Washington, D.C. - The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) and the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) today announced more than $18 million in available funding for research and development projects that focus on the characterization, treatment, and management of produced water—or wastewater associated with oil and natural gas development and production—as well as management of legacy wastewater associated with coal-based thermal electric power generation facilities, primarily coal combustion residuals waste streams.

Morgantown High School-Team 1 and Suncrest Middle School-Team 1, also from Morgantown, claimed first-place victories in the 2023 West Virginia Regional Science Bowl sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NETL. The annual competition was held in a virtual setting Feb. 3-4. Seventeen teams representing 12 high schools and 12 teams from nine middle schools took part. The winners move on to represent West Virginia in DOE’s National Science Bowl scheduled for April 27-May 1 in Washington, D.C. “Congratulations to this year’s winners and good luck as you prepare for the National Science Bowl,” said NETL Director Brian Anderson. “At NETL, we are proud to host this regional competition because it encourages talented students to focus on science and mathematics by participating in an exciting, fun contest while developing their interests to serve as tomorrow’s researchers and engineers who will make amazing discoveries.”

NETL and the University of Pittsburgh have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore areas of cooperation in the field of novel sensors for infrastructure monitoring. Such sensors are essential to ensuring the optimum operation of existing and new energy technologies while driving economic development. “This MOU presents an exciting opportunity for both the Lab and our academic partners at Pitt to combine our strengths in pursuit of common goals,” said NETL’s David Alman, associate director, Materials Engineering & Manufacturing. “Both of our organizations will leverage our capabilities to support the acceleration of technology innovation, solutions, workforce development and industry engagement for emerging sensor technologies to ensure reliability, resilience and sustainability of energy and other infrastructure,” Alman said.

Community leaders and water researchers can now access publicly available online datasets curated and processed by NETL to better understand the composition of energy-related wastewater streams. The data will help mitigate environmental risks and identify possible sources of valuable critical minerals (CMs).

Two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories that teamed to provide an award winning open-source software tool that can identify the best ways to manage, treat and — when possible — reuse produced water from oil and gas operations, have published a framework manuscript providing insights about how the project can offer environmentally sustainable, and lower-cost approaches for handling oil and gas wastewater. The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) reached a development milestone with the publication of a framework manuscript describing PARETO, a cutting-edge program designed to help organizations recognize opportunities for minimizing fresh and brackish water consumption in active oil and gas development areas.

NETL’s Thomas Sarkus demonstrated the importance of giving back to ensure the next generation of engineers and scientists is prepared to advance crucial energy technologies when he addressed students at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. At a seminar held at the university’s College of Engineering, Computing, Technology & Mathematics, Sarkus summarized lessons learned from technology demonstration projects, as well as future directions in fossil energy and carbon management technologies, including those that have been funded by the Biden Administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

NETL experts are preparing to put quantum computing, a rising, powerful and promising new force for complex and fast problem solving, to work on key energy research topics leading to an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. Quantum computing uses the principles of quantum mechanics to sift through large numbers of possibilities to extract solutions to complex problems at speeds exponentially higher than conventional computers with less energy consumption. While classical computers store information as bits with either 0s or 1s, quantum computers use superposition of both 0s and 1s, which are called quantum bits (qubits). Qubits can carry information in a quantum state that engages 0 and 1 in a multidimensional way.

George Guthrie, Ph.D., has been named principal deputy director of NETL. Guthrie joins NETL from Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he served as deputy director for the applied energy programs, leading a diverse portfolio of applied R&D in applied energy and helping to establish and lead a place-based initiative in energy transition for the intermountain west. Guthrie is a scientist with over 30 years of experience in geosciences and applied-energy applications. Guthrie holds a bachelor’s from Harvard University and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University.

NETL researchers will exhibit and take part in technical sessions at the 2022 Liquid Metal Processing and Casting Conference (LMPC), held Sept. 18-21, 2022, at the Bellevue Hotel in Philadelphia. The conference convenes academic and industry experts to discuss the latest advances in processes used to cast large ingots of highly alloyed metals. NETL’s advanced alloy development research employs an integrated approach that leverages computational materials engineering, manufacturing at scale and performance assessment at condition to develop alloys solutions enabling advanced technologies. The Lab has demonstrated and deployed alloys with improved performance capabilities for energy applications, aerospace, defense and bio-medical applications. NETL has also implemented technologies to improve melting and casting practices, and some of these advancements will be featured during the conference’s technical sessions.

NETL researchers have developed a cutting-edge fiber-optic sensor to monitor conditions in extreme environments thousands of feet below the Earth’s surface and obtain essential data needed to safely sequester greenhouse gas in underground reservoirs. “This breakthrough invention by NETL researchers can be used to obtain accurate pH measurements from formation fluids in harsh subsurface conditions where temperatures range up to 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit) and pressures range up to 30,000 pounds per square inch,” said Barbara Kutchko, a senior research scientist at NETL. A member of the team that received a U.S. patent on the technology, Kutchko explained that obtaining pH levels from these extreme environments is critical to ensure the safe sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the subsurface, a major component of the nation’s plan to achieve a net-zero carbon emissions economy by 2050.