Members of the current class of Leadership West Virginia recently visited NETL-Morgantown and toured some of the Lab’s most impactful equipment and technologies that are making a sustainable energy future a reality.

“The visit to the Lab’s campus was a splendid opportunity to show the state’s future leaders what advanced facilities exist close to home,” said Alicia Dalton-Tingler, supervisor of the Energy Process Analysis Team at NETL. “As a member of the 2023 class of Leadership West Virginia, I was pleased to show some of the key facilities in Morgantown to the rest of the class not only for the sake of networking, but also because I’m confident my classmates will relay to their colleagues how NETL might solve problems unique to their communities.”

Stops on the Leadership WV tour included:

• The Joule 2.0 Supercomputer that supports NETL research to meet clean energy goals calling for net-zero carbon emissions in the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide net-zero emissions by 2050. Supercomputing allows NETL researchers to simulate phenomena that are difficult or impossible to otherwise measure and observe.
• NETL’s High-Pressure Combustion Facility, a unique resource within the national laboratories system that provides the test capabilities needed to evaluate new combustion concepts for high-pressure, high-temperature hydrogen and natural gas turbines. The facility serves two key areas — studying fluid flow and combustion variability and analyzing reaction behavior during high-pressure combustion.
• The Reaction Analysis & Chemical Transformation (ReACT) facility. Here, researchers are advancing the science needed to optimize energy conversion and transforming how we think about and approach chemical reactions. The ReACT facility supports NETL’s energy conversion engineering competency, which includes increasing power cycle efficiency and enabling more power generation with less fuel and fewer emissions — efforts that support net-zero carbon emission goals.

Leadership West Virginia is a statewide program to develop, strengthen, and connect emerging leaders for the Mountain State. During eight months of training, participants in each Leadership West Virginia class enhance their personal leadership skills and enrich their knowledge of not only the problems facing the state, but also of its diverse and unique attributes.

Each year a class of some 50 leaders is selected to participate in the program. A selection committee reviews the applications of statewide nominees from whom the final group of participants is chosen.

Those selected must have demonstrated skills and experience in civic activities, public affairs and in their professional careers. Although the selected participants are from different regions, have varied backgrounds and possess diverse talents, they all must have one common characteristic — an abiding interest in West Virginia and the state’s future.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers technological solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By leveraging its world-class talent and research facilities, NETL is ensuring affordable, abundant and reliable energy that drives a robust economy and national security, while developing technologies to manage carbon across the full life cycle, enabling environmental sustainability for all Americans.