The leader of the federal Department of Energy’s Office of Science says the future for renewable energy looks uncertain with the incoming presidential administration.

That was the message from Harriet Kung, the DOE’s Acting Deputy Director for Science Programs after a speech in Columbia.

A civil servant with over 20 years experience at the Department of Energy, Kung gave the President’s Distinguished Lecture on the University of Missouri campus.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to rescind any unspent funds in the Inflation Reduction Act, the federal law crafted in 2022 by the Biden-Harris Administration.

The policy contains billions of dollars of investments in renewable energy.

Kung told KBIA after the lecture that continued investment in technology is vital to expand renewable energy generation.

“Not only will (it) impact our national security, but also economic prosperity,” Kung said.

“So for us (the Office of Science) the answer is a simpler one, but for the whole department, I believe I will wait for President Trump-elect to come and set the policy for the new administration.”

Kung said no matter the administration, the Office of Science’s commitment to energy innovation remains.

History of research

The Office of Science’s mission is to produce discoveries and tools “to transform the ways we generate, supply, transmit, store and use energy.”

With an annual budget of over $8.2 billion, Kung said the office is “the nation’s largest supporter of basic research and physical sciences.”

Kung told the crowd gathered in MU’s Monsanto Auditorium that the department was founded after the Manhattan Project — the government project used to harness nuclear energy for both civilian use and atomic bombs — and its mission to energy innovation grew out of the fuel crisis of the 1970s.

“That is when we actually expand(ed) our mission beyond the more traditional nuclear technologies to areas such as renewable energy to synthetic fuels, to transmission, to conservation and so forth.”

Kung said research partners like the scholars at the University of Missouri are essential to addressing the energy challenges ahead.

“We need your support and your partnership for us to really tackle some of these very ambitious but also formidable challenges in record time,” she said.

Those challenges include the nation’s rising energy consumption and its continued reliance on fossil fuels. Kung said the United States population has doubled since 1950, but the energy use has tripled.

“Despite all the energy efficiencies that we have gained, we actually use more energy per person than in 1950,” Kung said.

AI is a solution and a challenge

More sophisticated energy storage and transmission infrastructure is required to meet the nation’s growing electricity needs, Kung said.

She pointed to artificial intelligence as a solution, saying the technology could help speed up the permitting and siting process for new power plants and transmission lines.

But AI also poses a challenge, due to the vast amounts of electricity required to power data centers, which Kung called “concerning.”

In Missouri and throughout the country, industry leaders are discussing how to meet that energy demand.

Kung said researchers at the Office of Science and its partners are looking for efficiencies and designing what she calls the next generation of technology.

“I’m hoping that it’s not just (an) extrapolation of current generation, because that is just not going to be sustainable based on the current generation technology,” she said.

Kung said the Department of Energy’s mission has long been to address the nation’s energy challenges, and now, they’re racing against the clock due to climate change.