The Advanced Clean Energy Summit (ACES), scheduled for Sept. 21-22, held by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and organized with support from NETL, will showcase the latest in sustainable energy technology and practices, such as hydrogen power and carbon capture. Held in a virtual setting, ACES will bring together perspectives and expertise from around the globe as participants learn and network in a collaborative, open forum to foster the sustainable energy landscape of the future. Several prominent leaders from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are scheduled to participate in leading roles throughout the summit. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk will kick off the summit by delivering the opening keynote address on Sept. 21. DOE Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Jennifer Wilcox is scheduled to give a presentation on carbon capture and storage (CCS) with Noah Deich, president and co-founder of Carbon180, a non-government organization dedicated to decarbonizing the energy sector.

Learn about the latest developments in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)/NETL Carbon Capture Program in this month’s edition of the Carbon Capture Newsletter. The DOE/NETL Carbon Capture Program is developing the next generation of advanced carbon dioxide (CO2) capture technologies that can provide step-change reductions in both cost and energy requirements as compared to currently available technologies. The Carbon Capture Program focuses on the broad portfolio of projects, including post- and pre-combustion capture to reduce carbon emissions across a wide spectrum of industries. Other focus areas include carbon-based power generation and negative emissions technologies such as direct capture of CO2 from the atmosphere and bioenergy with carbon capture. Information featured in this month’s edition includes:

The same technology that turns a frozen entrée into a delicious hot meal in minutes is being advanced by NETL researchers to bring revolutionary changes to the field of reaction chemistry and produce valuable chemicals like hydrogen using less energy and at lower cost. “At NETL, we are working to unleash the power of microwaves to advance gasification of carbon materials to significantly cut costs and reduce energy requirements while achieving higher yields and greater selectivity of products,” said Mark Smith, Ph.D., a member of NETL’s Reaction Engineering Team. Gasification is accomplished through a series of chemical reactions within a gasifier. One of the Reaction Engineering Team’s focus areas in gasification research involves transforming carbon ore, biomass or other feedstocks such as waste plastics into gases by reacting the material at high temperatures, but without combustion, by controlling the amount of oxygen or steam present in the reaction.

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced approximately $10 million in federal funding for cost-shared research and development (R&D) projects under funding opportunity announcement (FOA) 2519, Natural Gas Demand Response Pilot Program. The Natural Gas Demand Response Program’s (NGDR) goal is to reduce supply constraints and optimize energy consumption by promoting more transparency with respect to the costs of energy. Demand response programs aim to shift consumption by end-users away from peak demand periods (or periods of system strain), which can improve an energy system’s reliability and achieve overall reductions to meet energy efficiency goals.

NETL Director Brian Anderson, Ph.D., will share some of the Lab’s most innovative modeling and computational tools during a keynote address set for Wednesday, Sept. 8, at the Simulation-Based Engineering for Accelerating the Deployment of Decarbonization Technologies virtual workshop. The workshop will be hosted by the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) and the United States Energy Association (USEA) and will convene academia, industry and government leaders for panel discussions and interactive sessions designed to assess the current state and future potential of simulation-based engineering technologies in driving the deployment of decarbonization technologies. Anderson will join Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Emily Grubert, Ph.D., who will provide an additional keynote from the federal leadership perspective.

NETL Director Brian Anderson, Ph.D., will discuss technological advances made by the national labs to resolve challenging and complex energy issues at the third annual Advanced Energy Technology Forum, a virtual event to be held Thursday, Sept. 9, by the United States Energy Association. Participating with Anderson in the panel discussion, which begins at 9:05 a.m. ET, will be: Jennifer Wilcox, principal deputy assistant secretary, Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, U.S. Department of Energy; Martin Keller, director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory; James Misewich, associate laboratory director, Energy and Photon Sciences, Brookhaven National Laboratory; and Marianne Walck, deputy laboratory director for science and technology and chief research officer, Idaho National Laboratory.

This quarter’s Research Associate Spotlight and Mentor Profile illustrates how pairing an experienced NETL researcher with an up-and-coming scientist can open new roads to discovery and facilitate faster technology development at lower cost. Research associate Fei Xue, a participant in the NETL Post Graduate Research Program administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, explains how working with his mentor, Youhai Wen, interacting with other NETL experts and using the Lab’s Joule 2.0 supercomputer, among the most powerful in the nation, are advancing important research in the field of computational science and engineering. Through science-based simulations, multiscale modeling and data analytics, Xue is making meaningful contributions to NETL’s efforts to analyze and predict performance of materials used in a diverse set of energy research projects while accelerating development of clean energy technologies.

NETL’s Research & Innovation Center’s (RIC) work to develop domestic supply chains of critical minerals (CMs) and rare earth elements (REEs) from unconventional sources such as carbon ore ash, acid mine drainage and other sources has resulted in several milestones in technological applications of sensors and geoscience. REE’s are essential to the energy, defense, medical and consumer technology manufacturing industries. Supply and access to those elements are critical for the U.S. economy. However, a majority of the world’s REE sources are controlled by other countries, which is why NETL is pursuing alternative sources closer to home. The RIC has identified America’s rich deposits of carbon ore, along with acid mine drainage from prior and current mining operations, as potential sources of REEs and other critical minerals. In collaboration with partners in academia and industry across the country, the RIC has had three goals throughout its research efforts:

The August 2021 edition of the SSAE Newsletter features the latest updates about various research initiatives and breakthroughs undertaken within NETL’s Strategic Systems Analysis and Engineering (SSAE) directorate. Click here to access this month’s newsletter and learn about recent activities that SSAE is leading to gain insights into new energy concepts, support the analysis of energy system interactions and advance its capabilities. This month’s edition highlights:

NETL’s Mary Anne Alvin sees a brighter future ahead for the nation’s energy communities that have powered the nation for more than a century as the U.S.  undergoes a historic transformation to clean energy. Alvin’s optimism is rooted in the fact that residual and waste byproducts, such as power plant ash and acid mine drainage, are prime sources to obtain rare earth elements (REEs) and critical minerals (CMs), vital materials used to manufacture consumer products such as smartphones, batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles, computer monitors and hard drives, high-performance optics and lasers, powerful magnets and components for defense systems. REEs and CMs from those sources also are needed to produce key components for windmills, solar panels and other green energy equipment to achieve the Biden Administration’s goal of a net-zero carbon emission electricity sector by 2035 and the broader economy by 2050.