A--FY2002 Joint Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Office of Fossil Energy Science Initiative

The major goal of the Science Initiative is to advance research and development (R&D) of energy technologies by exploring and exploiting synergies among different research fields, technologies, investigator communities, and end-use applications. This cross-cutting approach seeks to widen the Department?s R&D activities between energy efficient technologies and clean energy. This approach seeks to expand and formalize existing cooperation between EERE and FE. The Science Initiative is intended to focus funding and effort on "bridge" R&D that falls between exploratory research, traditionally the province of university researchers, and pre-commercial applied R&D, where private sector firms and research institutions normally devote their efforts. Often this middle ground of research - crucial to identifying and proving the feasibility of multiple potential applications of a given fundamental scientific discovery - does not receive sufficient emphasis. For example, there are situations where an existing technology has obvious potential for significant performance and design gains, "if only" an identified hurdle can be overcome by a breakthrough in the application of the science underlying the technology. The primary objective of this solicitation is to pursue "bridge" research and development (R&D), of interest to EERE and FE, with ultimate applications that will promote energy efficiency and clean energy. This category of R&D occupies the spectrum between exploratory science and pre-commercial applied R&D. There are four general areas of interest (1) Materials Sciences; (2) Fuels and Chemical Sciences; (3) Sensors and Controls Sciences, and (4) Energy Conversion Sciences.