As U.S. under secretary of Energy at the DOE, Mark W. Menezes wants to ensure American consumers have affordable, clean, efficient and domestic energy options that give families and businesses greater choice in how they meet their energy needs. And according to recent remarks he made in Washington, that goal is well within reach.
"With the power of innovation squarely in the driver's seat of our country, we are producing energy more abundantly and affordably, and from a wider range of sources than ever before," Menezes said in a keynote address at a recent conference. "And through innovation, we're also using energy more cleanly and efficiently as well.
"We have seen incredible changes across the energy landscape. Today, America is the world's top producer of both oil and natural gas, and this year, we expect to become a net energy exporter. We also expect to reach new records in oil production for the next two years, producing 13.3 million barrels per day in 2020 and 13.7 million barrels per day in 2021."
Breaking records in 2020 and beyond was a theme of Menezes' speech. "This year, we'll also build on our record levels of natural gas production. We've been a net exporter of natural gas for more than two years, and that trend seems likely to continue through 2050," he said. "Today, we export LNG to 37 nations and counting. And by the close of 2020, we will have doubled our LNG export capacity in two years.
"This means more than just energy. It means jobs, prosperity and opportunity ⦠Our country has made such magnificent strides in producing every form of energy, even as it has been simultaneously cleaning the air and reducing emissions. Since 2005, national greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 13 percent, and power sector emissions have fallen by 27.6 percent, according to the EPA.
"In fact, the U.S. is the world leader in reducing energy-related carbon emissions, and those emissions are expected to decline even further for the next two years."
Increasing competitiveness
In terms of global economics, Menezes emphasized the current administration has enacted "the largest tax cuts and reforms in U.S. history," making the U.S. business tax rate more competitive globally.
"We have cut more regulations than any other administration in U.S. history -- with nearly 22 regulations cut for each new one created, saving families and businesses more than $300 billion per year," he said. "And our bilateral trade deals are projected to strongly increase domestic economic activity and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
"We're incredibly proud of this progress. Yet we recognize there's much more we can do."
In 2020, DOE is making big investments in emerging technologies to "lean in" to the energy transition and advance innovations that benefit both the nation's economy and the environment.
"I'm especially proud of the fact that two of last year's winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry ⦠were supported by DOE," Menezes said. "This past fiscal year, we provided more than $140 million to support energy storage and ⦠launched our Energy Storage Grand Challenge. Our goal is to accelerate the development, commercialization and utilization of next-generation energy storage technologies, as well as to sustain America's global leadership in energy storage."
Menezes added that "as electrification plays a greater role" in our energy system, "closer coordination with utilities will be essential."
"That's why today I'm also pleased to announce a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)," he stated. "This MOU will join our expertise and capabilities with EPRI's research and development ⦠It will also further the collaboration we have with EPRI through our partnership with U.S. DRIVE, a group that has been extremely valuable to our efforts in ⦠energy infrastructure technology R&D."
The MOU will enable DOE and EPRI to work together toward a more resilient and reliable grid. "High-priority areas for collaboration" include using data analytics and cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for electrification applications.
"Through better coordination and engagement, I'm optimistic that we can not only overcome technical challenges, but change the energy landscape," Menezes explained. "And our partners -- including our 17 national labs, universities and the private sector -- are absolutely essential in our efforts to make it happen.
"In addition to our work in carbon composites, we're doing a great deal of work with our partners in advanced manufacturing. This was a focus of one of our previous InnovationXLab Summits, and we're striving to use our great strengths in supercomputing -- the department's national labs, which have the world's two fastest supercomputers and four of the top 10 -- to take on tough manufacturing challenges that can be solved through computer modeling."
'Industries of tomorrow'
One focus of DOE's recent efforts, Menezes said, is the "High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation Program," a consortium of nine national labs that partners with the private sector to leverage world-class computing resources for manufacturing advances.
"We're also dedicated to becoming a world-leading enterprise in the research, development and adoption of AI," he added. "To make it happen, and to coordinate our tremendous array of AI activities, we recently created the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office.
"Today, we lead more than 600 different AI projects to strengthen our core missions of energy, cyber and national security, and to accelerate scientific discovery."
DOE recently hosted an InnovationXLab Summit at its Berkeley, California, lab, which focused on ways it can "better engage with industry in the area of biomanufacturing ⦠and create the products and jobs and even the industries of tomorrow," said Menezes. "To give a couple of examples, we recently announced a Plastics Innovation Challenge, which will create a comprehensive program to accelerate innovations that dramatically reduce plastic waste in oceans and landfills, as well as position the U.S. [as] a global leader in advanced plastics recycling technologies and in the manufacturing of new plastics that are recyclable by design.
"Our Bioenergy Technology Office is working with Lanza- Tech and Northwestern University on cell-free prototyping systems to help create pathways to new fuels and chemicals for LanzaTech's gas fermentation platform without the need to test each combination in living cells."
And with $100 million in new bioenergy funding, Menezes added, DOE will work on "innovative and affordable ways to sort municipal solid waste, remove contaminants and generate materials streams that can be recycled" into new fuels and products.
Mapping out the 'road ahead'
Menezes said DOE plans to establish a "multi-university partnership for developing innovative technologies to manage major forms of urban and suburban waste, which will focus on developing new strategies for transforming plastic waste into finished products."
"As we do so, we're driving biology and biomanufacturing to develop new organisms and biological processes that use carbon dioxide to produce fuels and chemicals," he added. "These are great challenges, great efforts indeed. But tackling great challenges often creates greater opportunities. And that is emphatically our mission at DOE: addressing America's greatest energy challenges through transformative science and technology.
"That's also our country at its best: firmly in the driver's seat with the technologies of tomorrow - and a wide open road ahead."
For more information, visit www.energy.gov or call (202) 586-5000.
