Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman says DOE funding will target lowering carbon fiber production costs; help in reducing weight of vehicles; improve efficiency and lower costs for car batteries, and to develop so-called “net-zero” energy building technologies.

Net-zero energy buildings are those that those that generate as much energy as they use on an annual basis through high efficiency and on-site renewable energy generation.

DOE estimates that buildings account for 40% of carbon emissions in the US.

Carbon fiber is a light weight, high-strength material that has the potential to revolutionize the automobile and wind industries. Low-cost carbon fiber is critical to reducing the weight of vehicles and thereby raising their fuel efficiency, while maintaining the strength and safety found in steel automobile bodies.

Energy storage technologies, especially batteries and electric drive components, are critical enabling technologies for developing advanced, fuel-efficient vehicles, says Poneman. Those technologies will help meet President Barack Obama’s goal of putting one million plug-in electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

He says the projects will leverage the combined intellectual and technical resources of DOE laboratories to support technologies that will help transform the economy and create jobs, while decreasing carbon emissions.

“Their innovation and ingenuity are helping jumpstart American manufacturing, accelerate job creation and lay the foundation for a clean energy economy," he adds.

Funding for the projects will come from the $787bn economic stimulus law in March.

The seven national laboratories involved are Argonne, in Argonne, Illinois; Idaho, in Idaho Falls, Idaho; Lawrence Berkeley in Berkeley, California; National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia; National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado; Oak Ridge, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Sandia in Albuquerque, New Mexico.