WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) today announced up to $15 million in federal funding to support research and development (R&D) projects that help reduce methane emissions and other harmful environmental impacts from undocumented orphaned oil and natural gas wells. The focus is on projects that advance cost-effective technologies toward commercialization that address characterization, advanced remediation techniques, and long-term monitoring of undocumented orphaned wells. These technology innovations will help to further the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal to cut methane emissions by 30% compared with 2020 levels by 2030.

NETL experts in energy research-related artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) and the Energy Data Exchange (EDX®), which curates U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) research data, demonstrated how their work aligns with DOE’s cybersecurity and technology innovation goals at the recently concluded DOE Cybersecurity and Technology Innovation Conference (CyberCon) in Dallas, Texas.

NETL officials joined U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm and other Department of Energy (DOE) personnel to commemorate the installation of the first of thousands of solar and battery systems on low-income homes across Puerto Rico. DOE anticipates installing up to 3,000 systems by the end of 2024.

NETL’s National Energy Water Treatment & Speciation (NEWTS) database now contains geochemical, geospatial and other characteristics from more than 400,000 water sample records spanning 48 states, enhancing the ability of the open-source tool to determine the impact of energy production on water quality.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management’s (FECM) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) recently announced its notice of intent (NOI) to release a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) that would contribute to the restoration of the United States as a world leader in the extraction, separation and refining of critical minerals and materials (CMM), which are needed to produce consumer goods such as smartphones and other electronics as well as components for defense systems, solar panels, wind turbines and other clean energy technologies.

NETL researchers investigated rotating detonation engine (RDE) waves and discovered that what had been previously understood to be unstable behavior is actually a repeatable and persistent mode of operation observed over longer timeframes. This new information could help design more reliable and efficient power generation systems in the future that will help reach the nation’s decarbonization goals.

As an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Michelle Krynock learned how her work inside and outside the classroom could make a meaningful difference.

The Carbon Storage Planning Inquiry Tool, or PlanIT, is now available on NETL’s Energy Data eXchange®, providing easy access to explore, query and evaluate thousands of relevant data features and attributes from 14 authoritative sources in one place, to support and accelerate carbon storage feasibility assessments and planning efforts.

NETL Research Scientist Ruishu Wright is spreading the word about the Laboratory’s growing expertise in quantum sensing — an advanced sensor technology that improves the accuracy of collecting data to assess pipeline integrity and detect gas leakage by sensing changes in motion and electric and magnetic fields on the quantum level — to national audiences.

NETL and Newark, New Jersey-based Cecilia Energy combined their strengths in a novel Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) that aims to solve one of the world’s greatest environmental challenges while creating upcycled products in the process.