**Energy Frontier Research Centers**

***Tackling Our Energy Challenges in a New Era of Science***

**The Department of Energy's Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy
Sciences announces the initiation of Energy Frontier Research Centers
(EFRCs) to accelerate the rate of scientific breakthroughs needed to
create advanced energy technologies for the 21^st^ century. The EFRCs
will pursue the fundamental understanding necessary to meet the global
need for abundant, clean, and economical energy.**

**Background Information**

***Context.*** Imagine a virtually unlimited supply of electrical power
from solar-energy systems, modeled on the photosynthetic processes
utilized by green plants, and power lines that could transmit this
electricity from the deserts of the southwest to the Eastern Seaboard at
nearly 100 percent efficiency. If the technological advances in
information of the 20^th^ century serve as a guide, disruptive advances
borne out of pushing the science frontiers will be a key to addressing
21^st^ century energy challenges.

***Establishing the Energy Research Directions.*** In 2001, the Basic
Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) conducted a far reaching
study to assess the scope of fundamental scientific research that must
be considered to address the DOE missions in energy efficiency,
renewable energy resources, improved use of fossil fuels, safe and
publicly acceptable nuclear energy, future energy sources, and reduced
environmental impacts of energy production and use.

The scientific community responded to this BESAC study with enthusiasm
through participation in a week-long workshop, whose results were
published in early 2003 in the report, *Basic Research Needs to Assure a
Secure Energy Future*. That report inspired a series of ten follow-on
"*Basic Research Needs*" workshops over the next five years, which
together attracted more than 1,500 participants from universities,
industry, and DOE laboratories. Topics included the hydrogen economy;
solar energy utilization; superconductivity; solid-state lighting;
advanced nuclear energy systems; combustion of 21^st^ century
transportation fuels; electrical-energy storage; geosciences as it
relates to the storage of energy wastes (the long-term storage of both
nuclear waste and CO~2~); materials under extreme environments; and
catalysis for energy-related processes. Amongst these reports, research
needs in theory, modeling, and simulation have been a central theme, in
which the BESAC report, *Opportunities for Discovery: Theory and
Computation in Basic Energy Sciences*, captures major highlights.

***The New Era of Science.*** Together, these workshop reports
highlighted the remarkable scientific journey that has taken place
during the past few decades. The resulting scientific challenges, which
no longer were discussed in terms of traditional scientific disciplines,
described a new era of science -- an era in which materials
functionalities are designed to specifications and chemical
transformations are manipulated at will. Over and over, the
recommendations from the workshops described similar themes -- that in
this new era of science, we would design, discover, and synthesize new
materials and molecular assemblies through atomic scale control; probe
and control photon, phonon, electron, and ion interactions with matter;
perform multi-scale modeling that bridges the multiple length and time
scales; and use the collective efforts of condensed matter and materials
physicists, chemists, biologists, molecular engineers, and those skilled
in applied mathematics and computer science.

***The Grand Science Challenges.*** To accomplish this---to direct and
control matter at the quantum, atomic, and molecular levels---requires a
change in our fundamental understanding of how nature works. A BESAC
Grand Challenges subcommittee was convened, which examined the
roadblocks to progress, and the opportunities for truly transformational
new understanding. The results of that examination were presented in the
report, *Directing Matter and Energy: Five Challenges for Science and
the Imagination*. This new era of energy science poses five challenges:

-   How do we control materials processes at the level of electrons?

-   How do we design and perfect atom- and energy-efficient syntheses of
    revolutionary new forms of matter with tailored properties?

-   How do remarkable properties of matter emerge from the complex
    correlations of atomic or electronic constituents and how can we
    control these properties?

-   How can we master energy and information on the nanoscale to create
    new technologies with capabilities rivaling those of living things?

-   How do we characterize and control matter away---especially very far
    away---from equilibrium?

Addressing these grand challenges is key to making the transition from
observation to control of matter.

**Energy Frontier Research Centers**

To implement the collective recommendations of these twelve workshops,
the Office of Basic Energy Sciences announces a new initiative: the
Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs). The EFRC awards are expected
to be in the \$2--5 million range annually for an initial 5-year period.
A Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) will be issued in FY 2008 to
request applications from the scientific community for the establishment
of the initial suite of EFRCs. It is anticipated that approximately
\$100 million will be available for multiple EFRC awards starting in FY
2009.

***Distinguishing Attributes.*** Energy Frontier Research Centers will
bring together the skills and talents of multiple investigators to
enable research of a scope and complexity that would not be possible
with the standard individual investigator or small group award.  An EFRC
will have the following characteristics:

-   The research program is at the forefront of one or more of the
    challenges described in the BESAC report *Directing Matter and
    Energy: Five Challenges for Science and the Imagination*
    (<http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/reports/files/GC_rpt.pdf> ).

-   The research program addresses one or more of the energy challenges
    described in the ten BES workshop reports in the *Basic Research
    Needs* series (<http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/reports/list.html>).

-   The program is balanced and comprehensive, and, as needed, supports
    experimental, theoretical, and computational efforts and develops
    new approaches in these areas.

-   The program provides opportunities to inspire, train, and support
    leading scientists of the future who have an appreciation for the
    global energy challenges of the 21^st^ century.

-   The center leadership communicates effectively with scientists of
    all disciplines and promotes awareness of the importance of energy
    science and technology.

-   There is a comprehensive management plan for a world-leading program
    that encourages high-risk, high-reward research.  The Center's
    management plan demonstrates that the whole is substantially greater
    than the sum of the individual parts.

***Research Focus Areas.*** EFRC proposals must address all of the
attributes listed above. A few examples of science areas that would
respond to the solicitation are given below. These are intended to be
examples only. The intent of the program is to allow for maximum
flexibility within the broad guidelines given above. We are particularly
interested in tapping the imagination and creativity of the scientific
community to address the fundamental questions of how nature works and
to harness this new knowledge for some of our most critical real-world
challenges.

-   ***Direct conversion of solar energy to electricity and chemical
    fuels*.** Learning to direct and control materials and chemical
    processes at the level of electrons, where the laws of quantum
    mechanics rule, would pave the way for essentially new quantum
    control impacting catalysis, photochemistry, molecular biology, and
    device physics that are the foundational pieces in solar energy
    conversion. Powerful new methods of nanoscale fabrication,
    characterization, and simulation---using physical, chemical and
    biological tools that were not available as few as five years
    ago---create new opportunities for understanding and manipulating
    the molecular and electronic pathways of solar energy conversion.
    Specific areas include coaxing cheap materials for superior
    performance; new paradigms for solar cell design; photo-catalytic
    processes for inexpensive, efficient conversion; and bio-inspired
    methods for self-assembly of molecular components into functional
    self-regulating, and self-repairing systems for solar fuel
    production.

-   ***Understanding of how biological feedstocks are converted into
    portable fuels***[^1] Biological systems are the proof-of-concept
    for what can physically be achieved by nanotechnology. Consider the
    ease with which biological systems transform and store energy or
    their ability to self-repair and to adapt to changing external
    conditions. The way in which energy, entropy, and information are
    manipulated within the nanosytems of life provides us with lessons
    on what we must learn in order to develop similarly sophisticated
    energy technologies. This entails research in light harvesting,
    exciton transfer, charge separation, transfer of reductant to carbon
    dioxide as well as carbon fixation and storage. Specific areas might
    include molecular-scale characterization of the physical structure
    and chemical properties of plant cell wall materials with the aim of
    circumventing the need for extensive pre-treatment and biological
    hydrolysis to sugars (saccharification), which are current
    bottlenecks in cellulosic biofuel production. Other areas include
    development of new and improved catalytic conversion processes that
    are far more robust than enzymatic systems for the conversion of
    plant polymers to fuels.

-   ***A new generation of radiation-tolerant materials and chemical
    separation processes for fission applications.*** By designing and
    perfecting atom- and energy-efficient synthesis, one can create a
    paradigm shift in the discovery and design of new chemical
    assemblies and materials that are mechanical strong; light weight;
    and resistant to corrosion, decay, or failure in extreme conditions
    of temperature, pressure, radiation, or chemical exposures
    encountered in fission applications. Key research includes:
    foundational research in chemistry and physics of actinides and
    their fission products; new generation of actinide separations
    processes with improved efficiency, selectivity, cost-effectiveness,
    and waste minimization; first-principles design and understanding of
    materials with improved radiation and corrosion resistance at
    elevated temperatures; microstructural design and predictive models
    for mitigating long-time degradation behavior; characterization,
    theory, and computer models for decades-to-centuries performance;
    and solution and interfacial behavior under extreme radiation flux
    and elevated temperatures.

-   ***Addressing fundamental knowledge gaps in energy storage.***
    Without effective electrical energy storage, renewable---yet
    intermittent---sources of energy such as wind and solar will not be
    able to significantly displace fossil, nuclear, and other
    conventional energy sources used for generating electricity for the
    power grid. Similarly, current battery technologies are limited,
    making plug-in hybrid or all-electric cars prohibitively costly and
    insufficient to meet consumer demands. Long-term, fundamental
    research in electrical energy storage will be needed to accelerate
    the pace of scientific discoveries and to see transformational
    advances that bridge the gaps in cost and performance, separating
    the current technologies and those required for future utility and
    transportation needs. For example, by mastering energy balance on
    the nanoscale through harvesting the large number of forces that are
    often operating simultaneously, such as electrostatic attraction and
    repulsion, chemical bonding, surface tension, and random forces from
    environmental fluctuations, a wide variety of structures can be
    assembled for 3-D architectures with multi-functionalities in energy
    storage unsurpassed by any given existing technologies. Other
    research areas include new capabilities to "observe" the dynamic
    composition and structure of the constituents in the electrochemical
    storage systems; novel electrolytes with high conductivity over a
    broad temperature range and long-term stability; and theory,
    modeling, and simulation that integrate methods at different time
    and length scales.

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-   ***Transforming energy utilization and transmission.*** At the heart
    of the nanoscale behavior, one often finds emergent phenomena, in
    which a complex outcome emerges from the correlated interactions of
    many simple constituents. By understanding the fundamental rules of
    correlations and emergence and then by learning how to control them,
    we could produce, for example, an entirely new generation of energy
    utilization and transmission processes, such as in phase change
    materials for thermal energy conversion, strong light-matter
    interaction and collective charge behavior for light emission
    nearing theoretical efficiency, and radically different combustion
    chemistry of alternative fuels. Understanding the emergent behavior
    of materials and chemical reactivity at the nanoscale offers
    remarkable opportunities in broad arena of applications including
    solid-state lighting, electrical generators, clean and efficient
    combustion of 21^st^ century transportation fuels, catalytic
    processes for efficient production and utilization of chemical
    fuels, and superconductivity for resistance-less electricity
    transmission.

-   ***Science-based geological carbon sequestration.*** All natural and
    most human-induced phenomena occur in systems that are away from the
    equilibrium in which the system would not change with time. If we
    can understand system effects that take place away―especially very
    far away―from equilibrium and learn to control them, it could yield
    dramatic new carbon capture technologies and enable new strategies
    for sequestering carbon to mitigate environmental damage. Key
    research areas involve new membranes and separations of carbon
    dioxide from process streams at high temperature and pressure;
    understanding geochemical processes relevant to the dimensions of
    subsurface sequestration sites with realistic geological formations
    chemistry; developing critical geophysical measurement techniques
    for remote probing and tracking; developing fluid-flow measurement
    approaches and simulation tools that can link chemical and physical
    processes at multiple scales; and advanced measurement and modeling
    verification at field sites.

***EFRC Awards Process.*** A number of EFRC awards will be initiated in
FY 2009 based on an open competition among academic institutions, DOE
laboratories, and other institutions. Research activities may be sited
at universities, at DOE laboratories, or in joint university-laboratory
collaborations. The EFRC awards are expected to be in the \$2--5 million
range annually for an initial 5-year period. A Funding Opportunity
Announcement (FOA) will be issued in FY 2008 to request applications
from the scientific community for the establishment of the initial suite
of EFRCs. It is anticipated that approximately \$100 million will be
available for multiple EFRC awards. As the EFRC program matures, it is
anticipated that EFRC competitions will be held every 2 or 3 years and
that renewal submissions will be openly competed with new submissions.
Out-year funding is subject to satisfactory progress in the research and
the availability of funding appropriations. While capital investment in
instrumentation and infrastructure are expected as part of the EFRC
awards, usage and leverage of existing facilities, including the BES
user facilities, is encouraged. This announcement, updates, and further
information on the FOA will be available through a link on the BES home
page (<http://www.sc.doe.gov/bes/>).

[^1]: Within the Office of Science, both the BES and the Biological and
    Environmental Research (BER) programs' biofuels research involve the
    direct biological conversion of solar energy into chemically stored
    fuels. However, there are distinct differences. BES focuses on the
    conversion mechanisms, emphasizing the associated physical, chemical
    processes, and their coupling with bio- and biomimetic approaches.
    In contrast, BER focuses on the biological processes, with an
    emphasis on genomics, metabolic engineering, systems biology, and
    biotechnological tools for scalable biofuels production. BES
    biofuels research also emphasizes utilization of physical
    sciences-based theoretical and experimental tools and combines them
    with existing biochemical and molecular biological tools to probe
    energy transduction and chemical energy deposition processes.