DOE Projects

Support for Mission Innovation and Quadrennial Energy Review

Mission Innovation

Workshops on R&D Opportunities in Clean Energy InnovationMission Innovation was launched in 2015 as countries around the world came together to discuss the Paris Climate Accord to accelerate the invention of tomorrow’s clean energy technologies. Mission Innovation is a global initiative of 22 nations and the European Union representing about 60% of the world’s population, 70% of GDP, and more than 80% of government investment in clean energy research. Mission Innovation’s goal is to significantly accelerate the pace of innovation, reduce costs, and make clean energy technologies widely affordable worldwide. Mission Innovation members are taking action to double their public investments in clean energy R&D over five years while encouraging collaboration among partner nations, sharing information, and coordinating with businesses and investors. Mission Innovation has established itself as a global rallying point for advancing clean energy research and innovation.

In June 2016, all Mission Innovation members declared a collective baseline of $15 billion per year in clean energy R&D investment. The members have each pledged to seek a doubling in their governmental and/or state-directed clean energy research and development investment over five years, reaching around a combined $30 billion per year by 2020-2021.

In 2017, Georgia Tech worked with the Mission Innovation Secretariat, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Energetics, Inc., to develop best practice features of Innovation Challenges workshops. The team provided examples of the types of input gathered through collaborative expert workshops on related topics. We drew resources from past experience including workshops previously sponsored by the DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences, to illustrate how well-designed workshops can provide critical information needed to address barriers and ultimately give rise to game-changing energy solutions in support of national energy strategies.

Relationship map of co-authored publications on low-carbon electricity, 1990-2016
Relationship map of co-authored publications on low-carbon electricity, 1990-2016

An overview of lessons learned from past workshops can be found in the following ORNL report:

Antes, Matthew, Anna Mosby, Melissa Lapsa, Charlotte Franchuk, Marilyn Brown. 2017. Workshops on R&D Opportunities in Clean Energy Innovation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL/SPR-2017/407, http://mission-innovation.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/MI-Workshop-Guide-2017-October-Final.pdf (image above)

The report shows how bibliometrics can be used to support the effective design and implementation of workshops, such as relationship mapping, as shown to the right.

Quadrennial Energy Review

Georgia Tech worked with ORNL to produce two “baseline reports” for the DOE Quadrennial Energy Review 1.2, which were published in 2017.

Brown, Marilyn A., Daniel D’Arcy, Melissa Lapsa, Isha Sharma, Yufei Li. Solid Waste from the Operation and Decommissioning of Power Plants, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL/SPR-2016/774 (2017), http://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/Pub60563.pdf

U.S. SO2 Emissions: Shifting Factors and a CO2 Penalty
U.S. SO2 Emissions: Shifting Factors and a CO2 Penalty

Emanuele Massetti, Marilyn Brown, Melissa Lapsa, Isha Sharma, James Bradbury, Colin Cunliff, Yufei Li. Environmental Quality and the U.S. Power Sector: Air Quality, Water Quality, Land Use and Environmental Justice, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL/SPR-2016/772 (2017), http://info.ornl.gov/sites/publications/files/Pub60561.pdf

In addition, the Electricity Journal published the results of the team’s decomposition analysis of SO2 emissions from coal power plants, which identified a carbon dioxide penalty resulting from the change in types of coal burned over the past decade:

Brown, Marilyn A., Yufei Li, Emanuele Massetti, and Melissa Lapsa. 2017. “U.S. Sulfur Dioxide Emission Reductions: Shifting Factors and a Carbon Dioxide Penalty,” The Electricity Journal, 30: 17-34. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040619016302548