“We are taking action to restart the nuclear industry as part of a broad approach to cut carbon pollution and create new clean energy jobs,” said Secretary Chu.  “These projects will help us develop the nuclear technologies of the future and move our domestic nuclear industry forward.”

Among the research areas are the safe and cost-effective management of used fuel, new higher performance reactor technologies, and the aging and degradation behaviors of reactor materials.

A full list of the projects can be found here.

Below is a description of several types of projects:

Fuel Cycle Research and Development (13 projects, $11,823,154)

The goal of this research area is to research and demonstrate technologies that will enable the safe and cost-effective management of the used fuel produced by the current and future nuclear fuel cycle in a manner that reduces proliferation risk. The research conducted in the program is focused on developing novel technology options that will improve used fuel storage, recycling and disposal options, with performance in cost and environmental consequences significantly improved from current technology performance. Project awardees in this area are below.  Actual project funding will be established during contract negotiation phase.

• California State University, Long Beach – $1,390,252
• Clemson University – $614,690
• Drexel University – $1,149,327
• Idaho State University – $650,000
• Pennsylvania State University – $1,377,444
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – $810,141
• University of Florida – $894,042
• University of Michigan – $931,603
• University of Michigan- $406,712
• University of Missouri, Columbia – $541,286
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas – $989,800
• University of Wisconsin, Madison – $616,073
• Washington State University – $1,451,784

Generation IV Reactor Research and Development (20 projects, $19,855,912)

The goal of this research area is to research and develop the next generation of nuclear reactors that will produce more energy and create less waste.  The focus is developing new reactor technologies with higher safety, economic, and sustainability performance. The program will involve research on crosscutting technologies that will accelerate the development of advanced reactor concepts, including fuels, materials, and reactor modeling. The program also investigates small and medium-sized reactor concepts.  If commercially successful, small modular reactors would significantly expand the options for nuclear power and its applications, and may prove advantageous compared to the Generation III+ nuclear plants in terms of economics, performance, and security.  The research program is focused on the key technology challenges for these concepts and supports cross-cutting activities, including Modeling and Simulation, Structural Materials, Energy Conversion, Nuclear Instrumentation and Control, and Innovative Manufacturing Approaches. Project awardees in this area are below.  Actual project funding will be established during contract negotiation phase.

• Georgia Institute of Technology – $1,046,277
• Idaho State University – $1,287,921
• Johns Hopkins University – $1,183,239
• The Ohio State University – $1,366,627
• Pennsylvania State University – $1,000,000
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – $475,005
• University of California, Berkeley – $1,320,667
• University of California, Santa Barbara – $995,232
• University of Cincinnati – $833,109
• University of Michigan – $996,581
• University of Michigan – $1,181,379
• University of Minnesota – $1,366,163
• University of Minnesota – $854,542
• University of Missouri, Columbia – $703,064
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas – $451,269
• University of South Carolina – $1,366,626
• University of Washington – $899,518
• University of Wisconsin, Madison – $1,352,040
• University of Wisconsin, Madison – $525,206
• University of Wisconsin, Madison – $651,447

Light Water Reactor Sustainability (2 projects, $764,140)

The goal of this research area is to develop technologies and other solutions that can improve the reliability and sustain the safety of current reactors, and provide information to inform decisions on extending the life of current reactors. Research elements are focused on the understanding of fundamental aging and degradation behavior in reactor materials, creating improved inspection and monitoring technologies, fostering development of advanced fuels, and incorporating risk-informed, performance-based techniques in safety margin characterization and life-extension decision making. Project awardees in this area are below.  Actual project funding will be established during contract negotiation phase.

• Mississippi State University – $345,941
• North Carolina State University – $418,199

Mission-Relevant Investigator-Initiated Research (7 projects, $5,556,816)

This research area focuses on creative, innovative, and “blue sky” research. This area includes research in the fields or disciplines of nuclear science and engineering such as, but not limited to, Nuclear Engineering, Nuclear Physics, Health Physics, Nuclear Materials Science, Radiochemistry or Nuclear Chemistry. Examples of topics of interest are new reactor designs and technologies; advanced fuel cycles, including advanced nuclear fuels; alternate aqueous and dry processes, including volatility and ionic liquids; instrumentation and control/human factors; radiochemistry; and fundamental nuclear science. Project awardees in this area are below.  Actual project funding will be established during contract negotiation phase.

• Idaho State University – $597,252
• North Carolina State University – $1,129,304
• Pennsylvania State University – $870,613
• University of California, Berkeley – $380,653
• University of Cincinnati – $1,242,019
• University of Michigan – $798,943
• University of Wisconsin, Madison – $538,032

In the piece, the authors examine how energy R&D, and not just manufacturing, is following the investments to China, citing the world’s largest solar research facility built by Applied Materials and IBM’s $40 million lab for smart grid and other technologies as examples.  Statistics match the anecdotes as reports show the U.S. ranking 6th in the world in innovation-based competitiveness and last among 40 nations in progress over the last decade.  China, on the other hand, ranks first.  Atkinson and Swezey explain how government policy has played a role in these developments:

“The Chinese government has aggressively employed a comprehensive technology-based investment strategy to attract private investment and encourage leading companies to locate high-value research operations in the country. They have also erected a host of global welfare-reducing mercantilist policies to spur green-industry production and exports. These include turning a blind eye to intellectual-property theft, making access to Chinese markets contingent on U.S. firms expanding R&D activities in China, and blatantly manipulating currency values so as to subsidize exports of green products.”

Private investment has followed the government efforts as the $34.6 billion of venture capital in China more than doubled the second highest total from the U.S.  The authors go on to argue that this development will become a dangerous pattern:

“Cleantech clusters are being created in China, but not in the U.S.  That’s why U.S. government officials who are supporting the importation of heavily subsidized Chinese cleantech products need to recognize that this Chinese “gift” is actually a Trojan horse—cheaper products now, dramatically fewer high-wage U.S. jobs later.

The piece concludes with a prescription for the U.S. government:

“As such, the federal government must start the important work of facilitating the development of its own clusters of clean energy innovation in the U.S. To succeed, the U.S. must do two key things. First, it should prioritize major public investments in clean energy innovation, advanced manufacturing, and market creation, something it has been unwilling to do in any of the climate and energy bills currently before Congress. Second, it needs to significantly step up efforts to challenge Chinese mercantilism, whether in green industries or any high value-added industry critical to the country’s future.

Without these measures, the U.S. takes a big risk that the clean energy technologies of the future will not just be produced abroad, but invented there, too.”

To read the full article, click here.

The first ARPA-E summit is currently underway, and as the author notes, despite frequent references to the Apollo Project, the “premise of the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA–E is somewhat simpler—emulate its older sibling, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)” in spurring the development of new technologies. “Since its founding in 1958 during the Cold War in the wake of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik,” DARPA has given birth to a wide range of inventions, including stealth fighters and the Internet. For its part, ARPA–E “plans to fund multidisciplinary technical ideas that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve national security and create jobs.”

Out of some 3,700 applications, “37 technologies qualified for government funds, with each getting an average $4 million.” On the bright side,  ”‘the number of good ideas has been amazing, and we don’t even have all the intellectual horsepower of the U.S. into clean energy,’ [ARPA-E director Arun] Majumdar says. But as he notes, ”‘we need multiple lunar landings, not just one.’”

Unfortunately, ”political realities might short-circuit those ‘lunar landings,’ many of which (according to the ARPA-E director) won’t become manifest for 10 years or more.” Majumdar says, ”We are not short on ideas. The question is, what happens next?”

In any case, things are moving ahead: “$100 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (better known as the stimulus) was made available on March 2, to be awarded via ARPA–E to the best proposals for new grid-scale storage devices, better power converters and more efficient air conditioners.

However, the article’s author worries that ”the bulk of [projects funded by ARPA-E] are old ideas dusted off after years of storage.” He asks if “ARPA–E been too conservative in these early stages, funding ideas that have been around for awhile? … Besides the stimulus monies, the Obama administration committed just $400 million to ARPA-e specifically—and asked for just $300 million in next year’s budget—for an agency intended to remake the multitrillion dollar U.S. energy landscape.”

In contrast, “China is spending $12 million an hour on clean energy, according to John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, a politically liberal think tank. And the U.S. lacks what many here regard as the key to driving a transition to clean, abundant energy: a price on carbon. ‘Let’s not take this growth industry [in clean energy] and give it to every other country in the world but the U.S.,’” GE’s Jeffrey Immelt says.

But the article ends on an optimistic note: “ARPA–E’s conservative approach may prove to have been both politically and scientifically smart. In considering Galileo’s breakthrough, ‘he didn’t invent the telescope, he improved the telescope,’ said Chu in his address to the conference. ‘If you find a new rock or a new way of looking at the rock, chances are you can make a good discovery and you don’t even have to be that smart.’