Clean Economy Project: September 2026
Accessing government funding for energy innovation and deployment is inarguably complicated and complex. Barriers are put up across the landscape, including diffuse information (no single portal), a lack of support mechanisms (no intermediaries to support companies), and high application barriers to entry persist. This report addresses the key challenges, discusses where offices and staff have identified and implemented approaches to successfully mitigate some of these barriers, and actionable, practical steps that could help address some of the most problematic remaining issues with DOE's funding access. It attempts to lay out the challenges, history, and then opportunities.

Clean Economy Project: April 2026
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program serves as the federal government’s primary vehicle for seeding private sector innovation, supporting thousands of companies over more than 50 years since the program’s inception. However, despite its scale and prominence, DOE’s SBIR program underperforms its core statutory mission: energy technology commercialization. There is a real opportunity to modernize DOE’s SBIR program to enable the federal government’s rise as a global energy innovation leader and boost our economic competitiveness and the clean energy transition. This paper provides both a diagnosis of why DOE’s SBIR program underperforms its statutory commercialization mandate and a complete redesign of DOE’s SBIR program.

Clean Economy Project: May 2026
Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technologies have crossed a critical threshold. Development costs have dropped nearly 50% in two years, drilling rates have increased 500%, and the U.S. resource base exceeds 5,000 GW across all 50 states. The question is no longer whether EGS works, but where and at what cost it can be deployed commercially. Answering these questions requires appraisal drilling, and appraisal risk is the industry's binding constraint. We propose a Geothermal Appraisal Risk Program that provides concessionary support for resource-appraisal drilling across a deliberately diversified portfolio of U.S. basins and geologies.

Clean Tomorrow: April 2026
The United States faces a pivotal moment in energy history. Surging electricity demand, intensifying geopolitical volatility, global climate imperatives, and the rise of China as a technological rival make sustained federal leadership in energy innovation essential.