NETL’s Natalie Pekney, Ph.D., knows that locating abandoned oil and gas wells — which can leak methane, a potent greenhouse gas — is no walk in the park even with the assistance of state-of-the-art technology. For starters, there are an estimated 1.2 million abandoned oil and gas wells nationwide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many wells were drilled decades before it was necessary to obtain permits, making it difficult to find them using public records and maps. Additionally, many of these wells were never plugged or sealed when production ceased.

A first-of-its-kind suite of tools developed by NETL researchers is enabling better decision-making regarding the economic challenges of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and helping stakeholders to effectively evaluate the costs of implementing these technologies in electric power and industrial plants. The new tools and resources offer a step toward widespread implementation of CCUS technologies, which is an important strategy for mitigating CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-based power generation and industrial sources.

NETL Director Brian Anderson spoke at an advanced manufacturing roundtable Dec. 19, at Hazelwood Green Mill 19 in Pittsburgh, to discuss the Lab’s ongoing and future work, vision and potential for collaborative opportunities centered around advanced manufacturing in the region.

NETL’s K-12 STEM Education & Outreach team engaged students during several day-long visits at area elementary schools, conducted an educational energy workshop for teachers, assisted in a cybersecurity competition and aided two preliminary West Virginia Science Bowl (WVSB) regional qualifying events in November.

From developing energy conversion systems that use abundant fossil energy resources to produce power, fuels and chemicals, to developing and using advanced energy analysis models to support decision-making, NETL continues to aggressively pursue its mission to discover, integrate and mature technology solutions to enhance the nation’s energy foundation and protect the environment for future generations. NETL researchers had a productive year, underscored by forward-looking innovation and technology development. Here’s a look at a few of our leading-edge successes from 2019.

NETL’s world-class work in materials engineering and manufacturing designs, develops and deploys advanced materials for use in energy applications and extreme service environments. In 2019, a number of significant developments yielded promising results that support NETL’s mission of creating technologies that secure and enhance the nation’s energy foundation for future generations.

David Miller, Ph.D., Senior Fellow for Process Systems Engineering at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), was among the elite researchers selected for the 2020 cohort of the Oppenheimer Science and Energy Leadership Program (OSELP). Miller joins 17 other nominees from different U.S Department of Energy (DOE) national labs and academic institutions around the nation. The backgrounds and roles of the cohort are diverse and include technical group leaders, a department head, center director, division director, among others.

Researchers at NETL have tapped big data to expedite the development of stronger boilers, turbine components and other metallic equipment to improve the efficiency and reliability of coal-burning power plants. Results of a recent study by a team of NETL researchers and their collaborators at Case Western Reserve University show that an approach called materials data analytics can be used to significantly shorten the development time of specialized alloys needed for next generation energy applications.

NETL highlighted its Joule 2.0 supercomputer and innovative applications to advance fossil energy research at this week’s SuperComputing 2019 (SC19) conference in Denver. Chief Information Officer Antonio Ferreira and other Lab personnel attended the conference Nov. 17-22 at the Colorado Convention Center. This year, NETL participated alongside the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) 16 other national laboratories as part of the DOE booth. The exhibit demonstrated the value of high-performance computing in providing clean, reliable and affordable energy to meet America’s needs.

A new NETL report provides cost and performance analyses that are important inputs toward meeting the projected demands of future power markets.