The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is catalyzing economic growth and job creation in energy communities across the nation through the establishment of the NETL-led Carbon Ore, Rare Earth and Critical Minerals (CORE-CM) initiative. The initiative will help to secure a domestic supply of rare earth elements (REEs) and critical Minerals (CMs), which are crucial to the manufacture of clean energy technologies that will help decarbonize the energy sector. The CORE-CM initiative is one of the ways NETL is helping ensure that the energy communities that have powered the nation for nearly a century will not be left behind in the transition to clean energy. Instead, these same communities will now lead the United States into this new era by using their abundant carbon ore resources to produce the REEs and CMs needed to build wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, magnets and more.

NETL researcher Mengling Stuckman, Ph.D., will present some of the Lab’s recent critical minerals (CM) recovery research at the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association (PIOGA) Water and Waste Management meeting Wednesday, Aug. 18, in Wexford, Pennsylvania. Stuckman will highlight NETL efforts to perform advanced geochemical characterization of U.S. energy production waste streams to support sustainable, domestic CM recovery. The United States satisfies much of its annual CM consumption by importing these materials, which are used in the manufacture of high-tech devices, national defense applications and green growth-related industries. By creating a sustainable domestic CM supply chain, the nation could reduce its risk of supply disruption for essential domestic and military industries, while producing needed materials for the emerging clean energy technology market.

Get caught up on 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:

Experts in the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) from power plants, industrial sites and other large emitters of the greenhouse gas will discuss their cutting-edge work when NETL hosts “Point Source Capture — Lab, Bench and Pilot-Scale Research,” the next focus area in the Lab’s 2021 Carbon Management and Oil and Gas Research Project Review Meeting. Nearly 60 sessions on the design and development of novel materials, devices and processes to capture CO2 emissions will be presented Thursday and Friday, Aug. 12-13, and Monday and Tuesday, Aug. 16-17. All sessions are virtual, free and open to the public; however, registration is required. Click here to review the four-day agenda of presentations. 

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced plans to fund cost-shared research and development of natural gas demand response (NGDR) pilot program. If released, funding opportunity announcement (FOA) FOA 2519, Natural Gas Demand Response Pilot Program, seeks to improve the performance, reliability and flexibility of the existing natural gas supply and delivery infrastructure, through the implementation of NGDR pilot programs. Demand response programs aim to reduce and optimize energy consumption by promoting more transparent price signals of energy consumption to the consumers during peak demand periods.  Based on the success of demand response programs in the electricity markets—as well as a growing number of challenges with natural gas supply—government, regulators, and industry are exploring demand response programs for natural gas systems.

NETL is collaborating with a team of researchers from UES Services Inc., the University of Connecticut and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to explore a novel class of advanced materials called high-entropy alloys (HEAs) that have the potential to overcome long-standing technical barriers for the manufacture of more resilient solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). SOFCs are devices that can chemically convert the energy of a fuel and oxidant directly into electrical energy. Since they produce electricity through an electrochemical reaction and not through a multi-step (e.g., combustion to heat to generator power) process, they are much more efficient and better for the environment than conventional electric power generation processes. These characteristics make SOFCs uniquely valuable to achieving the U.S. Department of Energy’s decarbonization goals.

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) awarded a total of $600,000 to four software developers who won a contest to support FECM’s SMART (Science-informed Machine Learning to Accelerate Real Time Decisions in the Subsurface) Initiative. SMART leverages the expertise of seven national laboratories as well as industry partners, universities, field laboratories and carbon storage regional initiatives to advance the understanding of the subsurface environment through machine learning.

All 17 U.S. national laboratories, including NETL, and many prominent publishers of scientific journals announced today (Wednesday, July 28, 2021) the beginning of a partnership to support name-change requests from researchers on their previously published papers. The purpose of the agreement is to establish a mechanism that ensures researchers can own their academic work under their chosen name and provides institutional support to correct bylines on their past publications. The participating national laboratories will facilitate requests for name changes for any reason, including gender, transgender, religious, marital or other purposes, where supported by the policies in place at the publishing partners. “At NETL, we strive daily to foster a workplace environment that recognizes the importance of diversity and inclusion for all. This agreement is another step forward to achieve and maintain a culture where all researchers are valued as they pioneer and drive solutions to our nation’s energy challenges,” NETL Director Brian Anderson, Ph.D., said.

Meeting participants will discuss carbon management topics, including carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and front-end engineering design (FEED) studies for both power and industrial sectors, during the first of six project review meetings to be held in August.  The virtual session “Integrated CCUS Projects and FEED Studies,” will take place Monday, Aug. 2, and Tuesday, Aug. 3, and feature many of the Lab’s collaborative efforts with external partners around the nation that are helping to achieve the Biden Administration’s net-zero carbon emission goals in the power sector by 2035 and the broader economy by 2050.

The July 2021 edition of the SSAE Newsletter is filled with updates on the latest research activities undertaken by researchers within NETL’s Strategic Systems Analysis and Engineering (SSAE) directorate. Click here for updates about various SSAE initiatives that are providing the decision science and analysis capabilities necessary to evaluate complex energy systems. Some of the few important SSAE research accomplishments highlighted in the July edition include: •    Efforts undertaken by experts such as Ray Boswell to enhance NETL’s standing as a global leader in gas hydrate science. •    A recap of important research presentations made by NETL researchers at Turbo Expo 2021. •    Information about a techno-economic analysis to ensure that researchers advancing direct air capture innovations to pull carbon dioxide from the Earth’s atmosphere are pursuing optimal routes for success.