Hearing of the Energy Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee - Energy Innovation Hubs

Hearing

Good morning and welcome to today's Energy Subcommittee hearing on the
Department of Energy's (DOE) Energy Innovation Hubs. This hearing will establish Congressional
oversight over the four existing Energy Innovation Hubs, examining the costs and benefits of the
Department's approach to collaborative research and development.

DOE Energy Innovation Hubs are designed to coordinate research efforts across the Department,
encouraging cooperation between researchers in basic science, applied energy, and engineering, and
bring together researchers from the national labs, academia, and industry into teams focused on solving
critical energy challenges.

With appropriate goals, benchmarks, and oversight, this kind of collaborative research and development
is just common sense. Through the national labs, the federal government has the expertise to conduct
basic and applied research, while the private sector has the ability and motivation to move the next
generation energy technology into the market place.

The Department funds the four energy innovation hubs at approximately $90 million per year. The
existing hubs are focused on a number of energy challenges - including extending the life of nuclear
power reactors, developing better and more powerful batteries, creating new materials for advanced
energy technology, and mimicking the ability that plants have to create fuels from sunlight.

The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, also known as "CASL" brings
together our best and brightest from industry, academia, and the labs to develop codes to model and
simulate operations of the U.S. reactor fleet. These cutting edge tools allow us to increase our return on
investment from DOE's supercomputers within the Office of Science's Advanced Scientific Computing
Research program -- the subject of a hearing we held in the Energy Subcommittee earlier this year.

One critical application of CASL's virtual environment for reactor applications, known as "VERA" for
short, is to enable the nuclear industry and regulators to predict the performance of reactor components
for license renewals by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

I'd like everyone to take note of the slide on the screen, which shows what is at stake for the nation's
base load electricity from nuclear power if the operating fleet is unable to secure license renewals to 60
years and 80 years of operating life, respectively.

These NRC license renewals are an important issue for the reliability of our nation's electricity and for
my district. The South Texas Project, currently operating near my district, provides reliable, zeroemission
electricity to the state of Texas, and good-paying jobs to my constituents. It's pretty clear from
this graph just how important these licenses are to maintaining reliable, affordable power across the
country. I know that Dr. Gehin has provided a similar figure in his prepared testimony so I look forward
to discussing this important issue today.

The research and development underway in the CASL hub is just one example of the benefits from this
collaborative research approach. The technical expertise and scientific facilities in our national labs can
provide tremendous impact on the private sector through appropriate partnerships.

However, while the current DOE hubs program pursues worthy research goals, not all collaborative
research is a guaranteed success. In the first round of hubs in the program, DOE established a hub
focused on building efficiency. But due to cost, poor performance, and a lack of clear goals, this hub
was dissolved.

Establishing a new hub, center, or project is not the answer to every problem, and new proposals must
be appropriately justified to Congress and shown to meet the research and development goals for the
lead DOE office. Any authorization of new or continuing hubs proposed by DOE must also include the
ability to efficiently close down projects that are not achieving clear measures of success.

I want to thank our witnesses today for testifying on their valuable research, and the DOE Energy
Innovation hub program. I look forward to a discussion about federal government's role in leading
collaborative research and development, and how to leverage limited taxpayer dollars for the greatest
economic impact and scientific achievement.

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