42 U.S.C. § 13541 — Research, development, demonstration, and commercial application activities

(a) Research, development, and demonstration: (1) Unless this Act says otherwise, these activities can follow the procedures of the Federal Nonnuclear Research and Development Act of 1974, the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, or any other law that authorizes the Secretary^* to do this work — but only to the extent each of those laws actually allows it. Every demonstration program under this Act must aim to find out whether an energy technology is technically and commercially workable. (2) Unless this Act says otherwise, the Secretary may use contracts, cooperative agreements, Stevenson-Wydler Act cooperative research and development agreements, grants, joint ventures, and any other legally available agreement to run these programs.
(b) Commercial application: The same range of tools — contracts, cooperative agreements, Stevenson-Wydler agreements, grants, joint ventures, or anything else legally available — can be used for commercial-application programs, unless this Act says otherwise. Every commercial-application program must aim to speed technologies out of the research and development stage.
(c) "Joint venture" defined: Here, "joint venture" has the meaning given to "joint research and development venture" in section 4301(a)(6) and (b) of title 15, except that it can also cover research, development, demonstration, and commercial-application joint ventures.
(d) Protection of information: The information-protection rule in section 12(c)(7) of the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 applies to these programs and activities.
(e) Guidelines and procedures: The Secretary must set guidelines for moving technologies, where appropriate, from research and development under subsection (a) to commercial application under subsection (b). This doesn't stop the Secretary from (1) entering into a new contract, cooperative agreement, Stevenson-Wydler agreement, grant, joint venture, or other agreement covering research, development, demonstration, and commercial application, or (2) extending an existing research-and-development agreement to also cover commercial application.
(f) Application of section: This section doesn't apply to any contract, cooperative agreement, Stevenson-Wydler agreement, grant, joint venture, or other agreement that was already in effect as of October 24, 1992.