Key members of a U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee with jurisdiction over federal energy research, development, and demonstration projects toured NETL in Pittsburgh Friday and met with the Laboratory’s leaders to learn more about significant energy research projects currently underway.

The visit by members of the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Energy and their staff, included U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb (PA-17), who chairs the Subcommittee, U.S. Rep. Bill Foster (IL-11) and U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (IL-06). NETL Director Brian Anderson, Ph.D., hosted the visit.

The Science, Space, and Technology Committee has important responsibilities for helping the nation uncover new technologies for addressing key scientific challenges. The committee has jurisdiction over all federally owned or operated non-military energy laboratories including resources, personnel, equipment and facilities. NETL is the only one of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 17 national laboratories devoted to fossil energy research.

Rep. Lamb was named as Chair of the Energy Subcommittee during the 116th Congress. The subcommittee is responsible for all issues relating to energy research; development and demonstration projects; commercial application of energy technology; DOE; fossil energy research and development; distributed energy resources and systems; industrial process efficiencies; and energy standards.

The discussions and tours provided to the committee members centered on NETL’s research, development and demonstration work in the fields of carbon capture, utilization, removal, and storage. NETL has been a leading force in development of carbon capture technologies that reduce the impact of the greenhouse gas at lower costs. Key NETL research successes include:

• An ambitious computational modeling project identified membrane materials that will make carbon capture more affordable for coal-fired power plants, reducing the cost to less than $50 per metric ton of CO₂ removed.
• The Carbon Capture Simulation Initiative (CCSI), led by DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy’s (FE) and NETL, developed and released the CCSI Toolset as open source software. The CCSI Toolset is the nation’s only suite of computational tools and models designed to help maximize learning and reduce cost and risk during the scale-up process for carbon capture technologies.
• NETL research created a new copper-gold alloy that can selectively convert CO₂ into carbon monoxide — a breakthrough that could impact a $3.4 billion global market for methanol and other synthetic fuels.  
• Using an array of high-tech microscopy and X-ray diffraction capabilities, NETL researchers developed technologies that allow the rearrangement of CO₂ molecules, helping to protect the environment by reducing CO₂ emissions and creating domestic supplies of fuels and chemicals that benefit the economy.
• NETL carbon storage research made significant advances in technologies improving wellbore integrity, storage efficiency and security, and regional carbon sequestration partnerships.
• NETL water management research increased water efficiency and reuse, treatment of alternative sources of water, and improved energy-water analysis.

“NETL always has a good story to tell regarding our leading-edge science and technology efforts to improve the way our nation uses fossil energy resources while protecting the environment,” Anderson said. “We were pleased to have members of Congress come to Pittsburgh to see some our progress first-hand. The information they gathered will be put to good use in the important work of the Committee going forward.”