All Knowledge & Insights By Date

By Lynn L. Bergeson On December 10, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) published a notice of intent to issue a joint Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) with the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO), titled “BOTTLE: Bio-Optimized Technologies to Keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment.” This FOA supports the Department’s Plastics Innovation Challenge, a...

By Lynn L. Bergeson From December 11 through 12, 2019, DOE’s Office of Bioenergy Technologies Office will host a workshop titled “Plastics for a Circular Economy” in Denver, Colorado. The workshop will include discussions on technology solutions to address plastic waste and focus on the development of new recycling and degradation strategies. The objective of the workshop will be to identify early-stage applied research problems in the aforementioned area that need to be...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On November 12, 2019, DOE published a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for topics for its Fiscal Year (FY) 2020 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I Release 2 funding. Participating in this FOA are the following DOE program offices: Office of Cyber Security, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER);   Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (NNSA);   Office of Electricity (OE);   EERE;...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On November 8, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that $12 million will be available in funds for new projects to support research and development (R&D) and education and workforce development to increase plastics recovery, recycling, reuse, and remanufacturing. Designed for U.S. manufacturers, 12 to 18 exploratory and full R&D projects and four to eight education and workforce development projects will be funded by DOE’s Reducing Embodied...

By Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A. USDA Deputy Under Secretary Donald LaVoy and DOE Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes announced on October 24, 2019, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the two departments to promote rural energy and the development of technologies to support and advance rural and agricultural communities and domestic manufacturing. Required under Section 6501 of the 2018 Farm Bill, the MOU is meant to improve collaboration...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On October 30, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) announced open meetings of the Biomass Research and Development (R&D) Technical Advisory Committee. The first meeting is scheduled for November 19, 2019, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (EST), and the second meeting will take place on November 20, 2019, from 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (EST) in Washington, D.C. The purpose of...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On September 30, 2019, DOE’s Smart Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs Office announced the opening of applications for Cohort of Innovators through October 31, 2019. Three DOE National Laboratories are accepting such applications: (1) Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) Chain Reaction Innovation; (2) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Innovation Crossroads; and (3) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL)...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On September 30, 2019, DOE announced that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will host an informational webinar about the High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) Program. In honor of National Manufacturing Day, the webinar is scheduled for October 4, 2019, at 12:00 p.m. (EDT). The HPC4EI Program pairs national laboratory scientists with partners in industry to apply high-performance computing technology and improve energy utilization in the...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On October 1, 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that 35 projects have been selected to receive funding for bioenergy research and development (R&D). Totaling $73 million in funding provided by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the selected projects aim to: Reduce the price of drop-in biofuels; Lower the cost of biopower; and Enable high-value products from biomass or waste resources. According to DOE, the...

By Lynn L. Bergeson On September 24, 2019, DOE EERE’s Assistant Secretary, Daniel R. Simmons, announced the winners of the first round of the American-Made Solar Prize. The prize consists of a $3 million competition to revitalize U.S. solar manufacturing. Each prize winner received $500,000 for use at DOE National Laboratories. In addition to the aforementioned announcements, DOE also declared two initiatives led by EERE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO): the National...