NETL will showcase ongoing work by researchers from the public and private sectors to identify and address the nation’s greatest energy, environmental and economic challenges during the 2024 NETL Resource Sustainability Project Review Meeting, scheduled for April 2-4 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The meeting will provide a public forum to present the results from over 100 research projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) and NETL.

In addition to welcoming remarks by NETL Director Marianne Walck, Ph.D. and Sean Plasynski, Ph.D., acting principal deputy director, researchers will provide updates on projects that address carbon ore processing; critical minerals and materials; environmentally prudent stewardship; water management technologies, gas hydrates; methane mitigation technologies; and natural gas decarbonization and hydrogen technologies.

Brad Crabtree, DOE Assistant Secretary for FECM, will deliver a keynote address. Bryan Morreale, Ph.D., NETL’s associate laboratory director for research and innovation, and Ale Hakala, Ph.D., acting deputy director and chief research officer and a senior fellow, will also deliver remarks on the opening day of the meeting.

The 2024 NETL Resource Sustainability Project Review Meeting is open to the public and includes a registration fee. Find more information, including how to register, here.

In addition to presenters and researchers from NETL, researchers from other DOE national laboratories, academia and private industry will offer insights into their progress on funded research projects. Examples of the topic areas to be addressed by technical program area include:

Carbon Ore Processing

• Commercialization of Carbon Ore Processing Technologies
• Beyond Combustion — Coal in the 21st Century
• Utilization of Carbon Supply Chain Wastes and Byproducts to Manufacture Graphite for Energy Storage Applications

Critical Minerals and Materials

• Rare Earth Element Extraction and Concentration at Pilot-Scale from North Dakota Coal-Related Feedstocks 
• Aluminum Critical Mineral Production via Landfill Mining: Environmental, Community, and Technical Feasibility for Integrated Multi-Material Resource Recovery
• Critical Mineral Resource Characterization in U.S. Shale Plays

Environmentally Prudent Stewardship

• Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Oil Recovery Improvement in Conventional Fields Using Rich Gas
• Engineered Water for Improvement of Oil Recovery from Fractured Reservoirs
• Improving Enhanced Oil Recovery Performance Through Data Analytics and Next-Generation Controllable Completions

Gas Hydrates

• Deepwater Methane Hydrate Characterization and Scientific Assessment — Scientific Analyses 2023 Hydrate Coring Expedition in the Gulf of Mexico
• Alaska Core Characterization: High Resolution CT Scans 
• Development of Coupled THCM Process Code for Hydrate and Particle Transport

Methane Mitigation Technologies

• Energy Efficient Amines as a Retrofit for Natural Gas Sweetening 
• Gas to Carbon Fiber Crystals
• Modular Processing of Flare Gas for Carbon Nanoproducts

Water Management

• Water Management for Power Systems 
• Clean Water Production in Cooling Towers
• Fossil Energy in the Hydrogen Economy — A Carbon-Water-Energy Nexus Adaptive Evaluation Platform

The event will also feature a poster session with NETL researchers giving interactive tool demonstrations as well as open discussions on community benefits plans and workforce development during plenary sessions.

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 using 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.