NETL Director Marianne Walck, Ph.D., and researchers from the Lab will be presenting during the 2024 Digital Engineering Conference (DICE), a three-day event held at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) April 29. The focus of the event is fostering collaborations that will support the digital future of energy technology and projects. 

Earth Day is an annual event that has been celebrated since 1970 and closely aligns with NETL’s vision to develop sustainable energy solutions and protect the environment for future generations. In celebration of Earth Day, observed tomorrow, April 22, NETL proudly announces the winners of its annual Earth Day Poster Contest.

Through the development, validation and application of a suite of multiphase flow tools, NETL has established itself as a leader in applying high-performance computing (HPC) to computationally demanding multiphase flow problems — research that is critical for designing next-generation energy systems that will meet the nation’s decarbonization goals.

North Allegheny Senior High School Team 1 captured first place at the Western Pennsylvania Science Bowl (WPASB) high school competition, which was held Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Community College of Allegheny County-South Campus in West Mifflin.

To help commercial, regulatory, and energy research professionals more effectively explore and interact with complex and evolving data, and glean insights through interactive maps, NETL developed EDX Spatial — a game-changing platform that empowers users to visualize data seamlessly through online mapping.  EDX Spatial is the official geospatial visualization, exploration, and discovery tool of the Energy Data Exchange (EDX), the Department of Energy (DOE)/Fossil Energy and Carbon Management’s (FECM) virtual library and data laboratory built to find, connect, curate, use and re-use data to advance fossil energy and environmental research. Developed and maintained by NETL, EDX supports the entire life cycle of data by offering secure, private collaborative workspaces for ongoing research projects until they mature and become catalogued, curated, and published.  

Morgantown High School’s Team 1 claimed victory at the 33rd West Virginia Science Bowl (WVSB) Regional High School Competition, held Saturday, Feb. 3, in an in-person format for the first time in years at the West Virginia University (WVU) Mountainlair. Twenty-four teams from 18 high schools participated in the contest, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NETL. The WVSB tested students’ knowledge of math and science in a fast-paced, quiz-style tournament. “Congratulations to our high school winner of this outstanding academic challenge. Your hard work equipped you to excel against a tremendous field filled with other talented students,” said Sean Plasynski, NETL acting director. “I hope this exciting competition inspires you and all teams to pursue your dreams and reveals to each of you what you are capable of as our next generation of scientists and engineers.”

A new study conducted by NETL researchers investigated long duration energy storage options that can better accommodate deficits of variable renewable energy (VRE) sources over multi-day and seasonal timescales. The work calls for additional long-term research and development investments to reduce costs and help enable an improved electrical grid that features increasing amounts of VRE. The study was published in the inaugural issue of Cell Reports Sustainability, a multidisciplinary open access journal that publishes cutting-edge research across natural, applied, and social sciences that seeks to address the world’s grand challenges.

As technology advances and unlocks new applications, it also encounters new challenges, such as in data curation. However, the Energy Data Exchange, a virtual library and data laboratory built to find, connect, curate, use and re-use data to advance fossil energy and environmental research and development, has solutions for these problems. In a world where data curation tends to emphasize technology rather than people, there is a clear need for people to work through complex data curation issues. The NETL Energy Data eXchange (EDX®) gives researchers more time to perform research by solving four major data curation problems: enterprise-level curation, data governance, scalability, and discoverability. Solving these problems meets the needs of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) stakeholders, scientists, and professionals working toward the DOE’s mission.

As a young man, NETL’s Samuel “Sam” Oyebanjo competed as a boxer. Besides learning how to throw a jab and land an uppercut, Oyebanjo acquired values through boxing that prepared him for success in another endeavor — leading a team of accountants that oversees funding for projects to address climate change and other energy-related priorities.  Oyebanjo, supervisor for accounting at NETL, said his pugilistic pursuits also taught him the importance of developing effective strategies and the understanding that every experience — even a loss in the ring — presents an opportunity to grow and improve. “Boxing demands a high level of discipline and determination,” said Oyebanjo, who grew up in Nigeria. “It teaches you humility, but you quickly realize that a tough loss can be a learning experience and that you can only succeed with preparation and hard work, which is a valuable life lesson.”

With NETL support, through the Lab’s University Training and Research program, researchers at the University of California, Riverside used advanced computing models that harness machine learning to efficiently reduce impingement in boilers — an innovation that can ensure longer and more efficient service life for power plants and even potentially extend the lives of helicopter rotor blades or aircraft engine components. Erosion from particle impingement results in irreversible material degradation due to repeated impact of high-velocity particles on surfaces. This process causes perpetual wear of critical components in various energy and technological industries, like those used in petroleum refining and pipelines and in power plants. Mitigating these effects is particularly crucial because the financial loss from erosion is estimated to cost 1 – 4% of the gross national product in industrialized nations.