NETL researchers developed a new process for extracting economically and strategically vital rare earth elements (REE) and critical minerals (CM) from America’s coal fly ash at high quantities and offers several advantages over other available technologies.

NETL researcher Christina Wildfire, an expert in microwave technology and leader of the Lab’s Center for Microwave Chemistry, has been selected for a Bayh-Dole Coalition 2025 American Innovator Award for her work developing and helping to commercialize a microwave-assisted method of converting waste plastics to useful products.

Construction is underway on NETL’s Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) Center in Morgantown, West Virginia — a state-of-the-art facility for advanced data and computing solutions related to applied energy challenges.

NETL and Colorado School of Mines are partnering to advance the use of fiber-optic sensing to monitor fracture growth in the subsurface and optimize the production of natural gas from unconventional reservoirs, an important resource to meet the nation’s growing energy needs.

Access to data is essential for research and development. Higher quality data result in higher quality research, but when those data contain sensitive or proprietary information, they might be omitted from public products to protect sensitive locations, innovative plans and proprietary elements of important databases and analyses.

NETL Director Marianne Walck addressed Carnegie Mellon University during its 2025 Energy Week, highlighting how the Lab is leveraging its high-performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI) research capabilities to accelerate energy technology discovery and development.

Chief Data Officer (CDO) Magazine named NETL’s Kelly Rose, senior fellow, Computational Sciences & Engineering, among its Top 50 Data Changemakers for the Energy Sector in 2025 for her work contributing to seismic change in her field.

NETL researchers reached a high-performance computing (HPC) milestone, running advanced energy modeling code on the world’s first exascale supercomputer — a powerful new class of computing systems capable of ushering in a new era of precision, fidelity and reliability for simulation-based engineering.

NETL research scientist Thien “James” Tran won the Young Membrane Scientist Award, presented by the North American Membrane Society (NAMS), for his contributions in developing new gas separation membrane materials including separations from fossil-based industrial point sources such as electric power production, and steel and cement manufacturing.

A first-of-its-kind NETL research project involving the Bakken Shale has shown that a one-size-fits-all approach to understanding the subsurface and overcoming well site operational and water management challenges doesn’t necessarily apply. This is due to the often variable chemical and biological dynamics present at fossil fuel well sites.