Thousands of Historic Energy Records Now Publicly Accessible

In September 2026, the Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) released over two thousand legacy journal records sponsored by various past and present Department of Energy (DOE) offices and published by OSTI. These records are comprised of various journal series intended to showcase research relevant to the community. The journals, internally dubbed the "Rainbow Series" due to their colorful covers, touch upon a wide variety of topics, including acid precipitation, photovoltaic energy, radioactive waste management, and nuclear reactors and technology. These publications capture decades of innovation and represent OSTI's dedication to collating and disseminating scientific and technical research even before the widespread use of the World Wide Web.

While most of these series fell under the banner of "current awareness" publications and announced records rather than publishing them in full, some serials, like the Energy Conversion and Utilization Technologies program bulletin, did contain full articles. One publication in particular, Energygrams, published neither abstracts nor full articles but instead showcased "one-page illustrated bulletins describing DOE technology or data and telling how to obtain the technical reports, patent documents, software, or other material on which they are based" (quote taken from the standardized description of Energygrams found on their inside cover).

The release dates for the DOE-published serials varied based on publication, although most ran through at least part of the 1980s with some series dating back to the 1960s or 1970s. The longest running publication of the group was the Nuclear Safety serial, which had a three-decade run spanning the 1960s to the 1990s. Access to these series could be found through the Energy Data Base (EDB), a 1974 initiative to provide information about energy research world-wide, or the DOE Integrated Technical Information System (ITIS), an online information system started in 1987 to promote and provide access to OSTI's online databases of scientific and technical information. Paper copies of these records, however, were the popular mode of access; physical copies of these reports were sent to approved personnel by OSTI or could be purchased through the Department of Commerce's National Technical Information Service (NTIS). Current awareness publications that survived into the early 2000s, such as Photovoltaic Energy: Electricity from Sunlight and Wind Energy Technology, would be converted into their own Subject Portals (subject-specific websites run by OSTI). Finally, these serials would be released onto OSTI.GOV in 2026, once more making the journals available to the public.

This announcement marks the release of the bulk of OSTI's DOE-published serials. More additions to this historic collection will be added as they are identified, digitized, and released. Currently released series include the following:

• Acid Precipitation
• Advanced Fossil Energy Technologies
• Advanced Oil and Gas Recovery Technologies
• Buildings Energy Conservation
• Buildings Energy Technology
• Clean Coal Technologies
• Coal Combustion and Utilization
• Coal Preparation and Pollution Control
• Coal-Based Synfuels
• Direct Energy Conversion
• DOE Patents Available for Licensing
• Electric Energy Systems
• Electric Energy Systems: Superconductivity
• Energy Abstracts for Policy Analysis
• Energy Conferences and Symposia
• Energy Conservation and Utilization Technologies
• Energy Conservation Update
• Energy from Biomass and Municipal Waste
• Energy from Biomass
• Energy Storage Systems
• Energygrams
• Heavy-Ion Reactions
• Industrial Energy Conservation
• Industrial Energy Technology
• Nuclear Fuel Cycle
• Nuclear Reactor Safety
• Nuclear Reactors and Technology
• Nuclear Safety
• Ocean, Wave, and Tidal Energy Systems
• Photovoltaic Conversion
• Photovoltaic Energy
• Radioactive Waste Management
• Solar Buildings Technology
• Solar Heating and Cooling
• Solar Thermal Energy Technology
• Synthetic Fuels Update
• Transportation Energy Research
• Unconventional Petroleum
• Wind Energy Technology