The final week of the 2020 Virtual Integrated Project Review Meeting, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NETL, will explore the accomplishments and upcoming work to be undertaken by two NETL-led programs — the National Risk Assessment Partnership (NRAP) and the Science-informed Machine Learning for Accelerating Real-Time Decisions in Subsurface Applications (SMART) Initiative.  A full slate of presentations and updates on the SMART Initiative will be held Monday, Nov. 2, and Tuesday, Nov. 3. Click here to review the SMART Initiative Annual Review Meeting agenda and to obtain online registration and WebEx instructions. The NRAP Technical Meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 4, and Thursday, Nov. 5, will feature an array of speakers who will discuss the development of tools and approaches for effective risk management of carbon storage sites. Click here to review the agenda for the NRAP sessions and to obtain online registration and WebEx instructions. Registration is free for all SMART Initiative and NRAP sessions.

A team of national laboratories, led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) with support from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, is collaborating in a multi-scale modeling project that resulted in an approach that significantly improves the prediction of hydraulic fracture propagation. The results and modeling approach from the multi-lab project titled “A New Framework for Microscopic to Reservoir-Scale Simulation of Hydraulic Fracturing and Production: Testing with Comprehensive Data from Hydraulic Fracturing Test Site (HFTS) and Other Hydraulic Fracturing Field Test Sites” have since been adopted by numerous oil and natural gas operators following the publication by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).

NETL researchers such as Dominic Alfonso are using advanced computational tools to repurpose carbon dioxide (CO2) from a waste product into chemical building blocks to manufacture fuels and a range of high-value items. The work undertaken by Alfonso and other members of NETL’s Computational Materials and Engineering Team focuses on recycling CO2 generated by fossil energy plants and other industrial sources into chemicals, alcohols, acids and syngas, which are used to manufacture fuels, polymers and fertilizer. “For more than a century, we have used fossil fuels to produce our electricity and for a variety of other purposes. However, when we extract energy from fossil fuels, we create CO2, the primary greenhouse gas emitted through human activities,” Alfonso said. “We can address this issue by using CO2 from factories and power plants as a chemical feedstock. Waste CO2 emissions can become something you can recycle into valuable products, providing a strong financial incentive to reduce the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere,” he added.

NETL and multination technology conglomerate Raytheon Technologies Research Center (RTRC) will discuss opportunities for technical collaboration during an upcoming virtual meeting highlighting the Lab’s research in several areas. Scheduled for Oct. 26-28, the virtual meeting will feature sessions on various topics such as programs within the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy, Hydrogen and Sustainability, Advanced Power Generation and Advanced Energy Management. DOE supports research which promotes large-scale, affordable hydrogen (H2) or high H2 syngas production from coal with near-zero environmental emissions, as required for use of the H2 or syngas in a variety of uses including power production with carbon capture or fuels production.

With topics ranging from artificial intelligence and machine learning to commercialization pathways for new innovations and projections of the future for the natural gas industry, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) InnovationXLab CarbonX Summit hosted by NETL showcased DOE technologies and the national laboratories’ capabilities at the heart of the domestic energy economy. The second day of the CarbonX Summit, featuring  the “Carbon in the Digital Era: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning” panel, brought together representatives of industry, academia and DOE’s national laboratories to examine the impact of sophisticated computational technologies on future energy production and manufacturing in the United States.

Emerging technologies to extract resources from offshore reservoirs and other challenging environments, advances in the development of corrosion-resistant well components and new techniques for pipeline monitoring will be among the topics presented Oct. 26-28 at the 2020 Virtual Integrated Project Review Meeting hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and NETL. Top researchers from DOE, NETL, other national laboratories, universities and industries will provide updates on their projects designed to extract fossil energy resources from the subsurface and transport oil and gas in an environmentally responsible manner. The week begins with an emphasis on offshore exploration. Topics to be reviewed include innovations being made to improve the reliability of well cement for extreme conditions and the use of new tools to simulate subsurface environments and enhance the understanding of meteorological and oceanographic conditions.

NETL and members of the nation’s energy and manufacturing industries came together Oct. 21 to commence the long-awaited Department of Energy (DOE) InnovationXLab CarbonX Summit, sharing ideas and pitching novel solutions to new challenges facing the power generation sector and economy as a whole. The central theme of this CarbonX Summit was societal use and reuse of carbon spanning from the production of energy to reduction of emissions to manufacturing of commercial goods. The entirely virtual CarbonX Summit showcased DOE technologies and the national laboratories’ capabilities at the heart of the domestic energy economy, from production to utilization to reuse. With panels including representatives of major industry players such as Chevron, Dow Chemical, Air Products and General Electric, as well as presentations from speakers including DOE Deputy Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes and DOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy Steven Winberg, day one of the summit united NETL scientists and technical leaders with industry and other DOE national laboratories.

Since joining NETL last year, computer scientist MiKyung Kang, Ph.D., has supported the Lab’s high-performance computing (HPC) environment across all three of its research facilities, empowering the Lab to continue finding new ways to fuel the nation using the abundant supply of fossil fuels in a sustainable manner. Kang grew up on South Korea’s Jeju Island, one of the world’s New 7 Wonders of Nature and well known for its beautiful sand beaches and volcanic landscape of craters and cave-like lava tubes. She earned her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in computer science and statistics from Jeju National University, inspired by the rapid changes in technology she saw growing up. New Tech, New Possibilities

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy, in collaboration with the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Science and NETL announced a request for information (RFI) about “enhanced weathering” research opportunities that could lead to advances in the capture and storage of carbon dioxide (CO2). Weathering is nature’s process in which rocks are broken down and dissolved over time. The natural breakdown process releases calcium, which can bind to CO2 and remove it from the atmosphere.  Enhanced weathering uses technology or modified land-use approaches to accelerate the decomposition of calcium- and magnesium-rich silicate rocks and increase the rate of CO2 removal from the atmosphere.  It is, in effect, a technology with negative CO2 emissions.  In addition to its CO2 removal benefits, enhanced weathering can improve soil quality and fertility.

Representatives from alloy producers, original equipment manufacturers, end users and other industrial stakeholders will join NETL and other national laboratories to review research plans and progress during the virtual 2020 eXtremeMAT Industrial Stakeholder Meeting on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Fossil energy transformational power technologies like ultra-supercritical steam plants and supercritical carbon-dioxide power systems have the potential to increase efficiencies and bolster clean coal efforts because they operate at higher temperatures and pressures. However, these technologies are subject to “extreme” operating environments – harsher and more corrosive conditions compared to those found in traditional power plants. Furthermore, today’s current fleet of fossil power plants are increasingly being subjected to cycling conditions due to the penetration of renewable energy sources into the electricity grid. Accelerating the development of improved steels, superalloys and other advanced alloys is of paramount importance in deploying materials solutions to address materials challenges associated with both the existing fleet and future power systems.