The authors of this report include the following individuals from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office: Alaa Elwany, Christopher Hovanec, Nick Lalena.
Published: February 2024
Background and Workshop Objective
In 2021, President Biden issued Executive Order (EO) 14017, spurring the federal
government to build more secure and diverse U.S. supply chains, including energy supply chains, to ensure economic prosperity and national security (White House 2021). In response to EO 14017, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published America’s Strategy to Secure the Supply Chain for a Robust Clean Energy Transition (Igogo 2022) to outline the challenges and opportunities facing the energy supply chain along with key strategies to secure America’s position as a clean energy superpower in the years and decades to come. The expansion of domestic manufacturing capabilities is identified as one of the common risks and vulnerabilities for which DOE should develop comprehensive strategies to secure
supply chains for the clean energy transition. The report states that “examples of
manufacturing capabilities of concern include … large iron and steel castings for wind
turbines, hydropower turbines, and nuclear reactor components.”
In addition to this comprehensive strategy report, DOE developed 13 deep-dive assessments on specific technologies and crosscutting topics (DOE no date [a]), in which the importance of castings and forgings was prevalent. The Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill of 20231 further emphasizes the role of large castings and forgings in producing large near net shape (NNS) components for clean energy production. The bill directed the DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO), in collaboration with the Office of Nuclear Energy, the Wind Energy Technologies Office, and the Water Power Technologies Office, to provide a briefing to Congress on the potential for developing and commercializing novel manufacturing processes for producing large NNS metallic components, including but not limited to those traditionally fabricated using large castings and forgings.
The objective of this workshop was to convene industry leaders to gather information in support of the congressional briefing on the technical and economic viability of producing large metallic NNS components in the United States.
To view the New Net Shape Workshop Report document in its entirety, download the pdf file below. For more information visit: energy.gov/eere/ammto
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