[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PRIORITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 10, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-72
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SCOTT PETERS, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana DEREK KILMER, Washington
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming MARC VEASEY, Texas
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JULIA BROWNLEY, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota VACANCY
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS COLLINS, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
C O N T E N T S
April 10, 2014
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 12
Written Statement............................................ 13
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House
of Representatives............................................. 14
Written Statement............................................ 15
Witnesses:
The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary, Department of Energy
Oral Statement............................................... 16
Written Statement............................................ 18
Discussion....................................................... 41
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
The Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary, Department of Energy...... 84
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PRIORITIES
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2014
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:07 a.m., in Room
2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Chairman Smith. The Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology will come to order. Welcome to today's hearing
titled, ``Department of Energy Science and Technology
Priorities.'' And let me say to Members at the outset, and we
don't have everyone here whom we expect to be here in just a
few minutes because the Democrats have a caucus at 9:00, and we
have several Members at that caucus and we hope that they will
be here in a few minutes.
But we are going to be a little bit cramped in time today.
We have two votes. The first series of votes is at 10:00, in
less than an hour. We will come back after that series for
about 45 minutes. And then we have another series of votes
starting at 11:00 that will take us through 12:15, and the
Secretary needs to leave at 12:30. So we may have a very short
hearing today from now until 10:00 and then from about 10:15 or
10:30 until 11:00 or 11:15. So we will try to expedite the
process here, but yet hopefully everybody who has a question or
two will be able to ask those questions.
I would like to welcome two Members to the Science, Space,
and Technology Committee who are new Members. First is
Representative Bill Johnson from Ohio's 6th Congressional
District to my left, and Representative Katherine Clark from
Massachusetts' 5th Congressional District, and she will be here
momentarily. An engineer by training, Representative Johnson
served 26 years in the United States Air Force, started his own
high-tech business and ran a multi-million dollar department
for a major electronics manufacturer. It doesn't hurt that he
holds a Master's degree in computer science from Georgia Tech.
He also joins Representative Thomas Massie on the Committee as
a patent holder. Representative Johnson will serve on the
Research and Technology Subcommittee and the Oversight
Subcommittee as well, and we welcome Bill to the Committee.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored
to serve.
Chairman Smith. I wish she were here, but I will introduce
her in her absence and that is that we welcome also
Representative Katherine Clark from Massachusetts, joining us
on the other side of the aisle here. She has a special interest
in alternative forms of energy and no doubt will enjoy today's
hearing, her first. I might also add there aren't many
attorneys on the Committee. Katherine Clark is, and no doubt
her Cornell law degree will enable her to cross examine
witnesses, though I doubt she is too tough on today's witness.
You know, come to think of it, that gives us two lawyers
from Massachusetts including Joe Kennedy, which is definitely
our limit.
The Ranking Member, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for her
comments about Representative Clark.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
would like to welcome Mr. Johnson as well. Ms. Clark was
appointed to the Committee last week, and we have visited. She
was a State Senator in Massachusetts before winning election to
the House, and she is very interested in energy and education
issues, and I look forward to working with her.
And as I indicated earlier, every Thursday morning at 9:00,
we have a mandatory attendance meeting, and she probably
stopped there. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. I will
recognize myself for an opening statement and then the Ranking
Member.
The Science, Space, and Technology Committee has
jurisdiction over civilian science and technology issues at the
Department of Energy. These areas comprise approximately one
third of DOE's budget or over 9 billion dollars. Our
jurisdiction includes the DOE's Office of Science which
conducts critical research in areas like high energy physics,
advanced scientific computing, and basic energy sciences. Our
jurisdiction also includes research and development in fossil,
nuclear and renewable energy.
I want to thank our witness, Secretary Moniz, for joining
us today. We last heard from Dr. Moniz in June, and we want to
thank him for continuing our tradition of hearing from the DOE
Secretary on budget priorities.
Dr. Moniz has a deep knowledge of energy issues,
particularly the scientific and technical issues that are a
focus of this Committee. Although we may disagree on some
priorities and on overall budget numbers, one thing we can
agree on is how critical DOE research has been to securing the
United States' preeminence in many scientific fields.
Scientists at the Department of Energy and in the private
sector have consistently collaborated to create the most
reliable, affordable and secure domestic energy portfolio in
the world.
The technological advancements in oil and gas extraction,
and particularly hydraulic fracturing, were facilitated in part
by DOE. These innovative technologies enabled the dramatic
shale gas revolution that is transforming our economy.
Technological breakthroughs and improved techniques have
resulted in exponential increases in energy production. In my
home State of Texas, production of oil has jumped from 400
million barrels in 2009 to over 900 million barrels in 2013.
The technological leaps in natural gas extraction have
resulted in increased production and a decrease in natural gas
prices. These innovative breakthroughs have also helped improve
air quality, expand access to affordable electricity and
created jobs. This increased production in oil and gas is
exciting, but we also need to seek a balanced energy portfolio
through a strategic approach to energy research and
development.
Although the Obama Administration claims it supports a
balanced energy portfolio, its budget request shows a different
set of priorities. For instance, while research and development
for fossil energy programs remains stagnant, funding for
renewable energy has increased exponentially.
Lastly, we need to ensure that American tax dollars are
spent wisely, and not on duplicative and overlapping programs.
At a time of tightened budgets, we have to set priorities. Our
first focus should be basic energy research and development.
Breakthrough discoveries from basic research will provide the
foundation for a secure, affordable and independent energy
future.
The Administration should not pick winners and give
subsidies to favored companies that promote non-competitive
technologies. This too often leads to a waste of taxpayer
dollars.
Instead, we should focus our resources on research and
development that will produce technologies that will enable
alternative energy sources to become economically competitive
without the need for subsidies.
This is an exciting time for the United States. It is a
time of abundant energy resources. The government has a role in
promoting scientific discovery in various energy fields, and
basic energy research is the stepping stone to our continued
success.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Lamar S. Smith
The Science, Space, and Technology Committee has jurisdiction over
civilian science and technology issues at the Department of Energy
(DOE). These areas comprise approximately one third of the DOE's
budget, or over nine billion dollars.
Our jurisdiction includes the DOE's Office of Science, which
conducts critical research in areas like high energy physics, advanced
scientific computing, and basic energy sciences. Our jurisdiction also
includes research and development in fossil, nuclear and renewable
energy.
I want to thank our witness, Secretary Moniz, for joining us today.
We last heard from Dr. Moniz in June and we want to thank him for
continuing our tradition of hearing from the DOE Secretary on budget
priorities.
Dr. Moniz has a deep knowledge of energy issues--particularly the
scientific and technical issues that are a focus of this Committee.
Although we may disagree on some priorities and on overall budget
numbers, one thing we can agree on is how critical DOE research has
been to securing the United States' preeminence in many scientific
fields.
Scientists at the Department of Energy and in the private-sector
have consistently collaborated to create the most reliable, affordable
and secure domestic energy portfolio in the world.
The technological advancements in oil and gas extraction, and
particularly hydraulic fracturing, were facilitated, in part, by DOE.
These innovative technologies enabled the dramatic shale gas revolution
that is transforming our economy. Technological breakthroughs and
improved techniques have resulted in exponential increases in energy
production. In my home state of Texas, production of oil has jumped
from 400 million barrels in 2009 to over 900 million barrels in 2013.
The technological leaps in natural gas extraction have resulted in
increased production and a decrease in natural gas prices. These
innovative breakthroughs have also helped to improve air quality,
expand access to affordable electricity and create jobs. This increased
production in oil and gas is exciting but we also need to seek a
balanced energy portfolio through a strategic approach to energy
research and development.
Although the Obama Administration claims it supports a balanced
energy portfolio, its budget request shows a different set of
priorities. For instance, while research and development for Fossil
Energy programs remains stagnant, funding for Renewable Energy has
increased exponentially.
Lastly, we need to ensure that American tax dollars are spent
wisely, and not on duplicative and overlapping programs. At a time of
tightened budgets, we have to set priorities. Our first focus should be
basic energy research and development. Breakthrough discoveries from
basic research will provide the foundation for a secure, affordable and
independent energy future.
The Administration should not ``pick winners'' and give subsidies
to favored companies that promote non-competitive technologies. This
too often leads to a waste of taxpayer dollars. Instead, we should
focus our resources on research and development that will produce
technologies that will enable alternative energy sources to become
economically competitive without the need for subsidies.
This is an exciting time for the United States. It is a time of
abundant energy resources. The government has a role in promoting
scientific discovery in the various energy fields. Basic energy
research is the stepping stone to our continued success.
Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
the gentlewoman from Texas is recognized for hers.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
for holding the hearing today, and I want to thank the
Secretary for being here to discuss the proposed DOE budget and
for his continued service to our Nation. Over the past year I
think that it has been proven that the President made a wise
choice in selecting the Secretary to lead the Department at
this critical time our Nation's history.
Let me start by reminding or sharing with my colleagues
here today that we have seen how government research can pay
off when it comes to energy development. DOE-supported research
was key to the development of high-efficiency gas turbines for
coal plants, nuclear reactors developed at Federal labs and the
directional drilling and the hydraulic fracturing practices
that have led to the shale gas boom of today. But we should
remember that those achievements required decades of Federal
investments, the overwhelming majority of which was focused on
fossil and nuclear energy. I continue to strongly support
research to make today's technologies safer, cleaner and more
efficient. But we also have to find the greatest value for our
investment of taxpayers' dollars. Today it is the emerging
energy technology sectors that I believe can most benefit from
government support. That is where the priorities is set by the
Fiscal Year 2015 budget requests come in today.
I am pleased with much of the Department's budget request
for applied energy research this year. If adopted, the Office
of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, ARPA-E, and the
Office of Electricity would all receive a much-needed boost to
advance the development of clean energy technologies that will
be vital to our national security, our economy and the
environment in the decades to come. This includes important
targeted investments that will help place the United States in
a position to be a world leader in advanced manufacturing
related to energy use and generation.
However, I do have concerns with other areas of the
Department's proposed budget. For example, the Office of
Science would receive a very minimal increase, less than one
percent, which is even below the rate of research-related
inflation. So this is effectively a cut. As we all know, the
Office of Science is the largest supporter of basic research in
the physical sciences in the country, and it operates more than
30 national scientific user facilities whose applications go
well beyond energy innovation. Our Nation's top researchers
from industry, academia and other Federal agencies use these
facilities to examine everything from new materials that will
better meet our military's needs to new pharmaceuticals that
will better treat disease to even examining the fundamental
building blocks of the universe. Given this critical role in
our Nation's innovation enterprise, I look forward to having a
productive discussion about the justification for the
Administration's proposed funding for the Office.
Also, I recognize the Department is continuing to carry out
several major demonstration projects using prior year funds to
further advance our ability to capture and store carbon
emissions from power plants. I also know that you recently
issued a significant loan guarantee solicitation for new fossil
fuels projects, but I would like to be clearer and like a clear
explanation for the Department's proposed cuts to the carbon
capture and storage research programs. Of course, demonstration
projects and loan guarantees have a very important role in
getting new technologies to the marketplace, but they are not
necessarily replacements for the longer term, higher risk
research activities. I fully understand that the Administration
is working on a tough budget environment and that trade-offs
and compromises have to be made. I look forward to working with
you, Mr. Secretary, and my colleagues across the aisle to
address the concerns we have and to work with you to ensure you
have the direction, tools and resources you need to keep secure
our Nation's energy future.
Mr. Chairman, before I yield back, I want--well, she hadn't
come in yet. I wanted to introduce our new Member, but she has
not yet arrived. So thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson
Thank you, Chairman Smith for holding this hearing. I would also
like to thank Secretary Moniz for being here today to discuss the
proposed DOE budget and for his continued service to our nation. Over
the past year, you have proved that the President made a wise choice in
selecting you to lead the Department at this critical time in our
nation's history.
Let me start by reminding my colleagues here today that we have
seen how government research can pay off when it comes to energy
development. DOE-supported research was key to the development of high-
efficiency gas turbines for coal plants, nuclear reactors developed at
federal labs, and the directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing
practices that have led to the shale gas boom of today. But we should
remember that those achievements required decades of federal
investment, the overwhelming majority of which was focused on fossil
and nuclear energy. I continue to strongly support research to make
today's technologies safer, cleaner, and more efficient, but we also
have to find the greatest value for our investment of taxpayer dollars.
Today it is the emerging energy technology sectors that can most
benefit from government support. That is where the priorities set by
the Fiscal Year 2015 budget request come into play.
I am pleased with much of the Department's budget request for
applied energy research this year. If adopted, the Office of Energy
Efficiency and Renewable Energy, ARPA-E, and the Office of Electricity
would all receive a much-needed boost to advance the development of
clean energy technologies that will be vital to our national security,
our economy, and the environment in the decades to come. This includes
important, targeted investments that will help place the U.S. in a
position to be a world leader in advanced manufacturing related to
energy use and generation.
However, I do have concerns with other areas of the Department's
proposed budget. For example, the Office of Science would receive a
very minimal increase--less than one percent, which is even below the
rate of research-related inflation, so this is effectively a cut. As we
all know, the Office of Science is the largest supporter of basic
research in the physical sciences in the country, and it operates more
than 30 national scientific user facilities whose applications go well
beyond energy innovation. Our nation's top researchers from industry,
academia, and other federal agencies use these facilities to examine
everything from new materials that will better meet our military's
needs, to new pharmaceuticals that will better treat disease, to even
examining the fundamental building blocks of the universe. Given this
critical role in our nation's innovation enterprise, I look forward to
having a productive discussion about the justification for the
Administration's proposed funding for the Office.
Also, I recognize that the Department is continuing to carry out
several major demonstration projects using prior year funds to further
advance our ability to capture and store carbon emissions from power
plants. I also know that you recently issued a significant loan
guarantee solicitation for new fossil fuel projects, but I would still
like a clearer explanation for the Department's proposed cuts to carbon
capture and storage research programs. Of course, demonstration
projects and loan guarantees have a very important role in getting new
technologies to the marketplace, but they are not necessarily
replacements for longer-term, higher risk research activities.
I fully understand that the Administration is working in a tough
budget environment, and that trade-offs and compromises have to be
made. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Secretary, and my
colleagues across the aisle, to address the concerns we have and to
work with you to ensure you have the direction, tools, and resources
you need to help secure our nation's energy future.
With that I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. Let me introduce
our witness, and he is Honorable Ernest Moniz, Secretary of the
Department of Energy. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Moniz was
the head of the Department of Physics at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology where he was a faculty member since
1973. Previously, Dr. Moniz served as Undersecretary of the
Department of Energy where he oversaw the Department's Science
and Energy programs. From 1995 to 1997, he served as Associate
Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology
Policy in the Executive Office of the President. Dr. Moniz
received a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Boston
College and a doctorate in theoretical physics from Stanford
University.
So Dr. Moniz brings both impressive academic credentials
and practical skills to a very demanding job. Dr. Moniz, we
welcome you and look forward to your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ERNEST MONIZ,
SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Secretary Moniz. Well, thank you, Chairman Smith, and
Ranking Member Johnson, Members of the Committee. In view of
the schedule, I will try to shorten my opening statement.
The top line discretionary budget request for Fiscal Year
2015 as you know is $27.9 billion department-wide which is a
2.6 percent increase, which in the current, very constrained
budget environment, we take as an endorsement of the importance
of our vey key missions in energy in science, in nuclear
security, in maintaining the scientific base that you have both
said is so critical to this country and of course, meeting our
obligations to clean up the Cold War mess.
Our budget is organized around our three undersecretary
positions which we testified about last year. We have
reorganized including, importantly I think for this Committee,
combining the Undersecretaries of Energy and Science into one
office, and I will come back to some of the benefits I believe
we are seeing from that, a second in nuclear security, and
finally, a new focus on management and performance which we
consider to be essential. That is, improved management and
performance essential to successfully carrying out our energy,
science and nuclear security missions.
On science and energy, which of course is the main focus
today, I'd just reiterate that the all-of-the-above energy
approach we believe is succeeding as the President said in his
State of the Union, as you well know, producing more gas, more
oil and yet driving down carbon emissions. Again, I will forego
many of my specific comments. Note that the budget request in
energy and science is $9.8 billion, which is a five percent
increase within which we of course had to set priorities.
A few highlights in EERE, I will note a strong commitment
to advanced manufacturing, Office of Electricity, a commitment
to leading a multi-program effort on grid modernization and at
the same time increasing our emergency response capability,
which we have as a responsibility under FEMA in responses.
ARPA-E, we think it is working. We propose an increase.
Twenty-four start-ups have emerged from ARPA-E, significant
private capital following up, and I would note its
entrepreneurial spirit. With each project we have assigned a
tech-to-market advisor.
The Office of Science, again, many initiatives. I will
mention exascale computing as one that we feel is very
important and emphasize once again, this is a cross-cut with
about 2/3 of the funding proposed in the Office of Science and
about 1/3 in NNSA as a collaboration, which I might note is a
reversal of the 1990s with science now having the lead here.
This theme of cross-cuts is one that draws upon our
reorganization with science and energy coming together. I have
mentioned a couple already. Others include subsurface science
and engineering, which cuts across hydrocarbon production,
CO2 sequestration, geothermal systems, many issues.
Our labs are very excited about this kind of integrated
approach in the cross-cuts. And another one that will be
emerging, we have just put our toe in the water this year and
next year we hope to come back with a much stronger energy and
water cross-cut which we think is going to be one of the key
issues in the energy sector as we go forward.
So nuclear security, again, I will just say there we have
an $11.9 billion proposal, a four percent increase, looking
both at reestablishing a fiscally doable approach to our
nuclear stockpile, a safe and reliable stockpile without
testing and advancing our nuclear nonproliferation programs,
management and performance, and I should say Naval reactors,
also a commitment there to some key developments that have been
postponed for a while, Ohio-class replacements for example,
spent fuel recapitalization projects.
Management performance, $6.5 billion in that line, most of
the budget for EM, and there I will just emphasize this
provides an enterprise-wide focus for trying to improve our
project management performance, and we believe it is paying
dividends. One example, the waste treatment facility at
Hanford, arguably the most complicated facility for clean-up, a
new framework that has been agreed to with the state as to how
we approach--a phased approach, much to work out yet in terms
of milestones, et cetera. Secondly, another example in the
nuclear security space, the uranium processing facility with a
new Red Team approach, stick to our budget, phase it, key
capabilities respected, but stay with budget discipline.
So that, sir, Mr. Chairman, is kind of a few of the
highlights, and I look forward to our discussion.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Ernest Moniz follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Secretary Moniz, and I
will recognize myself for questions.
My first question goes to what you just mentioned and which
the Administration has stated many times and that is that they
have this balanced, all-of-the-above energy strategy. What I
would like to do is put a chart on the screen for us to take a
look at, and this chart will show the budget request by the
Obama Administration since 2010.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Chairman Smith. No one can read the fine print here, but
let me interpret it for you. The blue bars indicate the request
by the Administration for alternative forms of energy, and the
red is the budget request for fossil energy. And it certainly
appears to me to not be a balanced approach of all-of-the-above
energy policy by the Administration when you have this kind of
discrepancy between the money that the Administration is
requesting for alternative forms of energy versus fossil
energy. Would you agree with that assessment?
Secretary Moniz. Well, Mr. Chairman, I believe that our
requests do reflect all-of-the-above approach, and we are
committed to fossil fuels, nuclear, renewables and efficiency.
May I make two points? One has already been referred to by the
Ranking Member, namely that of course, if you look at something
like fossil, there are enormous resources in the demonstration
and deployment arena with $6 billion for carbon capture and
sequestration----
Chairman Smith. Right. Secretary----
Secretary Moniz. --that I----
Chairman Smith. --Moniz, let me pull you back to the actual
budget request by the Administration, and almost every year, I
guess in every year, the amount of money requested by the
Administration for alternative forms of energy is somewhere
between three and six times more than for fossil. And to me,
just looking at that and trying to be factual and objective,
and I know you have a reputation for that, it sure doesn't seem
like a balanced all-of-the-above energy policy to me.
Secretary Moniz. And my second point, after the issue that
we do have these major other investments that are still in
process, but I think when we look at EERE, we should really
recognize that it is two or three really distinct programs.
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. Our energy efficiency----
Chairman Smith. You just don't want to look at my budget
chart here.
Secretary Moniz. No, no. No, sir.
Chairman Smith. Oh, okay.
Secretary Moniz. No, I would love to see it back up
because----
Chairman Smith. Okay. Let us put the budget chart back up.
Secretary Moniz. I prefer looking at the----
Chairman Smith. Again, the blue is the alternative, the red
is the fossil.
Secretary Moniz. Yes. So what I am saying is that blue bar,
the 2.3 billion on the right----
Chairman Smith. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --I think we should relook at it as there
is a $953 million request for energy efficiency.
Chairman Smith. Right.
Secretary Moniz. There is a $579 million request for
renewable energy, and there is a $780 million request for
sustainable transportation. And I would argue those are three
fairly distinct programs which are in fact pretty comparable
with nuclear and fossil requests.
Chairman Smith. Right. Well, we left out nuclear which was
just marginal as you know.
Secretary Moniz. Nuclear is 863.
Chairman Smith. Right. Compared to what we spend for
alternative forms of energy, I think there is just no
comparison whatever you look at, and that is the disappointment
and that is why I think that it is not to me, at least, a
balanced, all-of-the-above energy program by the
Administration.
Let me go to my next question real quick and squeeze it in,
and this is just again, I don't know the answer. I hope you do.
How much funding remains, because we couldn't tell from your
website--, how much funding remains for loan guarantees and
will there be additional loan guarantee this year?
Secretary Moniz. On the loan guarantee program, first of
all, it is about $32 billion that has been deployed, and there
is approximately $24 billion of authority left in the 1703
program----
Chairman Smith. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --and approximately $16 billion of
authority left in the advanced vehicle technology program.
Chairman Smith. And do you expect any additional loan
guarantees to be approved this year?
Secretary Moniz. Well, approval is a little bit hard
because there is a very, very long due diligence process. But
we are actively in process. As you know, we have the fossil one
out.
Chairman Smith. Right.
Secretary Moniz. We plan to issue another call in the
renewables and efficiency space, potentially nuclear as well,
and just last week I met with the auto suppliers to point out
that that program remains open.
Chairman Smith. Let me go to my last quick question. I hope
none of those loan guarantees are for offshore wind because on
the chart that you are going to see here, the cost of offshore
wind is about 2-1/2 times the cost of on-shore. And not only
that, offshore wind is by far the most expensive form of
energy. And it just seems to me that when we are talking about
limited dollars and we have to set priorities, we wouldn't want
to spend the taxpayers' dollars on a form of energy, which is
to say, offshore, not on-shore wind that costs so much compared
to other forms of energy. Do you want to make a comment about
that?
Secretary Moniz. Well, first of all, in the spirit of
investing in future technologies, our R&D request in renewables
has a strong offshore focus. So that is the first point. The
second point is if and when there are loan applications for
offshore wind, we will go through the extensive due diligence--
--
Chairman Smith. Right
Secretary Moniz. --to make sure that there is a very high
probability----
Chairman Smith. Why put a single dollar in a form of energy
that is the most expensive form of energy and they cost 2-1/2
times as much as on-shore wind? I just don't understand the
rationale. If you have unlimited funds, maybe you do something.
But if you don't have unlimited funds, why wouldn't you put the
money in the most efficient types of energy production?
Secretary Moniz. Well, again, this is a portfolio of the
whole, the R&D portfolio, the loan portfolio. It is about
technologies that are relatively short term, mid-term and long
term.
Chairman Smith. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. Clearly on offshore wind, it is a fact
that the current price per kilowatt hour----
Chairman Smith. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --has got a ways to go to become
commercially----
Chairman Smith. Well, I don't see how you ever overcome the
natural additional costs associated with offshore wind, whether
it is short, medium or long term. I know you believe in facts.
I know you believe in data. And I just hope you will spend the
taxpayers' dollars on where the most efficient means of
producing energy is, and the least efficient is offshore wind,
at least according to current data.
Thank you for responding to my questions, and the
gentlewoman from Texas is recognized for hers.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. On
your chart, there are several categories here listed, research
in the blue compared to just one category with the fossil. If
we--we have been served very well by fossil energy, but if we
don't move from fossil energy to all-of-the-above or other
alternatives, I want to ask the Secretary, are we running the
risk of not having enough energy for the people on this planet
if we just depend on fossil fuels?
Secretary Moniz. Well, obviously fossil fuels are by
definition finite. We still have a lot to produce, but I think
the real issue--in my view, the question is do we have enough
atmosphere to accommodate using all fossil fuels, for example,
be it in conventional pollution or carbon dioxide? So clearly
fuel diversity is very important. That includes bringing
nuclear, renewables and of course efficiency, along with
fossil, but our investments are still aimed at fossil for a
future low-carbon environment.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. And in looking toward the future it
would make sense then to put some of the investment in all the
other research areas other than just fossil?
Secretary Moniz. Absolutely, very substantially. These will
play increasingly important roles.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much. Now, I know that
in a tough budget environment that you have got to make tough
decisions. But in the Office of Science, can you provide a
clearer explanation for the proposed funding level and if there
is some discretion about which the Office of Science beyond the
Department's request level can have access to some additional
resources?
Secretary Moniz. Well, it is clear that you have already
given the most important part of the answer which is it is a
very constrained environment with essentially flat dollars for
discretionary spending on both sides of the agenda, civilian
and military, and we faced both of those constraints I might
say. On the civilian side, we had to make choices. We believe
the science program at $5.1 billion is very robust. Could we do
more? We could accelerate for example our development of new
facilities, but I do note in the budget, for example, our light
sources, our neutron sources, will be very heavily utilized
with this budget, and at the same time, moving forward to build
new capabilities like the Free Electron Laser (FEL) project at
SLAC, the new accelerator at Michigan State. So I do think we
will be moving forward.
We also are recompeting Energy Frontier Research Centers.
So it will be a strong budget. Clearly, if there were more
funds, the science enterprise could certainly be even more
robust.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you. Now, there are times when
I hear a lot about my colleagues talking about picking winners
and losers and interfering in the free market by crowding out
private investment. But frankly, I don't understand the
argument too well. So I am hoping you can help. Should the
government support all research proposals and areas equally or
should it prioritize investments based on where we can get the
most value for our tax dollars? That is question one. And
number two, has the Department actually picked a lot of
important winners in the past decades such as breakthrough of
the hydraulic fracturing technology or is that a bad thing?
Secretary Moniz. Well, certainly again we believe in a
broad set of investments, but within that obviously one is
choosing areas within budget constraints for greater emphasis
at any given time depending on the opportunities. You have
mentioned hydraulic fracturing, for example, where the
Department made the initial investments in the '79-'80
timeframe, and I might say, that was the seed, but then it was
picked up by a public-private partnership. In that case it was
a FERC administered surcharge on interstate gas transmission,
industry-matching funds and a Congressional tax credit, all of
which came to facilitate developing the unconventionals.
In this budget, for example, we don't know. Maybe we will
have the next unconventional revolution. We have put in for $15
million to build our methane hydrates program which could be
the next one in the future.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you. My time has expired.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. The gentleman from
California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is recognized for his questions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much. Mr. Secretary, do you
believe that we will be soon to have at least a prototype of a
small modular nuclear reactor that is not based on light water,
the light water reactor concept?
Secretary Moniz. There--by the way, I might say I am
certainly very interested in small modular reactors, of both
light water and non-light water types.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Light water is the old technology----
Secretary Moniz. Right.
Mr. Rohrabacher. --that we've used so far----
Secretary Moniz. So----
Mr. Rohrabacher. --so far.
Secretary Moniz. Right. So----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Can we get a new type of technology in
small modular reactors?
Secretary Moniz. Certainly we can, and I think it is a
direction we need to move in. But let me explain that certainly
today, as you know, the one award that is made and the
tentative award that has been made are both light-water reactor
types. The issue there is that--this is at least my view in
supporting that as the first focus area, is that if one looks
at the retirements of current nuclear reactors, there have been
a few now. But the major retirement wave, assuming 60-year
lifetimes, really starts in 2030. In talking to utility
executives who are interested in nuclear, they say we have got
to make our kind of capital planning decisions in the 2024,
2025 timeframe. Even on light water reactors, small modular
reactors, we don't think we will have the first one out there
until 2022, 2023.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I know and----
Secretary Moniz. So----
Mr. Rohrabacher. --that is what I would like to suggest
that is an improper priority. The fact is the light water
reactors are inherently dangerous. The environmentalists in
past decades, they were right about that. There are dangerous
light water reactors. There is no reason for us to be moving
forward at a slow pace on the development of these small
modular reactors that are not light water reactors.
And another area just to call your attention to, the
success that we have had with stationary, manufactured
stationary fuel cells in California, that seems to be really
taking off. It is an enterprise that has a lot of promise, and
I understand there is something called a turbo fuel cell that
actually would make--it is a hybrid concept in which we would
have the cleanest way of utilizing this massive amount of new
natural gas that we have. Have you looked into that at all, the
turbo fuel cell?
Secretary Moniz. In fact, if I--maybe one SMR comment, just
very briefly----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Sure.
Secretary Moniz. --is that I would say that these new
reactors, they are integral reactors, and I think they have
some excellent safety features. On the turbo fuel cell, I can't
say I have looked at that directly, but it sounds like
something I probably should.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I would encourage you to do that.
Secretary Moniz. But I think in general, this issue of
these hybrid systems are very, very interesting, and this for
example could be something, if it is moving toward
commercialization, that could qualify in our fossil loan
guarantee program because hybrid systems are----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Secretary Moniz. --called out.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, thank you. I would like to draw your
attention to that. I appreciate that.
Secretary Moniz. I appreciate that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. One last area and that is how much of
today's domestic oil production can be attributed to the
Alaskan pipeline?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I don't know in detail, but of
course we know that production right now in Alaska has been
going down somewhat after its peak in the '70s.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Secretary Moniz. And right now, the major development, the
Eagle Ford shale and the Bakken shale----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. Well----
Secretary Moniz. --have been the main----
Mr. Rohrabacher. But for the last 25 years, the American
economy has greatly benefitted, has it not, from the Alaskan
pipeline? And just to draw your attention again, there was a
huge fight over the Alaskan pipeline. It almost didn't get
approved, and I think it was approved by one vote, one vote,
and the Senate I believe carried that project. Without the
Alaskan pipeline, our economy would have been severely damaged.
The well-being of the American people would have been hurt.
Now, wouldn't we expect that if we don't have the Keystone
pipeline that the American people will also suffer the
consequences?
Secretary Moniz. Well, on the first point, let me just note
that the Alaskan pipeline had the feature--of course, it was
very--I believe really very important to the American and of
course the Alaskan economies. But it had the feature of opening
up a resource that otherwise had no access to market.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, the environmentalists made all sorts
of arguments against it at that time. Did any of those
arguments proven true after the pipeline went into effect and
has been providing us the oil? Were any of those dire
predictions come true?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I am not aware of dire consequences,
although I must say----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, the----
Secretary Moniz. --neither am I completely familiar with
the environmental reference completely.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Sure, the caribou was going to disappear,
the tundra was going to melt. We had so many, I mean, Alaska
was going to be totally changed in its environment. None of
those dire consequences happened, did they?
Secretary Moniz. Not to my knowledge, but again, I am
hardly expert in that----
Mr. Rohrabacher. So perhaps the Keystone----
Secretary Moniz. Right
Mr. Rohrabacher. The complaints on the keystone pipeline
might be of the same kind of charge. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher. The gentleman
from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, is recognized for his questions.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Moniz, I
want to thank you for your leadership at the Department. The
first thing I wanted to raise with you is the Department's
management of the Technology Commercialization Fund. My
understanding is that for two years after it was set-up in the
Energy Policy Act of 2005, the TCF was used to provide
technology maturation funds to national labs but has been used
for other purposes since that time. While I prefer the original
approach, I think what we need is a forward-looking plan for
how the TCF is going to be operated that will enhance the
technology transfer mission at DOE. I think this is something
that is very important.
I have worked with the Committee and DOE to put language
into the Democratic COMPETES Reauthorization Act that would ask
DOE for recommended policy changes. I understand work is
currently ongoing to develop a plan. So I want to thank you for
your work on this so far and ask you is there any update you
can give us on how the planning process is going or what DOE's
vision for the TCF will be moving forward.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. I think first of all the key
is, and I will admit to it having been a frustration. The key
is filling our technology transfer coordinator position with a
very, very strong and I would say visionary person. We are I
believe on the verge of finally succeeding in that, and this
person will play of course a significant role in addressing
your question directly.
Secondly, we have raised this very directly with our
Laboratory Policy Council. So with the lab directors and our
senior leadership in DOE we are specifically developing a plan
around technology transfer. Again, it has been somewhat impeded
by our unfilled position, but that will be corrected I believe
within weeks. I feel confident this time that we will get past
the finish line.
And finally, our Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, SEAB,
is just forming a task force around a variety of laboratory
governance issues, and technology transfer is one of those. So
I think finally we are marshalling the resources we need. To be
able to answer your question, I ask for a little more patience,
and we will stay in touch.
Mr. Lipinski. Okay. Well, I just want to emphasize the
importance of that is--I have before, and thank you for that.
And anything that we can do up here certainly to help move that
forward, you know, we will be happy to do that.
Next question, as you know, several of our national labs,
including Argonne, which is in my district, have legacy nuclear
waste on site. Currently labs are using overhead dollars to
manage the waste on site, but given that we may not see large
budget increases in the future, these overhead dollars are
precious for the labs. Does the Department have any plans to
characterize and package the waste so that overhead funds could
once again go towards furthering the scientific mission of the
labs which, as I said, with the tight dollars we have right
now, this would become increasingly a major issue for many labs
including Argonne?
Secretary Moniz. This remains a challenge, and the entire
environmental management issue across the Department is also
like other things up against these tight budget caps, in this
case in particular in the so-called 050 account. Now, for
perspective, I believe EM has closed out close to 90 percent of
the requirements on managing legacy waste, but of course, there
is still a lot to do in this business, including many of the
hardest projects.
With regard to the labs, all I can say is we are trying to
move on that. I have to admit, I don't know the Argonne
situation as well as some others that are somewhat larger in
scale. For example, in Los Alamos right now, we have had to
move some transuranic waste urgently because we are concerned
about the next fire, wildfire season coming up, and we are
trying to get everything out there.
So we are trying to prioritize and move, and I understand
the frustration and the challenge on the lab budgets. I might
also just add, I think with Argonne, as you know, we have just
announced a new director, and I think it is an outstanding
choice.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. And again, I want to thank you for
your work, and continued work on these particular issues. With
that, I will yield back.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. Before I
recognize the Chairman Emeritus, Mr. Hall of Texas, I just want
to say to Members, we are expecting one vote to come up
momentarily, and if a couple of Members on either side want to
go vote right now, we are going to continue the hearing during
votes, and a Member is on the Floor now who will come back and
relieve me. So that way we will be able to squeeze in perhaps
three or four Members and their questions. I don't want
everybody to get up and leave because we need people to ask
questions for the next few minutes. But if someone wants to go,
then they will be in line immediately after the vote.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hall, is recognized for his
questions.
Mr. Hall. I still have my full time, right?
Chairman Smith. Yes, you do.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you,
I really do want to thank you for holding this hearing on what
is probably one of the most important words in the dictionary,
especially to youngsters 18 years old, high school, college
graduates, and that word is energy. Other than prayer or grace,
it is probably the most important word in the dictionary.
Mr. Secretary, this is the second opportunity I have had to
hear from you. Last week you appeared before Energy and
Commerce, and we are pleased to have you here today to report
on science and technology priorities at the Department of
Energy.
Mr. Secretary, you are one of the few, maybe I am not
putting that correct, but you are one who knows something about
Section 999 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, right?
Secretary Moniz. I do, indeed.
Mr. Hall. It established an unconventional oil and gas
research program. Actually, to put it plain, we had energy at
the bottom of the ocean ultra-deep that we couldn't get up, and
we traded for technology to get it up and paid for it with the
energy that we got up, not at the taxpayers' expense. And that
is what sold it and that is what makes it good still today. And
it has been battered around, hammered, but it is still alive.
So I want to ask you some questions about it.
As you know, this program has funded a wide range of very
successful projects that have developed new technologies and
processes to mitigate potential environmental impacts and
improve energy production efficiency. First, A, let me ask you,
what are your thoughts on Section 999 program?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I believe the program, as you said,
has done a very, very good job in terms of its R&D support,
very, very strong university participation, very strong
industry matching funds in ultra-deep water, unconventional gas
and small producer problems.
Mr. Hall. And how did the program fit in with an ``all-of-
the-above'' strategy that our country needs and this
Administration claims to support?
Secretary Moniz. Well, many of the programs supported and
those also that we proposed in our natural gas technology
section are addressing the environmental challenges----
Mr. Hall. And I am pleased it stays supported.
Secretary Moniz. --of producing--yes.
Mr. Hall. Can you tell us why the public-private
partnership approach worked so well for this program?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I am a big fan of public-private
partnerships in general. This program, again, it worked well. I
think it provided stability because of the revenue stream for
the industry to feel confident in investing in matching funds
for longer term projects.
Mr. Hall. And the real-world research accomplishments of
the program?
Secretary Moniz. I think it was, again, a very, very good
program, many very positive things.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Secretary, the fairly recent and dramatic
increase in natural gas and oil production that has resulted
from hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have been
great for the country from an energy supply and employment
perspective. These new technological and energy advancements
bring with them new challenges such as water, and other
resources, management, well production, efficiency improvement,
minimization of methane emissions and understanding and
protecting against other activities. What do you think is the
best way to understand and manage these challenges? And it has
been challenged ever since it passed, even by governors that
signed it.
Secretary Moniz. Well, again, in general, I think the
programs including public support and public-private
partnership, especially for looking at the environmental
impacts of frontier hydrocarbon production are critical, and I
think there are many mechanisms for doing that.
Mr. Hall. And I will ask you a real quick question. I think
I know what your answer is. Would it better to have a purely
government program or an R&D program that combines public and
private experience, knowledge and funding?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I think, again, in this area in
particular, I think public-private partnership is the way to
go, and that can be--our own programs require, for example,
matching funds.
Mr. Hall. Tell us why the public-private partnership
approach works so well for this program.
Secretary Moniz. Well, again, I think it is more general. I
think the way these work is industry has a major role in
defining the research agenda, but then many other players,
including universities and our national laboratories, are the
performers of the research.
Mr. Hall. I will have other questions that I will send to
you, but I thank you for it. Would you like to do more cross-
cutting programs like this program?
Secretary Moniz. Absolutely. I think cross-cutting programs
and public-private partnership is a key to some significant
progress.
Mr. Hall. I have 1 second to yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Hall. The gentlewoman from
Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Moniz,
welcome back, and thank you for your expertise, your hard work
at the Department of Energy and the wealth of knowledge you
bring to these hearings.
I wanted to mention, you said something about a new
framework for the Hanford clean-up, and as someone who
represents the State on the other side of the Columbia River,
thank you. We look forward to getting updates on how that is
going.
Before I move onto my questions, I want to simply go on
record as stressing the importance of continued robust funding
for the Office of Science. On this Committee as well as on the
Education Committee, one of the challenges we frequently
discuss is how to make sure that young people are interested in
going into the STEM fields. I just had a student in my office
who is engaged in post-graduate work on high energy physics,
and he was first inspired to go into the field when he learned
about the LHC and the search for the Higgs-Boson particle. That
project enjoys contributions from a host of partners, including
the Department of Energy, and these investments are important
to advance science but also to inspire young people to go into
science. So that is a continued investment that is important.
On that note, another important investment is in the STEM
workforce. It is developing educators who can inspire our youth
to pursue a career in the STEM fields. So I was a bit concerned
that the budget for Workforce Development for Teachers and
Scientists within the Department of Energy is facing a
decrease, and can you briefly comment on what the Department is
doing to promote STEM learning through other initiatives with
that cut?
Secretary Moniz. Well, thank you. A couple of comments, and
I will look more carefully at those issues in terms of our
distributed programs for dealing with teachers, et cetera,
because a lot of it does happen without explicit budget
recognition, for example, through our laboratories. But a
couple of points: One is I think as you know, the
Administration is continuing a process of trying to consolidate
a number of these programs, and so we will be working with the
new NSF director, for example, trying to make sure that the DOE
needs are in fact reflected fully. A second point I will just
make. It is not quite on this, but it is related, is that in
this budget, it is not a huge amount of funding, but we want to
move forward with the Office of Science as the guiding light to
institute perhaps you might call experiment, with some NIH-like
traineeships. So distinct from fellowships or research
assistantships, traineeships focused on specific areas of
national need for human resources relevant to energy.
Ms. Bonamici. Terrific. Thank you. And I want to move on
because I have a couple more questions. I wanted to ask about
another budget decrease that is proposed, and that is a 25
percent cut for marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy
research and development. We have a lot of potential on the
coast. There is the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy
Center that has benefitted from the DOE's water power program.
There is some nascent technology that holds great economic
promise, of course, with the exploration of wave energy and the
development of wave energy devices.
So I am a little concerned about that cut, but I saw that
the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy budget was
increased. So without strong Department of Energy involvement,
I am concerned that the water power industry won't progress at
the pace they need to. So can you please comment on that? And I
want a little time for one more quick question.
Secretary Moniz. Quickly, first of all, the water power
office budget was put in for an increase, but what happened was
there was a rebalancing toward things like microhydro and a new
stream reach, et cetera, with the idea that that may have
shorter term commercialization. However, let me be completely
straightforward. In a number of hearings, I have heard this
concern over the marine kinetic program, and we will be happy
to engage that discussion and look at----
Ms. Bonamici. Terrific.
Secretary Moniz. --a possible rebalancing.
Ms. Bonamici. Great. We would prefer that our businesses
don't have to go to Scotland to test their technology. And
speaking of foreign competition, I have in my district the U.S.
headquarters of Solar World, and they have had ongoing concerns
about China flooding the market with panels. There is a serious
concern about how that creates a playing field that is not
level. So as we continue to look at ways to promote the
implementation of clean energy technology at a price that is
cost competitive with traditional fossil energy, can you
discuss the trade-off between cheaper solar power today and the
cost of potential dependency on Chinese manufacturers in the
future?
Secretary Moniz. Well, there is some trade-off there, but
of course, we would like both. As you know, there are trade
cases that we have brought in the WTO framework, and I believe
that we are still very, very strong in our supply chain,
polysilicon, for example. And of course, as we know more
generally, manufacturing is coming back to the United States.
So we want to help make sure we are competitive in multiple
dimensions, including I might add, the manufacturing
initiatives that have broad application. For example, the very
first manufacturing hub, we put in funding with the Department
of Defense to advance 3-D printing. That may have implications
for solar and other industries down the road. Oh, and also, our
second one, I am sorry if I may add--then our second one that
we funded entirely is on power electronics which of course is
very important for the balance of systems in a solar panel.
Ms. Bonamici. Right, and my time is expired. Thank you very
much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici. The gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Naugebauer, is recognized.
Mr. Naugebauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this very important hearing. Secretary Moniz, obviously
you have been in a number of budget hearings the last few
months, and you continue to reiterate the importance of an all-
of-the-above energy program. But I would kind of associate
myself with the remarks of the Chairman. You know, an all-of-
the-above means, you know, an all-of-the-above. And I think
that the distribution that the Administration is making on
research for all-of-the-above is a little bit convoluted when
you think about the fact that 80 percent of the world's energy
will come from fossil fuels, at least through 2040, according
to a recent EIA report. And I would refer back to the
Chairman's chart there, it would look like to me if that is the
future there, that the chart should be changed around where a
majority of the money is going to for fossil fuel development
because that is where the majority of the energy is going to
come from.
With that being said, earlier this year I think the
Administration announced it was going to conduct a quadrennial
energy review to examine U.S. energy policy and make
recommendations for the future with all of the other energy
sources, all-of-the-above energy sources on the table. I think
this is a good idea. In Texas we already understand the
importance of all-of-the-above. As you know, Texas leads the
Nation in oil and gas and wind energy production. What are your
expectations for the QER and what do you expect to come out of
that?
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. The QER, the Q is of course
quadrennial, but we are taking quadrennial kind of one year at
a time. So this year the focus is specifically on energy
infrastructure, the transmission, storage and distribution of
energy. That is electricity. It is also fuels. So there is
going to be two major focus areas. It will be around
modernization of the grid taking into account all the threats
that we see, extreme weather, cyber, physical threats,
geomagnetic, infrastructure interdependencies. It will also
look at fuels, infrastructure resilience with particularly
focused on different regions because the regional challenges,
the bottlenecks there are quite different. For example, we have
seen in New England this winter the natural gas issues. We have
seen in Upper Midwest and actually elsewhere as well, including
going much further south, things like the propane issues which
were big infrastructure issues. We have the oil by train
issues. So this will be the focus this year. At the end of the
year we intend to have this first chunk done that will then
recommend whatever policy steps that we believe should be
taken. And that will be--it is a public discussion, I should
say, that is--tomorrow the first public meeting on the QER will
be held here at the Capitol, in fact, and then we will be going
out around the country.
Mr. Naugebauer. Do you have an outline of the full scope of
it? And obviously you were talking about specific areas here.
And what I heard you saying is this is the first step. So is
there----
Secretary Moniz. Right.
Mr. Naugebauer. --an overall model or outline of what you
intend to review through this process?
Secretary Moniz. So tomorrow there will be discussion about
where we are going with this and the kinds of information we
are bringing together. I might say that we have consolidated a
number of policy activities in the Department, supportive of
this QER, and built up analytical capacity because a lot of
this is going to require some serious analysis. So we will
discuss that, and this year's agenda is what I said. For the
following years, we have ideas but to be perfectly honest, we
are looking here at a long-range plan as a series of short-
range plans. We are heavily focused on this infrastructure
issue.
Mr. Naugebauer. So obviously infrastructure is important,
but what assurances can you give me that during this review
that it will be an all-of-the-above approach?
Secretary Moniz. Well, as I have said, the two major focal
areas will be electricity with all forms of supply which the
grid must deal with including, I could say in Texas, you know,
long-range renewables with base-load plants. But like I said,
the other major focus is going to be on the liquid fuels
infrastructure with a regional focus.
Mr. Naugebauer. I look forward to, you know, you giving us
an update on the----
Secretary Moniz. We would be happy to. Also, tomorrow there
will be the public meeting, but we could provide, you know,
some briefings if that is helpful.
Mr. Rohrabacher. [Presiding] Thank you very much. And now
Dr. Bera from California.
Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
coming back to the Committee, Mr. Secretary. If I recall when
you were last here, we talked a little bit about atmospheric
carbon and the amount of time it takes to degrade atmospheric
carbon. I am trying to search my memory. Did you say 4,000
years roughly?
Secretary Moniz. No, but I said centuries.
Mr. Bera. Centuries.
Secretary Moniz. Yeah.
Mr. Bera. Okay, but still a significant amount of time.
Once the----
Secretary Moniz. A long time.
Mr. Bera. --carbon is captured in the atmosphere, it
certainly takes a long time to degrade it. We have also, you
know, in much of the debate within this body as well as we talk
about climate change, much of what we discuss is how to
mitigate adding additional carbon to the atmosphere, and I
think that is where some of the discussion has gone. In
addition, when we talk about sequestration, much of what we are
talking about is how we capture and do soil-based
sequestration. That is accurate I believe as well.
Secretary Moniz. Um-hum.
Mr. Bera. Within the DOE budget, though, are we also
researching potential opportunities to do atmospheric
degradation in terms of research and so forth? I would be
curious about that.
Secretary Moniz. Well, there are activities going on like
beneficial use of CO2. There are not that many
opportunities at the scale that one needs. One example would be
our sunlight-to-fuels hub which is an issue of using light,
CO2 and water to produce hydrocarbon fuels for use.
That is one example. But I can't say that that is going to be
commercial next year.
Mr. Bera. But some of the challenges that we potentially
face is at some juncture atmosphere carbon that is already
captured there is not going to degrade for centuries. We will
have a challenge, and there probably is some irreversible point
where----
Secretary Moniz. Right, and in general--again, these are
major scientific challenges, not easy, but a very important
part of the portfolio because certainly if you compare that
with some of the ideas about what is called often
geoengineering, like putting sulfates into the atmosphere,
those have consequences that I don't think we understand.
Mr. Bera. Absolutely. Switching over to kind of the
scientific computing side and so forth, you know, Intel is a
major presence in my district and has been obviously very
involved in supercomputing. We have, within this body, talked
about if some of the advanced scientific computing and
challenges of managing big data as we accumulate more data, how
we sort through that data, how we use it. You know, I am a
physician by training. Certainly there are ways for us to use
it to better manage patients and disease. I would like to have
you comment on the DOE's, you know, supercomputing priorities
here. You touched on the exascale program and so forth. I would
love to hear your comments.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. Again, we consider this to be a
very high priority and very much in line with the historic
contributions that DOE has made in leading high-performance
computing. So our plan would be to achieve exascale early, very
early in the next decade. I want to make clear that we don't
view this as a race to how many flops as opposed to generating
the technologies. For example, energy management is a critical
one if we are going to make the next stage. But resilience of
computers, how do you do the algorithmic architectures, a whole
set of questions that are very fundamental as we go to this
next scale.
So we are going to push that and drive it through an
application vision to science issues, to energy issues and of
course, to national security issues. Our nuclear weapons
program has always relied upon this very heavily.
Mr. Bera. Great. You also touched on the importance of the
public-private partnership and your emphasis there and the
Office of Technology Transfer. Just given your academic
background, what are some things that we could do within this
body to help facilitate that greater partnership between the
private sector and academia, particularly our public
universities?
Secretary Moniz. With regard to the computing specifically?
Mr. Bera. Well, computing but also the whole area of
technology transfer.
Secretary Moniz. Okay. Well, I think the Committee could
certainly advance these kinds of programs that are viewed in
particular with having some degree of stability over time. That
is very important I think for industry-making commitments,
okay? Secondly, I think reinforcing, within balance, some of
these group projects. Like in the Office of Science, I will
mention the Energy Frontier Research Centers. I think this has
been a terrific program. It is construct, is engaging the
science community, getting 10, 12 people together on an
important project over five years, and those, I know from my
own experience, where MIT had, in my previous life, I want to
make it clear, had two of those. They really attracted
industrial partners in there.
So those are the kinds of things that I think, in terms of
how it is structured, would be very helpful.
Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you. I will yield.
Mr. Naugebauer. Thank you very much, Doctor, and just for
the record, when I was asking my questions I mentioned that
nuclear energy is inherently more dangerous. I meant of course
light water reactors are inherently more dangerous than the
alternatives that we are now looking at.
Secretary Moniz. That is how I interpreted it.
Mr. Naugebauer. Good. Thank you very much. And now, Dr.
Buschon?
Mr. Buschon. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for
being here. In the wake of the EPA's new power plant emission
proposals, there has been a lot of talk about CCS, but there
are other clean-coal technologies that will be vital to our
Nation's energy future. It seems like in our rush to CCS, it
looks like we skipped over or ignored other potential
technological breakthroughs. For example, one of the most
interesting is the idea of supercritical CO2
technologies where carbon dioxide is used as a working fuel to
promote high thermal efficiencies. DOD is currently investing
in these technologies for the use in both nuclear and renewable
power applications. However, DOE is not exploring the use of
the technology for coal applications. Can you discuss the
application of supercritical technologies to increase
efficiency and reduce emissions?
Secretary Moniz. Actually, I really appreciate your raising
that because that is another one of these cross-cutting
examples that I mentioned earlier. We see this very much as
applicable to coal as well. I know the specific coal budget
request is small, but that is because we have--for various
reasons, including recent history, nuclear energy is playing
the lead role in that as we move to a demo. But we have a group
which includes fossil and nuclear and renewables, especially
because of the geothermal applications, and the demonstration
project being done will be equally applicable to coal and to
nuclear.
Mr. Buschon. Okay. That is good to know. And looking beyond
power generation applications, are there other opportunities
for coal-to-liquids R&D? What is the status of those type
projects, trying to find alternative ways to use coal?
Secretary Moniz. So we are evaluating--without saying too
much, we are in due diligence right now in terms of a
potentially large project involving coal-to-liquids and
renewables. I can't guarantee that is going to come out the
other end, but there is a due diligence going on right now on
that.
Mr. Buschon. Okay. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher [Presiding]. Thank you very much. And I
think we have now Ms. Edwards from Maryland.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for being here. I have a question actually about the
authorization that is coming up for the Office of Science. We
probably should be doing that in the next few months, and I
think it presents quite an opportunity for us because there is
a lot of support across the aisle for the activities that are
carried out by the Office. But I do think that for some of my
colleagues, one of the challenges is around the environmental
research portfolio. So I wonder if you could describe in more
detail how the Office of Science Environmental Research
programs help to meet the missions of the Department of Energy,
including the clean-up of legacy waste sites and provide a
unique opportunity or contribution to the portfolio of
environmental research carried out by other agencies and what
those relationships with the other agencies are and how they
are coordinated with other relevant agencies and programs.
Secretary Moniz. I will certainly respond to that, but
maybe we can provide you as well a fuller response. That is a
very expansive----
Ms. Edwards. Sure.
Secretary Moniz. --question. So you are referring I think
to the BER program specifically?
Ms. Edwards. Right.
Secretary Moniz. And of course, we have a very, very strong
biology-related program there as you know with a strong history
for example in the human genome project in fact in getting that
kicked off. So today we are not--first, let me make it very
clear. We are not involved in the the human health questions
directly as opposed to using advanced genomics and proteomics,
et cetera, to address a set of energy-related and
environmental-related clean-up questions.
I might add that there are some other discussions that have
been initiated with us with NIH asking us about capabilities in
our laboratories that might be useful for the brain initiative.
So that is in the very early stages but could be something
interesting. That is based mainly on our computational and
sensor capacities.
Finally, of course, that program is the center for what is
a major part of the climate change modeling program, a major
engine for doing that and combining it with our large-scale
computational capabilities, getting to finer and finer spatial
resolution.
Ms. Edwards. What are the other agencies with which you
work in the area of climate research?
Secretary Moniz. There is a broad set of agencies. I
probably can't name them all, but NOAA for example would be a
very important one, National Science Foundation another one, I
am guessing----
Ms. Edwards. What about NASA?
Secretary Moniz. --the Interior.
Ms. Edwards. What about NASA?
Secretary Moniz. NASA? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Very
important, NASA.
Ms. Edwards. Can you tell me more specifically about the
work that you are doing around climate that relates to NASA and
the importance of the connection between the two agencies?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I think it is very complementary. I
mean, NASA of course has the very strong observational
capabilities, providing data, et cetera, and the Department of
Energy I would say--you know, in the end our very major
capacity is around high-performance computing and developing
let us call it the software structures that one needs to
analyze.
Ms. Edwards. Would you be comfortable with losing the
responsibility for at least the climate part of the research
portfolio because other agencies do similar things? Would it be
okay to just deep-six the energy portfolio?
Secretary Moniz. No. First of all, I think the Department
of Energy has the greatest capacity in this area. It would be
very hard to replace given again our high-performance computing
capabilities. And secondly, it is so directly connected to the
energy system. So I think the Department remains the place
where that can be most effectively carried out.
Ms. Edwards. Do you think--is there work that you are doing
that you believe might be duplicative in other agencies? Have
you found that in the relationship that you have, say, with
NOAA, NASA, NSF?
Secretary Moniz. So I think there has been now functioning
for quite a long time the Interagency Climate Change Group that
is specifically dedicated to having complementary programs
executed but come together into a hole without gaps.
Ms. Edwards. So you don't think there is any duplication of
effort in that area?
Secretary Moniz. I would say nothing material.
Ms. Edwards. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher [Presiding]. Thank you. Mr. Posey?
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for your attendance today and more particularly for
directly answering every question that was sent your way. We
really appreciate that one. Can you give us a current status on
the supply inventory and availability of plutonium 238 and any
other nuclear fuel that may be needed for spaceflight?
Secretary Moniz. Actually this is one where I am going to
have to I think respond for the record, to be honest, I am not
up to date on the plutonium 238 situation. I have to be honest
about that.
Mr. Posey. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. But we will respond for the record----
Mr. Posey. Within the next 10 days?
Secretary Moniz. I am sorry. We will respond to you
quickly. I am sorry.
Mr. Posey. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. Will to you directly, yes, sir.
Mr. Posey. Well, the follow-up, you know, how much time
does it take to produce the PU-238 and the costs associated
with it?
Secretary Moniz. Okay. We will respond on that as well.
Obviously there have been issues historically of Russia being a
principal supplier.
Mr. Posey. You know, is a thorium reactor currently being
employed or being considered as an alternative means to produce
PU-238 from uranium 233?
Secretary Moniz. No, sir. We certainly are not engaged in
that, and we have no thorium program that I know of at least
today.
Mr. Posey. Okay. Thank you.
Secretary Moniz. Yeah.
Mr. Posey. Do you know of any other feasible, timely or
cost-efficient alternative means of producing PU-238?
Secretary Moniz. Again, I think we are going to have to
give you a comprehensive response to all of these plutonium 238
questions, and we will do that promptly.
Mr. Posey. Okay. Are you aware of any stockpile of U-233 in
our national inventory that could be used to do PU-238 which is
currently being considered for destruction?
Secretary Moniz. Yes, well, we certainly have U-233
particularly at Oak Ridge. It is not in a form right now that I
think is usable, and in fact we are moving towards the disposal
of a number of capsules that contain U-233.
Mr. Posey. Could you expand upon that a little bit? Why we
are disposing of it?
Secretary Moniz. Well, it has been declared as a waste
form. It has now been transferred to our environmental
management program for disposal. We have not seen a use for it
or projected use for it, particularly given the difficulties
that would be entailed in terms of purifying it.
Mr. Posey. Yeah, and of course, that was one of my previous
questions. Processing 233 and the 238 and--I mean, I am kind of
alarmed. I was hoping you were going to say no, there are none
being considered. What we have, you know, we are guarding with
our lives because it is so hard to produce, it is so hard to
get and of course, it is hard to bring it to the next level as
well. But I think this is real key to human or any space
exploration and I would like to know as much about that as soon
as possible----
Secretary Moniz. Okay.
Mr. Posey. --as you know about it or can find out about
that.
Secretary Moniz. Okay. No, I will get people on it today.
Mr. Posey. Thank you very much.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you.
Mr. Posey. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Rohrabacher [Presiding]. Mr. Peters?
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for being with us today. I had a question about
algae. I understand that the Department of Energy, Office of
Science has supported fundamental science research on biomass
including $600 million since 2007 for the three Bioenergy
research centers which, according to the website, provide the
fundamental science to underpin a cost-effective, advanced,
cellulosic biofuels industry. We certainly support the work
that is being done in that area and agree that that is
important.
I would just encourage you to expand the Office's portfolio
to include research on algae. I am sure that there are many
Members of Congress, including of course other Members of the
bipartisan Congressional Algae Caucus which I co-chair who
would appreciate your support for algae research in the DOE's
Office of Science, and I wondered if you had any thoughts on
that.
Secretary Moniz. Well, I will certainly get together with
Pat Dehmer here and see what we are doing and what more might
be done. I will note that there are other programs engaged
here. For example, our work with DOD and USDA in our tri-
agreement, I believe two of the four projects certainly involve
oils in algae.
Mr. Peters. Right, but I----
Secretary Moniz. But I will check that.
Mr. Peters. We certainly appreciate your participation in
that and support that effort and the funding for it. And I also
wanted to applaud the Department's attention to carbon capture
utilization and storage research and wondered if you had any
thoughts on what kind of technologies would be looked at for
CO2 utilization.
Secretary Moniz. Well, today the principal utilization
approach is enhanced oil recovery. In fact, we are producing
about 300,000 barrels a day today from CO2-enhanced
oil recovery where that CO2 is mostly natural. So as
that ramps up, there is a potential for about 600 megatons of
CO2 per year for enhanced oil recovery if the rather
loose projections hold out, which can only come from carbon
capture.
Mr. Peters. Right.
Secretary Moniz. So that is the principal one right now,
just known----
Mr. Peters. Just again, how much did you say?
Secretary Moniz. The potential is for 600 megatons of
CO2 per year which would produce about 3 million
barrels a day, and roughly speaking it is a half-a-ton of
CO2 per barrel of oil produced. So that could be
substantial utilization. Then there are the others which are
still in much earlier stages. I mentioned one earlier,
sunlight-to-fuels, you know, sunlight plus CO2 plus
water going to fuels. That is an example of but much more
research is obviously required.
Mr. Peters. Right. Great. I appreciate that, and that is
also very important. Finally, on advanced nuclear reactors, in
Fiscal Year 2014, Congress gave the Department $12 million for
advanced reactor concepts for an industry-only competition,
four times the amount you had in the previous year. And I hope
that means that you could make some grants as high as $4 or $5
million that would attract competitors. Maybe the Department is
looking into develop the whole reactor as opposed to individual
technologies. Do you anticipate that the Department would be
able to communicate with American companies along those lines?
Secretary Moniz. I believe there is communication along
those lines, but I will get back and talk with Mr. Lyons and
see if we can't sharpen it up.
Mr. Peters. Okay. Super. And again, Mr. Secretary, thank
you very much----
Secretary Moniz. Okay.
Mr. Peters. --for your fine work and for being here today.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher [Presiding]. Mr. Hultgren?
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Secretary
Moniz. I appreciate your very important work. I appreciate you
being here as well. As all of us, I understand the tough
constraints you are dealing with with the budget, so it is more
important than ever that we understand the priorities the
President is putting forward.
As you know, I have been fully supportive of basic
scientific research and recognize that the Federal Government
must do this. I also recognize our lab systems put us in a
position to that while also making our user facilities
available to other agencies, universities and even business.
Many of these facilities run 24 hours a day and have to turn
away researchers. This also ensures that we keep the brain
power in America to make our next game-changing discovery right
here and as soon as possible.
Would you say that the President prioritizes applied
research, demonstration and deployment over basic research?
Secretary Moniz. Yeah, well, I believe it is a very
balanced view, and the President has stated many times that we
understand that, yeah, our basic research enterprise ultimately
is what underpins all that we do. Then of course one has to
make the difficult budget balancing.
Mr. Hultgren. Yeah, it does come back to where priorities
are. When I see a budget that has a less than one percent
increase in the Office of Science, I can understand that
certainly is a product of our budgetary constraints. But when
you look throughout the rest of the DOE budget, it is easy to
see that it is not the case. This is misplaced priorities
according to my reading. Many programs for favored industries
are getting a large budgetary increase. EERE received a 22
percent increase which includes funding for offshore wind
demonstration, as the Chairman talked about.
When I think of technological development, I see basic
scientific research as the horse that is pulling the cart.
Whenever we have a budget that is putting strains on our
ability to do this work while paying to rush out technologies
which may or may not yet be viable on the open market, I am
worried that we are putting the cart before the horse, and to
make matters worse, we are starving the horse while we are at
it. This will have long-term impacts on our ability to innovate
and be a competitive Nation, I fear.
To better understand what the President is looking for so
we can do this kind of work, can you broadly explain to us what
you will need to see from the particle physics project
prioritization panel, or P-5, report? I know we are still
awaiting the report next month. So I am not asking you about
any specific projects you might endorse. This is just so we
have a better understanding of how the Administration goes
about its prioritization process.
Secretary Moniz. Yes. Thank you. I am looking forward very
much to the P-5 report at the end of May and how HEPAP deals
with it, High Energy Physics Advisory Panel. What I have said
to the group last year and to Nigel, the director at Fermilab.
Mr. Hultgren. Yes, doing a great job.
Secretary Moniz. Terrific guy. To be honest--well, first of
all, let me say the discovery science, particle physics, and
others of the basic sciences, are very, very strongly committed
to. The high-energy physics community, I have made no secret of
it and they agree that for quite some time it has been very
difficult to get a coherent kind of buy-in of the community, as
least to some of the major commitments. I am very much hoping
that that is what we will see in May, and with that, I think we
can all do some work.
Mr. Hultgren. I hope to, too. And I am optimistic from
that. The P-5 report is vital for our direction in physics, and
looked at it as similar to the decadal survey for NASA which
our Committee has had hearings on.
What worries me about this budget is the mixed signals we
are sending to the scientific community which is becoming
increasingly international. This is just one example that is
emblematic of the budget as a whole. The community understands
their budgetary constraints, and they are trying to do this in
a responsible fashion. But in the lowest budgetary scenario,
they were told to expect flat line funding for three years as
the President has used basic research as I see it as a piggy
bank for other priorities. The HEP line was cut. While we
continue to cite the need for community to rally behind a plan,
how does the Administration justify the moves that are
disincentivizing the community to do so? The international
community continuously says they just need to see some
semblance of long-term stability. What are they supposed to
think when the report comes out but we couldn't give the people
crafting the report an honest budget scenario to work with?
When we have projects engineering and design funding for
project cuts, aren't we sending the wrong message? We have even
cut accelerator R&D funding, even though it was vital for the
LCLS upgrades DOE is citing as a major accomplishment. I just
want to see a cohesive message that our science community can
work with, that can have that confidence, that their work is
important that we recognize and it is a priority. Again, I
appreciate your work. I appreciate your openness, certainly to
be here and to meet with me, to meet with others. I know these
are challenging times, but I just want to express my concern
and I think the concern that others around the world are
feeling with the uncertainty there and specifically to our
scientific community.
My time is expired. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Hultgren. Before I recognize
the gentleman from California, Mr. Swalwell, I would like to
recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Johnson, for some comments.
Ms. Johnson of Texas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
just wanted to announce the arrival of the new Member which we
acknowledged earlier, Ms. Katherine Clark, from Massachusetts.
Welcome
Ms. Clark. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. We do welcome the new Member. Thank you.
Representative Clark, both the Ranking Member and I took your
name in vain while you were at the earlier meeting, but we do
look forward to your membership in this Committee and your
participation and the interest and expertise you bring as well.
Thank you.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Swalwell, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome back,
Secretary Moniz. I want to first thank you for taking a trip
out to Livermore, California, and visiting Lawrence Livermore
and Sandia National Laboratories. The employees there greatly
appreciated it, and in this time of sequestration and
especially after the government shut-down, it was a boost in
morale to have our Secretary of Energy come visit the
scientists who are working at those laboratories to keep us
safe but also to move us forward in our energy security
pursuits.
I want to also briefly mention the Neutralized Drift
Compression Experiment II, or NDCX-II, which is a heavy ion
fusion and basic science research tool. I am aware that earlier
there were problems with standing up this project, but I am
very pleased to hear that under a new management team at the
Lawrence Berkeley lab and a peer-review path forward, that
there is now potential to leverage the Federal investment
already under way and for prodution of excellent science. And
so I would like to commend the Department for working with
NDCX-II to explore the benefits of furthering this operation.
But as far as the budgeting goes, I want to talk about NIF,
the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore. And I was
pleased to see NIF was spared from further drastic cuts, and I
hope you and the President will continue to provide adequate
funding so that the groundbreaking science there can be
achieved. And I wanted you to tell me your plans as to how the
Office of Science can work more closely with NIF as we seek
ignition.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. And by the way, let me just say
the visit was terrific, and it is always fun to be at a lab,
and the Livermore visit was great. I just want to note that it
wasn't only me who went but my entire Secretary of Energy
Advisory Board as well. And many of them had never seen NIF and
were suitably impressed at its scale for sure.
NIF is doing some very important work. It is providing very
important contributions to our stewardship program. And we are
making sure that we preserve at least some degree of some of
the basic science work at NIF as well as at our other high-
energy density facilities which are really kind of a three-
some. NIF is by far the biggest but the Z machine and the Omega
machine as well.
In terms of the Office of Science, I think the first issue
is, to be honest, until the ignition is achieved, then clearly
the ideas of going into the fusion direction I think would be
viewed as kind of premature. So I think that would be a very
important milestone. As you know, progress towards that
milestone is being made. Some substantial progress was made
only in the last few months. We have to get there.
Mr. Swalwell. And we look forward to having you out there
when we reach ignition which we hope is soon----
Secretary Moniz. That will be a good day.
Mr. Swalwell. --rather than later. Also, I wanted to
mention something that came to light yesterday, and I asked
Members, Committee witnesses at the Homeland Security Committee
hearing about this. We learned that just recently Al Qaida in
their magazine, Inspire, used a picture of SFO airport and a
message encouraging its members to detonate an explosive
device. And it is not clear as to whether that was directed at
SFO airport in the Bay Area or if it was just a general
message. But it has raised concerns and reminds us that we
remain under attack from Al Qaida, that they do seek to carry
out a terrorist attack. And Lawrence Livermore and Sandia
National Laboratories both do great work in protecting against
the next attack. And I wanted to know how this budget will
reflect our priorities of continuing to have our scientists not
just do nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship but also work to
prevent a terrorist attack and support law enforcement efforts.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. The nonproliferation budget,
unfortunately, was reduced again within our constraints. Let me
just stay without going into great detail that the stockpile
stewardship plan that was submitted last year was budgetarily
unrealistic, and we had to get that back under control while
preserving our commitment to the stockpile basic plan, without
going into detail, but what is relevant to this is that when we
went through the process with the National Security Council and
the Department of Defense, we came to a budget that we felt
even though it reduced by over $1 billion the life extension
program in the Fiscal Year 2017, Fiscal Year 2020 period by
stretching out some programs consistent with military
requirements, we just needed that increase in the weapons
program; and then with the constrained Fiscal Year 050 budget,
neither nonproliferation nor environmental management could
come in at the same budget. Still a strong program, and the
labs will be critical in securing nuclear materials--sources.
Secondly, we are--in fact, right now there is an Academy
study and there is other work that we are doing looking at
streamlining what is currently called--a word I dislike to be
perfectly honest--Work for Others, because they aren't others.
They are part of our team, like the Department of Homeland
Security. And as you know, Livermore, in particular, is
probably our lead lab for working on the Homeland Security
issues.
So this is going to be a major focus, and again, we are
balancing budget priorities within a fixed budget.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Swalwell. The gentleman from
Arizona, Mr. Schweikert, is recognized.
Mr. Schweikert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, as
you have heard all the Members speak, we all have sort of our
individual areas of interest or expertise. So I don't mean this
to be more of an ethereal conversation, more to educate me.
When you have so many priorities coming at you and we come at
you and say, all right, this is basic research, this is applied
research, this is for commercialization. How do you arbitrage
those differences but also how do you sort of walk through and
make your decision making? You know, just as the conversation
we were just having we are all incredibly hopeful one day we
will hit that moment of ignition and control and, you know, the
Holy Grail is there. But if you are not there, you don't
prioritize hope, you prioritize data. Tell me your process. How
do you go through that sort of triage?
Secretary Moniz. I wish it were completely organized, but I
will do my best. First of all, as we have discussed here and on
the stockpile, et cetera, as you know the Department of Energy
has a pretty diverse set of responsibilities. But what I want
to emphasize is the common theme is, and I will be immodest for
the Department in saying, the Department is a science and
technology powerhouse, and that is its fundamental core
capability, and those are the capacities that are being applied
to energy, to basic science, to nuclear security.
Now, in each of those areas, and we did have our strategic
plan put out last week, we try to keep focused on our major
objectives. What is it that we have to accomplish in each of
those major mission areas? We try to maintain a balance in
terms of near, intermediate term and long-term focus. Generally
speaking, the long-term focus when it comes to let us say,
energy technologies, are probably more modest investments but
very important to see something. An example I mentioned earlier
is that we thought it was very important, even though it was
only $15 million, to emphasize in the fossil energy budget,
ramping up a program on methane hydrates. That is the analogy
of I think what the Department did in 1979 that led to
unconventional gas today.
Mr. Schweikert. But what I am somewhat chasing is do you
have a particular methodology? You know, do you sit down with a
decision tree and say here is how we are going to do our
priorities?
Secretary Moniz. So the way it works is that the
fundamental build-up, it starts bottom-up with our programs,
and they will now essentially be starting the Fiscal Year 2016
bottom-up build-up. That is within guidance that we give in
terms of general set of priorities. They come back with their
programs. We kind of aggregate them at the undersecretary
level. So in this case the energy and science programs come
together. Frankly, to be technical about it, in that process,
they are assigned budget targets, and the Office of the
Secretary maintains a reserve, if you like, to----
Mr. Schweikert. Okay, so we----
Secretary Moniz. --meet priorities.
Mr. Schweikert. Okay. So we have our budget priorities, and
then our technology priorities as coupled with that, I am
trying to systematize it in my head. And within that, do you
rank saying, okay, this is basic research, this is applied? How
does sort of the matrix work out?
Secretary Moniz. We are--again, it is imperfect, but we are
looking at making sure we have a reasonable balance which
certainly, for science, includes recognizing the critical role
that we have in underpinning especially the physical science
establishment. So we have to look at our user facility, our big
budget item. That is a responsibility to the entire science
community. So that is a very high priority.
Mr. Schweikert. Now, how much flexibility do you actually
have to pivot? And I don't know if this experience has actually
happened where you have developed a line item, it is moving
forward, and then all of a sudden in the literature, there is a
private lab or some university lab that has actually leaped
ahead of what you were going after, the ability to switch and
move those resources somewhere else you consider either more
promising or more worthy. Do you have that level of flexibility
to make those decisions mid-stream?
Secretary Moniz. Well, certainly over a period of a year or
two. Now, in terms of a more rapid response, that depends in
terms of how the appropriations language is written in the
sense that, you know, obviously it directs us. But in the
Office of Science I think there is a fair amount of flexibility
in that regard, less so in some other parts of the Department.
Mr. Schweikert. And the last question. Mr. Chairman,
forgive me. I know I am going a little long. Part of my reason
for my curiosity of building sort of that decisions matrix is
we know we often get tugged with the current popular discussion
or the current technological folklore. And sometimes that is
just noise in the decision-making process and was just curious
how you screen that out.
Secretary Moniz. First of all, let me say, I would be happy
to find some time to sit down so that we might learn something
also from your ideas in terms of how we can manage this kind of
portfolio balancing. But let me just say that fundamentally, it
is using our judgment on portfolio balancing in multiple
dimensions.
Mr. Schweikert. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. That is really the core principal.
Mr. Schweikert. But in many ways is done through judgment,
not necessarily sort of a----
Secretary Moniz. Yeah, there is no----
Mr. Schweikert. --hard----
Secretary Moniz. --quantitative scoring.
Mr. Schweikert. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. Right, and it is not just me. It involves
a collective discussion. We have open discussions, and people--
--
Mr. Schweikert. Look, I know you have----
Chairman Smith. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Schweikert. Okay, sorry. Sorry, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Schweikert.
Mr. Schweikert. Thank you for your patience.
Secretary Moniz. But we can follow up if----
Chairman Smith. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Veasey, is
recognized.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask you a
couple of questions about the coal because I know that that is
an area where there is some, you know, disagreement on. In your
opinion, has coal gone through the problems that it is going
through because of what is going on in the market or because of
what is going on within the Agency as far as the policy
direction in which the agency, you know, sees coal? Could you
kind of touch on that a little bit?
Secretary Moniz. Well, over these last several years, as we
know there has been a substantial substitution of natural gas
for coal, and I would say that was principally driven by the
market in terms of the low gas prices. Going ahead, there will
be issues, for example, of how the EPA rules turn out, let us
say, for new coal plants where, as you know, partial CO2
capture is in the proposed rule.
Mr. Veasey. Also, another coal question. I have heard that
some people say we have as high as a 200-year supply of coal
just in our country. Can coal be made clean enough to where it
is a cleaner-burning fuel like the other things that we are
looking at as far as renewables, natural gas, et cetera?
Secretary Moniz. Well, of course, first of all, in terms of
conventional pollutants, we have done a lot to clean that up as
you know over the last decades. The challenge now is carbon
dioxide, and there we have our eight major demonstration
projects right now to pursue that. I personally believe there
is nothing in the science that suggests that CCS or CCUS will
not work at substantial scale, and then this question of what
are we going to do in terms of CO2 policy because
clearly for a coal plant, it is not going to be less expensive
to capture than not capture, but the question is, in the
competition, we expect coal to have a marketplace role in a
low-carbon environment through the successful higher efficiency
of coal plants and CCUS.
Mr. Veasey. If I could very quickly switch over to methane
and, you know, as it pertains to natural gas in particular, you
know, there has been some concern about, you know, the release
of methane, you know, at the wells. What do you think can be
done more to help ease that? Because obviously that everyone
says that the natural gas is a much more cleaner-burning fuel.
But with the methane being released, obviously that can create
problems. And if you can capture the methane and stop it from
releasing, obviously it would make it even more clean and more
efficient. So can you just talk on that a little bit?
Secretary Moniz. Sure. There is by the way an interagency
methane group that is working, DOE, EPA, Department of
Interior, USDA. There has been a lot of progress in most places
in capturing methane from production because of course it is a
valuable product, and in some cases it is also driving the
replacement of large diesels to drive the hydraulic fracturing
by natural gas engines which, again, are much cleaner, and so
it helps the air quality in the production zones.
We have a challenge in many places on the production side,
like in the Bakken shale where the infrastructure fundamentally
isn't there to move the gas out and so they are flaring a lot
of it. But the state has made a strong commitment to lower
that.
But what I want to emphasize, and frankly it is a strong
focus of the Department of Energy, is that--and more data are
needed. But the methane issue has probably been overly focused
on the production well as opposed to the end-to-end system. So
the whole issue of the gathering, the transportation and the
distribution systems for natural gas is an issue.
We hosted a multi-stakeholder workshop, the first of five
that we will have, on methane emissions recently involving
industry, labor, environmental groups, et cetera. And it was
very interesting. There was a lot of convergence there, and it
is clear. One of the big challenges is, and it is not only for
methane, is that we have a very old natural gas distribution
infrastructure, for example, in many of our cities. We saw a
tragedy in New York not so long ago. And I think the issue is
jobs as well. Let us get a modern infrastructure built, and
that will take care of the methane leaks as well.
So those are some of the ways we are thinking about it.
Mr. Veasey. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Veasey. The gentleman from
North Dakota, Mr. Cramer, is recognized.
Mr. Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Secretary. I am delighted to hear of your continuing commitment
to putting research dollars into carbon capture, especially
into using that carbon to enhanced oil recovery because, of
course, in North Dakota, any research that has as its ultimate
goal extending the life of our coal mines and our Bakken oil
patch is a noble goal indeed. So I thank you for that.
I just hope that we can put enough research dollars into
DOE to keep up with the rules at the EPA so we don't get the
rule ahead of the research.
I want to ask you specifically, though, you referenced
earlier a little bit about efficiency, and I want to focus
specifically on turbine efficiency and the role that might have
in producing, well, putting us at a global advantage for lots
of things, not the least of which is by the way the
manufacturing sector and manufacturing the turbines that might
can get us another percent or two or three. And with gas
becoming more and more important and a more and more important
fuel, for generating electricity, I would like you to speak
specifically if you would to research that enhances gas
efficiency for generating electricity.
Secretary Moniz. Certainly. And by the way, I might add,
going back to your prologue, of course, with the Great Plains
Plant----
Mr. Cramer. Yes.
Secretary Moniz. --I think they have now passed 20 megatons
of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery in the Weyburn
field. So it is quite a----
Mr. Cramer. That is true.
Secretary Moniz. Quite a large amount over the last ten
years or so. On turbine efficiency, the Department really going
back to the '90s had a very, very major program on increased
Turbine efficiency that was done with--I think the main
programs were with GE and with Siemens leading both of them to
now commercialize. I think it is called the F-turbine series.
So those were a substantial job in efficiency. I think they are
now getting into the marketplace, and it is very impressive,
certainly in combined cycle plants. Now I think you are talking
over 60 percent efficiency. So it is a big deal.
Mr. Cramer. Well, if we could squeeze another percent or
two and get into the low 60s, I think it, my understanding is
that it could make quite a massive difference.
Secretary Moniz. Yeah, no, percent's here or there matter.
Mr. Cramer. Yeah, they sure do. I want to focus on
something a little different now. A couple of years ago, I
think two years ago this month actually, the Administration or
the President actually signed an executive order forming the
Interagency Working Group on research for hydraulic fracturing,
and at the time it was announced that there would be a research
plan developed by the agencies included, of course the
Department of Energy, EPA, I believe the Geological Surveys,
part of that. It was going to be presented to Congress in
January. January came and went last year. January has come and
gone this year. We are now into the blossom season here in
Washington, D.C. I am just wondering if you could give us some
idea of when we will see that plan?
Secretary Moniz. Okay. I will certainly look into that
right after the hearing. There is a very active group with DOE
involved in these unconventional gas technologies. I certainly
have seen a research agenda there, so let me just look into
that and see if we can't get something to you.
Mr. Cramer. Well, I know. I think the promise was that
Congress would be presented with a research plan from the
working group. We have not seen that.
Secretary Moniz. I hear you.
Mr. Cramer. So we----
Secretary Moniz. So let me look into that.
Mr. Cramer. Okay. We will look forward to----
Secretary Moniz. Because there certainly is an R&D agenda
that I have seen there.
Mr. Cramer. Well, I appreciate that. And Mr. Chairman, I
yield back the balance of my time. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Cramer. The gentleman
from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, is recognized for any
questions except those dealing with offshore wind.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
time. Mr. Secretary, it is great to see you again. It is always
good to see a constituent. So thank you for your service.
I want to follow up a little bit about some of those issues
that we have talked about before but predominantly clean energy
and--we will leave it broad for that. But nevertheless, the
Department of Energy's budget proposal, Mr. Secretary, as you
know, continues to support an all-of-the-above energy strategy,
and you spoke about this a little bit a couple minutes ago.
Specifically, it also increases funding for clean and renewable
energy programs. The clean energy sector has huge implications
in both short and long run.
In the long run, I think we could make huge strides in
protecting our environment and minimizing the negative impact
of human interaction with our environment. If these renewable
technologies are brought to scale, it could also significantly
address an issue that we constantly hear from our constituents
back home about ever increasing energy prices.
I would like to focus however, briefly, if I could with
you, Mr. Secretary, on the shorter term economic implications
of investing in clean energy technologies. As you well know, my
district and yours is home to a number of communities that are
already taking on some of these risks. A recent report from the
Massachusetts Clean Energy Center notes that Southeastern
Massachusetts and your hometown of Fall River is right at the
center of it, it is now one of the fastest-growing regions in
the Commonwealth with clean energy employment, with an increase
of 14.3 percent from 2012 to 2013 representing over 17,000
jobs. That is a real impact right now.
With this budget, the Administration is recognizing this
opportunity. So in that framework, I have got three questions
for you, sir. First, what can we expect from the Department of
Energy's efforts to invest in these types of technologies?
Second, what results should we realistically be able to achieve
if we funded this proposal in full. And third, how can we
prepare to develop a top-notch clean energy workforce to help
keep these jobs right here at home? Thank you.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you. Let me try to take those three
on. Well, I will kind of all put them all together I guess. So
first of all, the issue of the jobs, in the energy sector in
general and in the clean energy sector in particular, clearly
are increasing. I think for example in solar energy where up to
like 150,000 there, and that is just only one sector. In wind,
by the way, where you can make the translation of jobs based on
groth we have gone in a relatively short time from the United
States providing about 25 percent of the supply chain for wind
turbines deployed in the United States to now over 70 percent.
So that is, again--manufacturing, installation, all these kinds
of jobs are happening. So the programs themselves will continue
to stimulate jobs and to stimulate manufacturing.
Now, in that context, another element is our focus in
laying the foundation for the critical technologies for our
future manufacturing capabilities in clean energy and other
things. So for example, the Department of Energy and DOD did
the first manufacturing institute on 3-D printing. The
Department of Energy did another one ourselves on high-powered
electronics, which affects many parts of the energy technology
space. We have announced a third one on light-weight composite
materials. Many applications, vehicles, wind turbine blades, et
cetera. So that is a second.
A third element is in our budget proposal, we want to start
something I mentioned it a little bit earlier, NIH-type
traineeships. This is going to the human resources now,
traineeships that focus on specific areas of human resource
need in this country, like power electronics, like people who
really know high-performance computing, algorithm development,
areas like that. So targeted sectors where we need more of our
people engaged.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and I appreciate
your plug for, which I am not sure if you knew, our
manufacturing bill that we had a hearing on here in this
Committee. It has got great bipartisan support with Congressman
Tom Reed as well a number of bipartisan co-sponsors, up to
about 60 or so. So hopefully some of our other colleagues will
sign on. Thank you for your time, sir. Mr. Chairman, I yield
back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. The gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized for his questions.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Dr. Moniz, thank
you for being here. Do you know where the largest CCSS facility
is in the country?
Secretary Moniz. In this country, it is probably in Texas,
and certainly the largest CO2 EOR place in the
country is in West Texas, I think.
Mr. Weber. Right, but for the carbon capture and
sequestration storage, or what you would call carbon capture
and utilization storage facility, do you know where the largest
one is?
Secretary Moniz. Right now it is right in the Houston
Channel, I believe.
Mr. Weber. Well, no, it is actually in my district.
Secretary Moniz. Oh, I am sorry. Wrong district.
Mr. Weber. I know that is a shocker for you. Yeah, just
east of that small town of Houston which is one of our
suburbs----
Secretary Moniz. Okay.
Mr. Weber. --over in the Beaumont, Port Arthur area.
Secretary Moniz. That is what I meant, Port Arthur.
Mr. Weber. I knew that. You just spelled it differently.
Secretary Moniz. That is right.
Mr. Weber. So do you have any idea what the cost of that
facility was?
Secretary Moniz. No, I do not, sir.
Mr. Weber. It was about $440 or $460 million as I recall,
in the mid-400s. Do you know what the Department of Energy's
kick in to that was, how much money they supplied to Air
Products, Incorporated?
Secretary Moniz. Not precisely.
Mr. Weber. Sixty percent, about 200. If you just took $400
million, it would be $240 million. It is going to be a little
bit more than that. I don't believe that that kind of project
is duplicable. You can't duplicate that. You know, we had the
chairman from Southern Energy come in and talk about the plant
they are building in Mississippi, and there is no way that we
can, as rational people say, that that is a sustainable
economic business, viable business project when the taxpayers
are having to support it to the tune of 60 percent. Would you
agree with that?
Secretary Moniz. Well, I think we need the context,
however, that these are first mover plants, and the expectation
is costs will come down as more of these----
Mr. Weber. Do you know how long it has been in operation?
Secretary Moniz. I thought it was like one year.
Mr. Weber. It has been a little over a year they opened up.
I was there for the grand opening.
Secretary Moniz. Yeah.
Mr. Weber. But when you have got other plants looking at
this and saying there is no way, trust me, they are studying
that bottom line, and that is cost in that balance sheet. And
they are saying there is no way they can duplicate this. I just
want to make sure you know. I believe that the United States is
poised on the verge of an energy renaissance, but I also
believe that the current energy policy, and that is the
Department of Energy, their current policy is going to keep us
from being able to realize as much of that energy renaissance
as we might have and could ultimately affect national security.
So here is my question for you. Have you read the State
Department's study on the Keystone pipeline, the report?
Secretary Moniz. I have not read the full report. I read
the summary----
Mr. Weber. You read the summary----
Secretary Moniz. --of the EIS.
Mr. Weber. --of it? Are you aware that some seven Federal
agencies, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Ag,
Department of Energy, Department of Interior, Transportation,
Office of Pipeline and Safety, the U.S. EPA and various state
and local agencies contributed to that report? Did you know
that?
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Mr. Weber. Including of course the Department of Energy?
Secretary Moniz. Yes.
Mr. Weber. Do you agree with the findings of that report?
Secretary Moniz. Well, we are in the process right now of
making our comments in the 90-day comment period. So I think I
have to leave it at that for the moment.
Mr. Weber. But you were a part of that report. So when----
Secretary Moniz. Our office supplied technical support.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Did you do a good job?
Secretary Moniz. I think so.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Well, then that report should be a good
report.
Secretary Moniz. For at least our part of it.
Mr. Weber. Okay. All right. Touchhe. So does the Department
of Energy ever give thought or study to the greenery, the
environment, the trees, the grass on their ability to take
CO2 and to use it in photosynthesis and ingest, you
know, how they use CO2, Plants take that and make
oxygen. Are you studying the ability of the environment going
forward to be able to synthesize if you will that CO2
or are you just studying the output of the CO2 from
the various sources?
Secretary Moniz. No, no, there are a variety of efforts in
terms of understanding and maybe engineering some of the up-
take in land use systems.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Do you agree with my idea, my statement,
that our energy policy may be hampering that energy renaissance
and that could affect our national security?
Secretary Moniz. No, I do not, sir.
Mr. Weber. You don't agree?
Secretary Moniz. No.
Mr. Weber. The President said during his----
Secretary Moniz. I would argue by observation we are doing
pretty well on the renaissance.
Mr. Weber. Well, I think we could do better. We would love
to get the Keystone Pipeline down into my district. And so when
the President said under his energy policy, electricity prices
would of necessity skyrocket, have you seen that video, that
YouTube?
Secretary Moniz. No, I have not.
Mr. Weber. I think he is making good on that claim, but I
think it is at our expense.
Secretary Moniz. Well, of course, our job as we have always
said is fundamentally--the aim of our innovation programs is
continued cost-reduction of technologies, especially low-carbon
technologies.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Mr. Chairman----
Secretary Moniz. Which would include CCS and others.
Mr. Weber. Yeah, it is just not duplicable. Mr. Chairman, I
yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Weber. Let me say to Members
that we are going to recess after Ms. Brownley asks her
questions and Chris Collins asks his questions, and we will
recess until noon, and we expect the votes to be over.
Secretary Moniz can stay until 12:30. So between 12:00 and
12:30 I believe Members who have not asked questions will have
an opportunity to do so, and we will be able to accommodate all
Members.
The gentlewoman from California, Ms. Brownley, is
recognized for her questions.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
Secretary, for joining us today. My questions concern the
Environmental Management account and the ongoing clean-up of
Area 5 of the Santa Susana Field Lab which is in my district.
Clean-up at Santa Susana is of critical importance to my
constituents and has been for decades. It is undisputed that
toxic chemicals were used, spilled and dumped at Santa Susana.
It is imperative that we eliminate the potential and
significant health and safety risk for people who will continue
to live nearby and those who will be using the site in future
years.
Any clean-up to less than background levels will leave both
radioactive and chemical contamination in place regardless of
the end-use of the property which, at this point, is undecided.
So my question is, is the Department of Energy fully
committed to adhering to the 2007 Consent Order for Corrective
action and the 2010 Administrative Order on Consent with the
State of California?
Secretary Moniz. Yes. My understanding is that we are
developing the required EIS, it is moving along and expect to
have that available, that draft, late this year or very early
in 2015.
Ms. Brownley. So you are on track for early '15? I think it
was supposed to be completed----
Secretary Moniz. Correct.
Ms. Brownley. --by September?
Secretary Moniz. Yeah. Well, maybe late this year. We are
trying.
Ms. Brownley. Okay. But by 2015 you believe----
Secretary Moniz. Early.
Ms. Brownley. Early.
Secretary Moniz. Early 2015, preferably late this year.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you, sir. And in the 2014--well, in
2014 Congress provided approximately $9.4 million for the
clean-up and in the 2015 request asked for only $8.96 million
which is a reduction of about almost $450,000. So my question
is, has the Department of Energy requested reduced funding?
Secretary Moniz. Well, yes, obviously we proposed a few
percent reduction. I mean, this is consistent with what we had
to across the board because of the constrained caps. I mean, in
our overall EM budget, we had to come down $200 million. But
within this budget, we will complete the draft EIS. We will
start the final EIS. We will submit the conceptual ground water
model report. I think we can accomplish a lot in Fiscal Year
2015.
Ms. Brownley. Okay. And so there is a list of milestones
proposed for 2015. You have mentioned some of them, the draft
EIS, completing ground water characterization, submitting a
final remediation plan and a conceptual ground water report to
state regulators. So you feel the budget is sufficient to
accomplish those goals?
Secretary Moniz. I think we can. It is always tight, and a
little more money would help. But again, this is just in the
context of--this is frankly like an across-the-board haircut
that we had to take in the end.
Ms. Brownley. Understood, and I appreciate your answers and
appreciate your commitment to this. This is an issue that I
have worked on for a very long time when I was in the State
Legislature and now here in Congress, and I can't underscore
how important it is to Southern California and particularly to
my constituents. So I appreciate your focus and commitment.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you.
Ms. Brownley. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Collins. Thank you. I will be the last one, Mr.
Secretary. Then we will go through the recess. My question
concerns the loan guarantee program and in particular, you
know, I live in a world where actions speak a lot louder than
words. And we have loan guarantees for renewables. We have loan
guarantees for fossil fuel programs. Frankly, some of the
actions that we have seen including what I will call the gross
negligence on the due diligence on Solyndra. I have spent 30
years in the private equity world. I know due diligence, and I
have to say, on that one, and I don't want to beat a dead
horse, it was pretty obvious that the Administration was
looking to approve something frankly absence due diligence.
But right now my concern is the $8 billion fossil loan
guarantee program which closed on February 28. And we saw some
of those projects appear to be ones that were submitted in the
past. They languished. They were anything but fast-tracked.
Actions seem to indicate to many of us the Administration is
picking winners and losers. They are picking renewables over
fossil. They are fast-tracking, absent due diligence, on
renewables while good fossil programs languish. That is what
our observations based on results would indicate.
So frankly, with the February 28 date, have any of these
fossil grants been approved?
Secretary Moniz. Well, no. But first of all, I want to
emphasize that the program is not closed. This is kind of a
rolling set of applications, though.
Mr. Collins. So we had the ones that----
Secretary Moniz. So that was the first----
Mr. Collins. --were due----
Secretary Moniz. Yeah.
Mr. Collins. --February 28.
Secretary Moniz. That was the first date.
Mr. Collins. Yes.
Secretary Moniz. And there will be other dates moving
forward. Secondly, there are some earlier applications. One in
particular was mentioned earlier, coal to liquids, which was
dramatically changed by the proposers, and they have been
notified that that is going into--well, they were offered to go
into the next stage of due diligence, and they have accepted,
and so that is now into due diligence. And there were some new
proposals that came in as well that I can't discuss at the
moment.
I must say, obviously I have been at the Department for, I
don't know now, 11 months I guess, counting on 11 months. And
the current director of the Loan Program Office, Peter
Davidson. I would love to get you two together to discuss the
program if that is of interest and given your background. But I
think he is very competent, and I have to say, I believe that
this group is very competent in their due diligence, and I
think we could demonstrate that.
Mr. Collins. Well, can we expect to see a number of
programs on the fossil program that were completed in February,
approved in a rolling method?
Secretary Moniz. Well, that is our intent.
Mr. Collins. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. But again, we will not approve projects
just to hit $8 billion. We will only approve projects if----
Mr. Collins. Okay. No, I understand----
Secretary Moniz. --if they do not do due diligence.
Mr. Collins. --but again, the past would indicate in
renewables, in fact, the Department prior to your heading it
did approve projects for the purpose of approving projects
absent due diligence----
Secretary Moniz. Well, but he----
Mr. Collins. --or Solyndra never would have occurred so----
Secretary Moniz. Well, sir, again, without getting into
Solyndra specifically, I can say that a lot of other renewables
projects have been very, very successful. One example we like
to quote is in 2009, 2010, as you well know, when debt
financing was particularly difficult, the first five utility-
scale photovoltaic projects were given loan guarantees. They
are all performing, they all have PPAs----
Mr. Collins. Well, again, no I understand that----
Secretary Moniz. And----
Mr. Collins. --and time is running short.
Secretary Moniz. Oh.
Mr. Collins. But let me ask you, have you done an after-
action look at Solyndra, what went wrong, what didn't happen,
what should have happened. Have we learned from our mistakes?
Secretary Moniz. I have not personally done that, but I
believe that was done before my arrival and Solyndra was good--
--
Mr. Collins. Well, I----
Secretary Moniz. --very early in the program.
Mr. Collins. I would appreciate if you could share with our
Committee what that after-action found because the staggering
amount and the fact that, quite frankly, it has become, you
know, the stalking horse that we talk about. It would make I
know me and others feel good if we would learn from the
mistakes. That was a very costly waste of taxpayer dollars. Let
us hope we get some value out of it to learn from.
Secretary Moniz. Yeah, if I may just add that it is because
I don't want to tie it to the one particular project, but I
think the learning process in this group has been very, very
clear and very, very substantial. I think they are an extremely
strong group in this moment, and that came from lessons
learned.
Mr. Collins. All right. Well, I would like to see what we
did. As I close up for right now before we recess, can you tell
us the dollar amount of loan guarantees that have closed for
renewables? The total.
Secretary Moniz. The total amount.
Mr. Collins. Yeah, the total dollar amount for renewables
versus nuclear versus fossil, closed.
Secretary Moniz. Well, what closed is $6.5 million on
nuclear.
Mr. Collins. Okay.
Secretary Moniz. Roughly $8-plus billion on advanced
vehicles. So that is say, $14, $15 billion. Subtract that from
32. So we are at 14 probably renewables.
Mr. Collins. And none for fossil?
Secretary Moniz. Not yet. I don't believe any have closed
on fossil yet, but that is the current call.
Mr. Collins. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Secretary Moniz. Yeah.
Mr. Collins. The Committee will now stand in recess until
after the beginning of the last vote. Thank you for all your
patience.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you.
[Recess.]
Chairman Smith. The Science, Space, and Technology
Committee will reconvene. Secretary Moniz, several Members have
come back from our series of votes, and I am glad they are
here. And then I have an additional question for you about
nuclear fusion after they have finished.
And we will now turn to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts,
Ms. Clark, for her questions.
Ms. Clark. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the
very gracious and warm welcome to this Committee. It is truly a
privilege to be a part of it, and I thank you for that and also
for having arranged at my first hearing we will have one of our
most prestigious Bay Staters here with us.
Chairman Smith. It was all intentional.
Ms. Clark. Yes. Well, thank you. It is fantastic.
Secretary Moniz. And a Red Sox fan.
Ms. Clark. That is exactly right. And so thank you very
much, Mr. Secretary. It is a pleasure to be here with you. And
I had a couple of more general questions as I make my way
around my incredible district and the work that is being done
on energy, the life sciences and really that connection in
Massachusetts between the academics and what we produce, what
we research in the labs and our ability to take that to the
marketplace.
One of my questions for you comes out of what I am hearing
has certainly been a focus of my colleague, Congressman
Kennedy, and many others on this Committee is a focus on STEM
education. And I was very heartened in your testimony when you
mentioned your commitment really to keeping the United States
as a global leader in high-performance computing. And some of
these STEM programs that have been very vital to the work in
Massachusetts, there have been many, but two in particular are
the Computational Science Graduate Fellowships and also the
graduate student research programs, both of which the budget is
proposing to significantly cut. And I wondered if you could
tell me a little bit about your thinking behind that and what
some of the alternatives for those programs might be.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you, and my I welcome you as well to
Washington. First of all, in terms of graduate student support
through research programs, that will continue in a very robust
way that, you know, principally going through our research
grants. On the fellowship side, again, the Administration has
felt that it would be more efficient and effective to
consolidate how fellowships are done which, for example, in our
case the National Science Foundation being in the lead and that
we will collaborate with them so that our areas of interest are
addressed. But in that particular case, the computational
science as I have said, that is one of the areas that we would
like to use in this kind of pioneering effort this year, I mean
Fiscal Year 2015, for the NIH-style traineeship programs which
will focus on specific areas of national need of relevance to
energy programs.
So we will emphasize that, and if I may make one other
comment more broadly on the STEM education, that is we two
years ago started a Women in Clean Energy program. In my
previous life at MIT, we were pleased to help that program go
forward with a partnership, and then subsequent to my arrival
last year, we started a similar Minorities in Energy program.
And so another very important issue is that frankly, both women
and minorities are underrepresented in the energy workforce
today. It is opportunity for them, and it is need for us.
Ms. Clark. Great. Thank you. You anticipated my second
question. That is wonderful, and I see that my time is
dwindling here, but I just want to also say that as we look at
our clean tech and really look at that thriving industry in
Massachusetts, there are some that say it is too soon, it is
too immature of an energy to really have an energy technology
to really have an impact on climate change and on reducing
greenhouse emissions. And I certainly look forward to working
with you to disproving that.
Secretary Moniz. And we can't wait.
Ms. Clark. Thank you very much.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Clark. The gentleman from
Ohio, Mr. Johnson, is recognized for his questions.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again it
is great to be serving on the Science and Technology Committee,
and I would like to also welcome our colleague, Ms. Clark, to
the Committee as one of the newest Members myself. It is good
to have her aboard.
Mr. Secretary, it is always good to see you.
Secretary Moniz. Good to see you.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. There might be those that think you
and I have a standing Thursday morning meeting because we have
been meeting like this for a couple of weeks now. And I would
like to start off today with a few questions on Yucca Mountain,
Mr. Secretary. Your Department has repeatedly committed, both
in Congressional hearings and in correspondence, that DOE would
honor NRC's November 18th order and support the Yucca Mountain
License Review. As recently as January 6, the DOE stated it
would honor NRC's request to complete a ground water supplement
to the Yucca Mountain EIS and indicated that it had taken steps
to do so, including procuring contractor services and drafting
a Notice of Intent.
However, on February 28th, DOE notified NRC that it would
not prepare the EIS supplement. Why did DOE change its mind
over those seven weeks?
Secretary Moniz. First of all, we are fully supporting the
process, and what I had referred to in terms of contractor, et
cetera, we are working very hard on the update of the ground
water technical volume which is the essential input, and
frankly, we think we are probably going to get that done this
month, so pretty quickly. In the discussions in terms of
actually running the process, we had discussions with
Chairwoman McFarland. The view was--and in their request, it
was made clear that that step could be done by either one of
us, that as the adjudicator, then we felt it was better if they
formally ran the process, but we fully support all of the
information required. In fact, we were in the public hearing on
Monday presenting the ground water technical process.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Well, the NRC currently has a
remaining nuclear waste fund balance of some $12.4 million, and
it is not clear that NRC has enough funds to complete the EIS
supplement and to complete the remaining safety evaluation
report volumes. Won't your decision, the Department's decision
force NRC to deplete its funds even faster?
Secretary Moniz. We don't believe it is a material impact.
I mean, what we are doing right now with the ground water
technical analysis has required some funding which we have, and
those remaining steps are not resource-intensive. But certainly
we had no statement that that would create a problem.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Well, I am just curious. If there was
a question about who was responsible for doing the EIS, why did
the DOE commit to doing it in the first place if now you are
determining that it is best carried out by NRC?
Secretary Moniz. Well, Pete Lyons wrote a letter as you
said correctly in January stating that he would. Again, we had
further discussions including my discussing with the chair of
the NRC, and we just felt this was, in the end, this was a
better approach.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Well, given that DOE has a nuclear
waste fund balance of about $44 million, wouldn't it be more
cost effective for DOE to carry out that earlier commitment?
Secretary Moniz. I have to check the exact numbers. I think
our unobligated balances are something like $17 million I
believe.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. My understanding is $44 million, but I
mean, if you could get back to me on that, that would be great.
Secretary Moniz. Well, I think the distinction is that the
unobligated balances--I will get back to you precisely, but I
believe it is $17 million. I believe the thought is that if
called upon, we may be able to deobligate some other funds and
bring them into this.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. All right. Well, Mr. Secretary, I
enjoy working with you, and I like you. We have a good rapport,
and I think that you are doing the best that you can in a tough
situation. But from where we are sitting, it seems that there
is an orchestrated campaign by Senator Reid and the
Administration to run the funding dry at NRC so that they
cannot complete the safety evaluation report. This I happening
because once that safety evaluation report comes out saying
that Yucca is safe for a million years, then opposition from
Senator Reid will be made moot, and there will be no choice but
to move forward with Yucca. Are we wrong in this assumption
that there is pressure coming from the Senate Majority Leader?
Secretary Moniz. I can flatly state that there was no
consideration of that type in that decision about their
completing that, because again, we are doing the lift in terms
of the update of all the technical information.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Okay. And my time has expired, and
again, this is not personal because I enjoy working with you,
Mr. Secretary. But we want to make sure that you and the NRC
know that we are very carefully watching this process, and we
are not going to allow any kind of outside influences to
detract and delay the release of that safety evaluation report.
Secretary Moniz. And if I may just again, we will, as we
have said, we will execute the things that we need to do. The
courts have ruled against the NRC in that case. But also I will
just note that, as you all know, another court ruling which we
have pursued is we submitted our letter on the waste fee
following the court's dictate.
Mr. Johnson of Ohio. Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Secretary
Moniz, I was going to ask you a question about nuclear fusion,
and I know you have an expert with you, the Acting Director of
the Office of Science, but before she steps up, I now realize
it would amount to probably an individual tutorial. And what I
would like to do in lieu of getting into that right now is ask
you if you would submit a report and give us an update on the
progress we are making toward achieving nuclear fusion, and let
me distribute it to all Committee Members. And that way
everyone will benefit from your knowledge, and it just won't be
an individual right now.
So if we could do that, then we will momentarily stand
adjourned. But thank you, Secretary Moniz, for being with us
today. Thank you for being gracious with your time. And I have
to say to you, you always give the impression, which I assume
is an accurate one, of being forthright and basing your
decisions more on data than something that might be influenced
by politics. And we appreciate that.
Secretary Moniz. We try.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Secretary Moniz.
Secretary Moniz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. And we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by The Hon. Ernest Moniz
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