Transformative Opportunities Addressed by EFRCs
In 2014, the Department of Energy's Office of Science charged the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (BESAC) to assess the progress made on the five Grand Challenges identified in the 2007 BESAC report, Directing Matter and Energy: Five Challenges for Science and the Imagination, and determine what new knowledge opportunities exist to advance energy science. The findings are given in a 2015 report, Challenges at the Frontiers of Matter and Energy: Transformative Opportunities for Discovery Science. This report highlights striking recent discoveries made in pursuit of the Grand Challenges that open compelling new research directions with the potential to transform the methods, reach, and impact of energy science and technology. It also presents five new Transformative Opportunities that reflect the breakthrough potential of research supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Each Energy Frontier Research Center addresses one or more of these transformative opportunities. Past EFRCs, active in 2014-2018, who have self-identified as addressing each transformative opportunity are listed below.
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Transformative Opportunity #1: Mastering Hierarchical Architectures and Beyond-Equilibrium Matter |
Years | Lead Institution | Director(s) | Center Name |
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2009-2018 | Carnegie Institution of Washington | Ho-kwang Mao (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Russell Hemley (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Energy Frontier Research in Extreme Environments (Efree) |
2009-2018 | Los Alamos National Laboratory | Victor Klimov | Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP) |
2009-2018 | Purdue University | Maureen McCann | Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio) |
2009-2018 | University of Notre Dame | Peter Burns | Materials Science of Actinides (MSA) |
2009-2018 | Washington University in St. Louis | Robert Blankenship | Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) |
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Transformative Opportunity #2: Beyond Ideal Materials and Systems: Understanding the Critical Roles of Heterogeneity, Interfaces, and Disorder |
Years | Lead Institution | Director(s) | Center Name |
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2009-2018 | California Institute of Technology | Harry Atwater (8/1/2009-1/30/2015); Ralph Nuzzo (2/1/2015 - 7/31/2018) | Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI) |
2009-2018 | Carnegie Institution of Washington | Ho-kwang Mao (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Russell Hemley (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Energy Frontier Research in Extreme Environments (Efree) |
2009-2018 | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | Donald DePaolo | Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO2 (NCGC) (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Center for Nanoscale Controls on Geologic CO2 (NCGC) (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) |
2009-2018 | Los Alamos National Laboratory | Victor Klimov | Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP) |
2009-2018 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Marc Baldo | Center for Excitonics (CE) |
2009-2018 | University of Notre Dame | Peter Burns | Materials Science of Actinides (MSA) |
2009-2018 | University of Texas at Austin | Gary Pope (8/1/2009 - 6/30/2013); Steven Bryant (7/1/2013 - 8/30/2014); Larry Lake (9/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (CFSES) |
2009-2018 | Washington University in St. Louis | Robert Blankenship | Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) |
2014-2018 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Robert Finley (8/1/2015 - 4/15/2015); Scott Frailey (4/16/2015 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Geologic Storage of CO2 (GSCO2) |
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Transformative Opportunity #3: Harnessing Coherence in Light and Matter |
Years | Lead Institution | Director(s) | Center Name |
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2009-2018 | California Institute of Technology | Harry Atwater (8/1/2009-1/30/2015); Ralph Nuzzo (2/1/2015 - 7/31/2018) | Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI) |
2009-2018 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Marc Baldo | Center for Excitonics (CE) |
2009-2018 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Gang Chen | Solid-State Solar-Thermal Energy Conversion Center (S3TEC) |
2009-2018 | Washington University in St. Louis | Robert Blankenship | Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC) |
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Transformative Opportunity #4: Revolutionary Advances in Models, Mathematics, Algorithms, Data, and Computing |
Years | Lead Institution | Director(s) | Center Name |
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2009-2018 | California Institute of Technology | Harry Atwater (8/1/2009-1/30/2015); Ralph Nuzzo (2/1/2015 - 7/31/2018) | Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion (LMI) |
2009-2018 | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | Donald DePaolo | Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO2 (NCGC) (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Center for Nanoscale Controls on Geologic CO2 (NCGC)(8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) |
2009-2018 | Los Alamos National Laboratory | Victor Klimov | Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics (CASP) |
2009-2018 | University of Texas at Austin | Gary Pope (8/1/2009 - 6/30/2013); Steven Bryant (7/1/2013 - 8/30/2014); Larry Lake (9/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (CFSES) |
2014-2018 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Robert Finley (8/1/2015 - 4/15/2015); Scott Frailey (4/16/2015 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Geologic Storage of CO2 (GSCO2) |
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Transformative Opportunity #5: Exploiting Transformative Advances in Imaging Capabilities across Multiple Scales |
Years | Lead Institution | Director(s) | Center Name |
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2009-2018 | Brookhaven National Laboratory | Seamus Davis (8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Peter Johnson (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Emergent Superconductivity (CES) |
2009-2018 | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | Donald DePaolo | Center for Nanoscale Control of Geologic CO2 (NCGC)(8/1/2009 - 7/31/2014); Center for Nanoscale Controls on Geologic CO2 (NCGC) (8/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) |
2009-2018 | University of Texas at Austin | Gary Pope (8/1/2009 - 6/30/2013); Steven Bryant (7/1/2013 - 8/30/2014); Larry Lake (9/1/2014 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (CFSES) |
2014-2018 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | Robert Finley (8/1/2015 - 4/15/2015); Scott Frailey (4/16/2015 - 7/31/2018) | Center for Geologic Storage of CO2 (GSCO2) |