Next-generation engineers and scientists who served internships at NETL, two other national laboratories, and four universities to study hybrid resilient energy systems converged in Morgantown, West Virginia, recently to share presentations on their work as part of the Consortium of Hybrid Resilient Energy Systems (CHRES) Technical Forum.

WASHINGTON — In support of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $30 million to help lower the costs of the onshore production of rare earths and other critical minerals and materials from domestic coal-based resources. The funding, provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will help meet the growing demand for critical minerals in the United States, while reducing our reliance on offshore supplies. Rare earths and other critical minerals are key to U.S.

José Figueroa, senior management and technical advisor for the Technology Development Center at NETL, is helping facilitate new efforts in greenhouse gas reduction by coordinating a methane emissions reduction program that supports the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Inflation Reduction Act statutory requirements of the Methane Emissions Reduction Program (MERP), adding to his long history of service with the Lab.

An analysis of the potential safety issues associated with using hydrogen sourced from America’s vast energy resources to build a sustainable future is now available for all to see on NETL’s website.

Researchers on NETL’s Structural Materials Team produced a more robust pipeline material for transporting hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide (CO2) by adding the rare earth element (REE) cerium to create a tougher steel alloy. The accomplishment simultaneously addresses two important U.S. Department of Energy priorities: development of infrastructure needed for decarbonization and improvement of the critical minerals supply chain.

The nation’s top scientists and engineers will gather this month in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the 2023 FECM/NETL Carbon Management Research Project Review Meeting to discuss climate change mitigation research and share updates on their efforts to advance innovative solutions for a sustainable energy future. Results from more than 150 research projects sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will be discussed during the five-day meeting, which begins Monday, Aug. 28, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

An invention reported by researchers from NETL can help protect against corrosion in natural gas, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines. Pipeline corrosion can cause catastrophic failure events such as explosions and emissions of environmentally damaging substances like methane. The innovation is a new self-healing cold spray coating for internal pipeline corrosion protection.

David Luebke, technical director of NETL’s Direct Air Capture (DAC) Center, will discuss the Lab’s efforts to accelerate the commercialization of DAC technologies during a presentation Wednesday, Aug. 16, at the fall meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco, California.

Representatives of energy institutions throughout the country got a first-hand look at the technologies and talent at the NETL campuses across Appalachia as the Lab hosted the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO).

The U.S. Department of Energy’s NETL and its partner organizations successfully developed and demonstrated a suite of embedded sensor technologies enabled with sensing materials for subsurface wellbore integrity monitoring — technology that can help realize effective geologic carbon storage, hydrogen storage and geothermal projects and reduce the wellbore integrity risks.