of reliability and land acquisition.

History of DOE

The DOE has its roots in the Manhattan Project, the secret crash program that developed the atom bomb used at the end of World War II against Japan. The US Army Corps of Engineers confined top-secret nuclear research within the Manhattan Engineer District, giving the project its code name. Following the war, Congress passed the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC); its function was to maintain civilian government control over the field of atomic research and development, a hotly debated issue of the time. As the Cold War proceeded between the United States and Western European nations, on one hand, and the Soviet Union and nations in its sphere of influence on the other, the AEC supported the design and production of nuclear weapons as well as reactors for nuclear submarine propulsion. The 1954 Atomic Energy Act ended exclusive government use of the atom, inaugurating commercial nuclear power as an industry to enhance US energy infrastructure. The AEC continued to regulate development and testing of nuclear power for US consumers.

With the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, the AEC became two new agencies: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would regulate US nuclear power, and the Energy Research and Development Administration, which would manage all nuclear weapons, the naval reactors, and development programs. During this period, a lengthy oil-driven energy crisis prompted interest in alternative, lower-cost fuel resources, unifying energy research, development, and planning for a sustainable energy future within the United States. The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 consolidated federal government agencies and programs around those goals, launching the DOE. The newly formed DOE began administration of the established Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission, and many other energy-related government agencies. Within a decade, research into nuclear weapons, development, and production rose in importance at DOE. Beginning in the 1990s, the DOE was tasked with environmental cleanup of nuclear weapons domestically and abroad, nonproliferation and wise stewardship of nuclear materials, energy efficiency and conservation by citizens, technology transfer, and industrial competitiveness.

The DOE supports the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada; and historic facility tours of the Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 at DOE’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory; the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the Y-12 National Security Complex; the East Tennessee Technology Park; the US Army White Sands Missile Range; and the Trinity Site, where the world’s first atomic test device was exploded in 1945. Day tours of the Nevada test site preserve its scientific and technological value.

Bibliography

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Holl, Jack M., and Terrence R. Fehner. Department of Energy, 1977–1994: A Summary History. Oak Ridge, TN: Office of Scientific and Technical Information, 1994.

Trabish, Herman. "US Can Reach 100% Clean Power by 2035, DOE Finds, But Rough Reliability and Land Use Questions Lie Ahead." Utility Drive, 15 Nov. 2022, www.utilitydive.com/news/us-can-reach-100-clean-power-by-2035-doe-finds-but-tough-reliability-and/635874/. Accessed 30 July 2024.

US Department of Energy. “About Us.” energy.gov/about-us. Accessed 30 July 2024.