Colorado Politics’ Bernadette Berdychowski reports the Department of Energy has renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden to the National Laboratory of the Rockies, aligning the brand with the Trump administration’s emphasis on cheaper energy from all sources. DOE officials said the change reflects a move away from picking winners toward broad, cost-focused research.
The piece notes DOE leadership’s stated priorities across geothermal, nuclear, and oil and gas, alongside ongoing work historically associated with NREL, while also flagging the lab’s economic footprint and recent budget turbulence. It traces the lab’s renaming history from the Solar Energy Research Institute to NREL under President George H. W. Bush and now to its new moniker.
The Bullet Point Brief
- DOE rebrands NREL as the National Laboratory of the Rockies, effective immediately, to match an all-energy affordability push.
- Message from DOE: stop picking favorites and invest where energy is cheapest and most reliable, whether renewable or not.
- Current DOE leadership highlights geothermal, nuclear, oil and gas alongside other applied energy research tracks.
- The lab is a major Colorado employer with a multibillion-dollar impact, though it has weathered recent federal cuts and job losses.
- Name changes aren’t new: SERI in 1977, NREL under Bush, now “National Laboratory of the Rockies” in 2025.
My Bottom Line
The name change is performative noise. Cue the usual suspects either ventilating or singing Trump’s praises. I appreciate Trump’s focus on energy that is cheap and reliable. And I do not want the important work done at the former NREL tossed aside. Call it what you want; keep the science serious.
Here is the test that matters for taxpayers: if government dollars are invested, they should chase the highest return on reliability, affordability, and abundance. Fund what cuts bills, stabilizes the grid, and scales in the real world. That can include geothermal, nuclear, oil and gas, and renewables that clear the bar without subsidies doing all the lifting. Results over rebranding.
So hang the new sign if you must. Then prove it in megawatts, cents per kilowatt-hour, and system resilience in January storms. If the National Laboratory of the Rockies delivers cheaper, cleaner, steadier power, great. If not, it is just a new logo on the same building.
Source: Colorado Politics
