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Energy Secretary touts infrastructure law while praising ORNL for 'thinking into the future'

Becca Wright
Knoxville News Sentinel

Electric vehicle charging stations and high-speed broadband internet are coming to East Tennessee as a part of the new federal $1.2 trillion infrastructure law. 

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm touted the benefits in the works as she toured Oak Ridge National Lab's Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center on Monday. Employees at the high-tech facility are, among other advances, laying the groundwork make it convenient for Tennesseans to buy electric vehicles. 

The sweeping infrastructure law tackles public transportation, roads, bridges, ports, railways, power grids and broadband internet, as well as water and sewage systems. 

"Solutions that are being worked on here at the lab are the solutions that we need to deploy," Granholm said. 

Incentivizing electric vehicles

One of the more visible solutions coming to Tennessee is the expansion of electric vehicle plug-in facilities. 

The infrastructure law set aside $7.5 billion for those and researchers at the Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center are studying how to increase efficiency through wireless charging pads and charging pads embedded into roads. 

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"The nice thing about you all being adjacent to the lab is that the lab is thinking into the future, even as it is helping industry in the present," Granholm said to employees. 

Granholm said the goal is to incentivize Tennesseans to buy electric vehicles if Biden's Build Back Better bill is turned into law. This bill, which is different from the bipartisan infrastructure law, includes a refundable electric vehicle tax credit for up to $12,500. The House has passed the bill but it is stuck in a high-profile debate in the Senate

"There is that incentive so that when you buy an electric vehicle, the initial price tag at the dealer is brought down to be comparable to the gas-powered vehicle," Granholm said. "People are incentivized ... to purchase electric vehicles so that they don't have to ever fill up their gas tank, so they don't ever have to worry about the volatility of the prices of gasoline."

Gas prices have been steadily rising for the past few months with the current national average at $3.41 per gallon. Tennessee's average gas prices are lower at $3.11 per gallon. 

"The president has been calling for an increase in supply, domestic and international," Granholm said. "The concern is why hasn't the supply at least been turned on more quickly? He's hoping that the domestic suppliers as well as international ones, turn on to meet the global and certainly national demand."

Upgrading internet and the electric grid plus expanding job opportunities

The infrastructure law also includes $65 billion to expand broadband internet access across the nation. Granholm said the $100 million set aside for high speed internet will be going into "every pocket" of the state. 

"Every home will have access to high speed internet as a result of the investments and the bipartisan infrastructure law," Granholm said. 

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told employees at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Hardin Valley campus that their work will propel the country's electric grid into the future.

Electric grid upgrades are included in the infrastructure law, with $65 billion going to modernizing the system. 

"A big component of that that is investing in the transmission grid," Granholm said. "We want to have a transmission grid that is capable of being strong against severe weather impacts. It is also capable of being strong against cyber attacks."

Oak Ridge National Lab's Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center is developing new types of sensors that are embedded into the power grid to indicate whether an a site may be at risk of failing, according to Rick Raines, the director of the electrification and energy infrastructures division at ORNL. 

Funding for labs like ORNL's Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center is a key component of Biden's Build Back Better agenda that directly impacts Oak Ridge and East Tennessee, according to Granholm.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm speaks to the media after touring GRID-C at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Hardin Valley campus in Knoxville, Tenn., on Monday, Nov. 22, 2021. U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann is at left and ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia is at right.

Granholm says that the Build Back Better agenda would create 1.5 million jobs a year in the United States, and ORNL plays a key role in bringing in those jobs.

"We want that supply chain here, because it's part of what this manufacturing facility and the advanced work, demonstrations, research and development is all about," Granholm said. "We want to build those products here, we want them stamp them, 'Made in America,' we want to use them here and we want to send them other places because it's a huge job opportunity."