Director’s Corner

by Brian Anderson, PhD.

When you have a great story to tell, you need a special place to tell it. For telling stories about the positive impact of NETL’s work, that place is in Houston, Texas, Tuesday, March 12 when I will join a prestigious panel to discuss how innovative technologies emerge from Department of Energy Research.

The opportunity is called CERAWeek. It’s an annual energy conference that brings together 4,000 global industry leaders and policymakers from more than 75 countries to discuss a range of energy-related topics in panel discussions, presentations and sessions to encourage interaction on energy topics as diverse as markets, geopolitics, technologies, the environment, cyber risks and much more.

CERAWeek is a rare chance for industry, government and society to exchange ideas, build relationships and address the global energy future. My specific role will be to participate in a panel discussion titled “Voices of Innovation: How Innovative Technologies Emerge from DOE Research — a dialogue with national laboratory leaders.”

The panel will be hosted by DOE Under Secretary for Science Paul M. Dabbar, who serves as the principal advisor to the Department on fundamental energy research, energy technologies and science. The panel will also feature:

• Director of DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory Doon Gibbs who oversees a vital facility specializing in nuclear and high energy physics, energy science and technology, biological and environmental research; nonproliferation and national security, and data-driven computational science
• Director of DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory Thomas Zacharia who oversees research facilities that include a nuclear reactor, a high-power proton accelerator, a complex array of other research facilities and an annual budget exceeding $1.4 billion

I’ll be speaking about NETL’s unique position as the only one of DOE’s 17 national labs that is both government-owned and government-operated, and its related record of success in accelerating the development of energy technology solutions through strategic partnerships, targeted research, and the work of gifted people and excellent facilities.

I have plenty of NETL success stories to talk about like transformational technologies for carbon dioxide capture, sorbent technologies that assist in biomass-to-biofuel conversion, new corrosion-protecting metal coatings, pyrochem catalysts for diesel fuel reforming and a host of other innovations that are penetrating markets and making a difference in people’s lives.

I am honored to be invited to participate in the event and to represent the hard work and positive results that NETL researchers, engineers and contractors make possible every day through their endeavors.