| Post: | Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy |
| Appointer: | President of the United States |
| Formation: | April 3, 2006 |
| First: | Dennis Spurgeon |
| Reports To: | Under Secretary of Energy for Science and Innovation |
| Body: | Office of Nuclear Energy |
| Incumbent: | Michael Goff |
| Acting: | y |
| Incumbentsince: | May 3, 2024 |
| Department: | United States Department of Energy |
The Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) is an agency of the United States Department of Energy which promotes nuclear power as a resource capable of meeting the energy, environmental, and national security needs of the United States by resolving technical and regulatory barriers through research, development, and demonstration.
The Office is led by the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy, who is appointed by the President of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate. The current acting Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy is Michael Goff.[1]
The Office of Nuclear Energy is guided by the following four research objectives detailed in its Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap:[2] [3]
The Office is under the general supervision of the Under Secretary of Energy for Science and Innovation. It is administered by the Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy (NE-1), who is appointed by the President of the United States. The Assistant Secretary is supported in running the Office by a Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and five career Deputy Assistant Secretaries. Each of the five Deputy Assistant Secretaries oversee a different branch of the Office's work. As of 2022, staffing and organization was as follows:
The Office of Nuclear Energy is the landlord of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). INL is in southern Idaho, just west of the Eastern Snake River Plain. It occupies 890sqmi of desert and is about 42miles from Idaho Falls.
INL is an applied engineering laboratory dedicated to supporting the U.S. Department of Energy's research of nuclear energy, national and homeland security, and clean energy. Past and current work includes initial development of: nuclear reactor designs, prototype reactors for the U.S. Navy, and technologies to manage nuclear waste. INL also conducts research supporting fuel cycle development, as well nuclear energy demos and deployments.
INL was established in 1949 as the "National Reactor Testing Station" by the Atomic Energy Commission. It is the location of historic Experimental Breeder Reactor Number I (EBR-I), which was the first nuclear reactor to generate usable electrical power.
The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) was established in July 2010 as the first of five Department of Energy Innovation Hubs.[4] [5] It was administered by the Office of Nuclear Energy, and coordinated by Oak Ridge National Lab and INL.[6] CASL had one goal: To develop a simulation environment that modeled the operation of an entire reactor down to the characteristics of a single fuel rod (which significantly exceeded the resolution available with existing industry tools). This simulation environment was named the Virtual Reactor. The Virtual Reactor was designed and built to provide solutions to a wide variety of reactor performance challenges.[7]
In order to develop what was eventually called the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA), it was necessary for CASL to conduct both basic research and technology development.[8] Work of such scope and complexity was accomplished through a partnership of U.S. government, academia, and industry. In 2020, the CASL project concluded, making VERA available for licensing and deployment by the nuclear industry.[9] [10]
The Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy is the head of the Office of Nuclear Energy. The assistant secretary is responsible for a budget of $1.626 billion as of fiscal year 2021.
Status
| Portrait | Name | Took office | Left office | President(s) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| George W. Cunningham[11] | 1979 | 1981 | Jimmy Carter | |||
| Shelby Brewer[12] | 1981 | 1984 | Ronald Reagan | |||
| A. David Rossin[13] | 1986 | 1987 | ||||
| William H. Young[14] | 1989 | 1993 | George H. W. Bush | |||
| 2009 | ||||||
| 2009 | November 2010[15] | |||||
| [16] [17] | [18] | |||||
| John Kotek | 2015 | January 2017[19] | ||||
| Edward McGinnis | May 2017 | November 2017 | ||||
| [20] | January 8, 2021[21] | |||||
| Dennis Michael Miotla | January 8, 2021 | May 10, 2021 | ||||
| Kathryn Huff | May 10, 2021 | January 19, 2022 | ||||
| Andrew Griffith | January 19, 2022[22] | May 11, 2022 | ||||
| Kathryn Huff | May 11, 2022[23] | May 3, 2024 | ||||
| Michael Goff | May 3, 2024 | Incumbent | ||||