U.S Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that more than $327 million in new funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will go toward scientific research, instrumentation, and laboratory infrastructure projects. Ten of DOE’s national laboratories in six states will be receiving funds, along with researchers at institutions of higher learning across the nation. These new initiatives will help to create new jobs while allowing the U.S. to maintain its scientific leadership and economic competitiveness. The projects provide vital funding and new tools for research aimed at strengthening America’s energy security and tackling some of science’s toughest challenges.

Among the new approved projects are:

Several initiatives to advance civilian supercomputing, in which DOE national laboratories now hold the global lead;

New equipment for the DOE Bioenergy Research Centers, the world’s most advanced centers for fundamental research on biofuels;

New equipment for DOE Joint Genome Institute, the world’s largest genomic sequencing facility for non-medical, DOE mission-related research in bioenergy, climate, and environmental remediation;

Improvements at high-intensity light sources--today’s cutting edge tools for advanced research in energy, materials science, and a host of other fields;

Facilities upgrades and new equipment at several national laboratories and universities for fusion energy research;

Expanded funding for integrated climate research, which blends climate modeling with modeling of human factors such as economics and choices about energy production, consumption, and use;

Analysis of Smart Grid technology development, to improve the efficiencies of the nation’s electricity grid.

$107.5 million is slated to go to universities, nonprofit organizations, and private firms, generally on a competitive, peer-reviewed basis. The remaining $220 million will go to U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories for a range of research, instrumentation, and infrastructure projects, including $164.7 million for projects already allocated as follows:

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Batavia, IL—$60.2 million, including $52.7 million for research on next-generation particle accelerator technologies; and $7.5 for neutrino research in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Berkeley, CA—$ 37.8 million, including $13.1 million to upgrade equipment at the DOE Joint Genome Institute; $11 million for fusion energy research; $8.8 million for equipment improvements at the Advanced Light Source; $4 million for new instrumentation at the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute, one of three DOE Bioenergy Research Centers; and $875,000 for mathematical analysis related to the development of Smart Grid technology.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Stanford, CA—$21.8 million, including $20 million for an experimental end station at the Linac Coherent Light Source to study high energy density plasmas; and $1.8 million for improvements at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Princeton, NJ—$13.8 million, including $8.8 million for a variety of initiatives in fusion energy research and $5 million for infrastructure improvements at the laboratory.

Brookhaven National Laboratory; Upton, NY—$9.5 million, including $3 million for improvements at the National Synchrotron Light Source; and $6.5 million for neutrino research.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Oak Ridge, TN—$8.7 million, including $5.4 million for equipment at the DOE BioEnergy Science Center, a DOE Bioenergy Research Center; $3.2 million to seed development of computerized knowledgebase to integrate masses of data flowing from DOE-supported genomics and systems biology research; and $180,000 for fusion energy research.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Richland, WA—$5.7 million, including $4.9 million for integrated assessment modeling for climate; and $867,000 for mathematical analysis related to the development of Smart Grid.

Argonne National Laboratory; Argonne, IL—$5.6 million for improvements at the Advanced Photon Source.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Livermore, CA—$810,000 for fusion energy research.

Sandia National Laboratories; Sandia, NM, and Sandia, CA—$800,000, including $688,000 for mathematical analysis related to the development of Smart Grid; and $75,000 for fusion energy research.

In March Secretary Chu announced $1.2 billion in DOE Office of Science Recovery Act projects. In July, DOE announced a new Office of Science Early Career Research Program to be funded with $85 million in Recovery Act funds. With this third and final round of projects, the Obama Administration has now approved projects covering the full $1.6 billion that the DOE Office of Science received from Congress under the Recovery Act.

Vasil Sidorov on September 14, 2009   E-mail: sidorovvasil@gmail.com

From DOE Office of Science