Tech Transfer Focus at DOE: Update

December 05 / January 06 By: Tom Michael Volume 3 Number 6

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When President Bush signed a major new energy bill last summer, cutting-edge entrepreneurs took notice of language in the law that aimed to improve the way the Department of Energy does business with the private sector. For starters, the Energy Policy Act directed the DOE to hire a technology transfer coordinator. The person who eventually fills this new position will have no other job except helping the DOE bring its vast scientific research into the marketplace, where it can help create jobs and boost the American economy.

"Technology Transfer Coordinator" is not—€” according to the law and those who wrote it—€”supposed to be an extra title given to an already overburdened bureaucrat.

The new law also calls for the establishment of Advanced Energy Technology Transfer Centers to be located around the country in places that the Energy secretary deems most promising. Best of all, the new law allocates a budget to pay for the newly ambitious approach to tech transfer.

The Energy Policy Act established a Technology Commercialization Fund, an automatic set-aside from the annual DOE budget for applied energy research and development. That commercialization fund is about $23 million in FY2006, according to the office of Sen. Pete Domenici, the New Mexico Republican who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. It's not a whopping sum in the scheme of the overall multi-billion DOE budget, but it's a start.

"This is a useful and welcome authorization," said David Conover, principal deputy assistant secretary for policy and international affairs.

The new law also calls on DOE to establish a Technology Transfer Working Group, which would report back to Congress with recommendations on a tech transfer action plan within 180 days, or early February.

"We anticipate being able to provide that report to Congress in a timely fashion," Conover said. He said the plan should lay out exactly how to coordinate tech transfer activities within the DOE and its national laboratories and establish an effective plan for developing and disseminating information to the business sector and general public. A small group of DOE employees had already been looking into some of those questions and working to find better ways to implement tech transfer.

"There is groundwork that's been laid on that," Conover said. "What we need to do next is strictly comply with the law and we intend to do that."

It's unclear when the technology transfer coordinator will come on board.
"It's at the discretion of the secretary," Conover said. He said the DOE welcomes the congressional push for more emphasis on technology transfer.
"The more visibility for this activity the better," he said. "Getting the word out and ensuring this remains a high visibility activity is important."

However, a lawmaker who helped write the new energy law said it may be too early to start cracking the whip on DOE and demanding immediate results in the realm of tech transfer. The overall bill had 371 separate action items for the DOE, as well as 124 reports requests and 56 new rules.

"We've given the DOE an awful lot to do so I'm not ready to start complaining about their progress just yet," said Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, who is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
One key tech transfer initiative that Congress has already made a major down payment on is the establishment of a National Nanotechnology Enterprise Development Center at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnology (CINT), a joint Sandia and Los Alamos venture being built at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. The center will eventually support the transfer of technology out of five DOE nanotechnology centers.

In June, Domenici began meeting with Sandia and Los Alamos, economic development, and other community leaders to discuss the technology transfer opportunities generated by the merging field of nanotechnology. The $15 million is in addition to $4.6 million in the bill to complete construction of the CINT. CINT will be a state of the art research center and gateway to specific scientific research capabilities within the labs. The idea is to help bring the benefits of nanotechnology to the public.

Tom Michael reports from Washington for TechComm.