The Investment Pays Off

Commercial Successes from Fossil Energy R&D

In 2001, President Bush challenged the Federal government to make itself more results-oriented, and more accountable to the citizens who pay taxes and benefit from the programs and services government provides. The President recognized that "government likes to begin things - to declare grand new programs and causes and national objectives. But good beginnings are not the measure of success. What matters in the end is completion. Performance. Results. Not just making promises, but making good on promises."

MORE INFO National Energy Technology Laboratory's 2007 Accomplishments [8.9MB PDF]

The Office of Fossil Energy's ultimate success comes when the advanced technologies emerging from our research activities are commercialized by the private sector. Presented here is solid evidence that the taxpayers' investment has paid real and measurable dividends. These are just a few examples of the technological innovations introduced through the Office of Fossil Energy R&D Program that now provide consumers cost-effective, clean, fossil fuel-based energy. 

Technologies for Existing and Future Coal-Fired Power Plants

• The P-900 cast-slotted steel armor was developed and patented by scientists at the Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory.

  DOE Participates in Commercialization of Its Steel Casting Technology

  To protect military personnel and vehicles from improvised explosive devices and explosively-formed penetrators, the U.S. Army has decided to commercially produce a unique steel armor based on technology developed and patented by the U.S. Department of Energy.

• DOE-Patented Process Improves Energy Recovery, Reduces Coal Prep Wastes

  What began as a small in-house laboratory experiment to find a way to use discarded coal products called "fines" has now led to a full-scale demonstration that can boost coal operator profits, reduce waste at their plants, and recover valuable energy sources for consumers. The GranuFlow(TM) process - which was developed and patented by scientists at the Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) - has shown that it can recover and clean a significant portion of coal fines to produce an added source of energy for the nation's future.

• Unique DOE-Funded Coal Dryers Meet Goal of Increased Efficiency, Reduced Emissions

  A prototype coal dryer demonstrated at Great River Energy's Coal Creek Station has proven so successful that the power company intends not only to install full-size dryers on the station's 546-megawatt Unit 2 as part of the second phase of its cost-shared project with the U.S. Department of Energy, but also to install the award-winning technology on the 546-megawatt Unit 1 - at its own expense.

• DOE-Funded Innovation Promotes Reduced Coal Plant Emissions

  A catalyst-activity testing tool developed with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy is now commercially available and offers a major breakthrough in managing the selective catalytic reduction systems that are used in power plants to control nitrogen oxides emissions.

• DOE Licenses Mercury Control Patent to Help Meet Clean Air Regulations

  The process, patented as a "Method for High-Temperature Mercury Capture from Gas Streams," enables scientists to remove mercury from high-temperature gases by using metal sorbents to capture the mercury, as well as the trace elements arsenic and selenium. The key to this new technology is that it has successfully removed mercury from fuel gases at high temperatures. 

• The one-of-a-kind eP-ICEBEAR ice resurfacer operates without the pollutants and noise of current technology, making it an attractive product for early entry into the hydrogen economy. (Photo compliments of the Energy & Environmental Research Center)

  DOE-Funded Vehicle Proves that Hydrogen Fuel Cells are "Safe, Practical, and Ready" 
  

  A unique fuel-cell-powered ice resurfacer developed with support from the U.S. Department of Energy has been touring ice rinks throughout the United States and Canada to prove that hydrogen fuel cells are "safe, practical, and ready," and to smooth the way toward a future hydrogen economy by opening up a niche market.

• DOE Receives $39.2 Million from Dakota Gasification/Basin Electric

  The successful partnership between the Department of Energy and Dakota Gasification Company, a subsidiary of Basin Electric Power Cooperative, marked another major milestone in May 2007 with the payment of $39.2 million to DOE under a revenue sharing agreement originally signed in 1988. 

• First Utility-Scale CO2 Deployment Shows Value of Private-Public Joint Ventures

  AEP announced plans on March 15, 2007 to begin capture of up to 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year at its coal-based Mountaineer Plant in West Virginia and to store it on site in a deep saline reservoir.

• Four Patents Awarded in 2006 for Cleaner, Efficient Fossil Fuel Use

  The Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory continued its efforts to address the cleaner, more cost-effective use of fossil fuels with the award of four patents in 2006. The NETL patents include a hybrid engine system, a process for saving energy at power plants, a method for capturing mercury from power plant flue gases, and a device to detect instability in combustion systems.

Oil & Natural Gas Technologies

• DOE-Funded "Deep Trek" Project Yields Rugged New Electronic Chips
  Innovative new electronic components developed with support from the U.S. Department of Energy's Oil and Natural Gas Program could revolutionize the process of recovering natural gas trapped miles below the Earth's surface. The new components - four small electronic chips that can withstand the harsh conditions found in deepwell drilling for natural gas - were developed by Honeywell International with support from DOE's Deep Trek program. The components will aid in reaching deep reserves, which are estimated to contain between 169 trillion and 187 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Using silicon-on-insulator technology capable of withstanding the very high temperatures encountered in deep wells, these critical components will serve as building blocks for downhole sensors and smart tools required to make deephole drilling economical and safe.
• DOE-Led Partnership Creates Tool to Raise Output of Non-Conventional Natural Gas
  The Department of Energy and Pinnacle Technologies have successfully demonstrated a new technology that will help optimize the output of natural gas from the often-grudging non-conventional reserves on which the U.S. will have to depend for half its domestic production in the future. The new technology, also applicable to oil production, is an advanced mapping system for fracturing that delivers a more accurate picture of underground conditions and allows improved alignment of induced fractures with natural fractures in ways which optimize flow.
• Oil and Natural Gas Program Uses Stranded Gas to Revive Oil Production
  A Department of Energy project is turning "stranded" natural gas at marginal, or low-production, oil fields into fuel for distributed electric power. The breakthrough is bringing previously idle oil fields back into production and could boost domestic oil production by some 28 million barrels per year within the next 10 years, helping to reduce the Nation's dependence on foreign oil sources.
• New Seismic Technology Improves Pre-Drill Diagnostics for Deep Oil and Gas Reservoirs
  New technology developed through a cost-shared project managed by NETL is improving industry's ability to identify commercially viable deep oil and gas targets prior to drilling. Applications of this groundbreaking technology will help to accelerate future development of deep oil and gas resources in the United States. The technology aims at improving pre-drill diagnostics for deep reservoirs using a set of independent indicators known as seismic attenuation attributes, which can safely confirm the presence of oil or natural gas in deep reservoirs where conventional techniques prove unreliable.
• DOE-Funded Research Opens Way to 218 Billion Barrels of By-Passed Domestic Oil
  A joint venture in technology development between researchers at Texas A&M University and DOE produced a new computer tool that will increase recovery of up to 218 billion barrels of by-passed oil remaining in mature domestic fields. Researchers developed a novel, computerized method for rapidly interpreting field tracer tests. The new method integrates computer simulations with history matching techniques, allowing scientists to design tracer tests and interpret the data using practical PC-based software, a process that is much faster than conventional history matching.
• DOE-Supported Oil and Gas Advances Garner Prestigious Innovation Award
  Department of Energy-sponsored technological advances that could help increase U.S. recoverable reserves of oil and natural gas have won awards for engineering innovation and were recognized at the 2007 Offshore Technology Conference. One is a new technique in seismic imaging from 3DGeo, a Houston company, that can assist in the more efficient exploration, discovery and development of new, ultra-deep natural gas reservoirs such as those in the U.S. Gulf Coast region that are believed to hold up to 193 trillion feet of hard-to-produce natural gas. The other is an advance in deep cementing from CSI Technologies, also of Houston, that eliminates potential costly problems and delays in bringing deep oil and gas wells into production.
• DOE-Funded "Microhole" Drilling Rig Demonstrated Successfully in Midcontinent
  A specially designed hybrid "microhole" coiled tubing rig concluded drilling 25 test wells to penetrate a particularly intractable natural gas formation in western Kansas and eastern Colorado. The effort delivered cost savings of 25 to 35 percent per well drilled compared with conventional drilling equipment. As a result, about 1 trillion cubic feet of shallow gas that had been bypassed by conventional drilling has now been made economic.
• DOE Project Revives Oil Production in Abandoned Fields on Osage Tribal Lands
  A technology developed with U.S. Department of Energy funding has revived oil production in two abandoned oilfields on Osage Indian tribal lands in Oklahoma, demonstrating a technology that could add billions of barrels of additional domestic oil production in declining fields. The technology involved waterflooding using horizontal wells, instead of the more common vertical wells, to increase production in shallow, underpressured, highly fractured reservoirs. Production at one of the oilfields jumped from zero to more than 100 barrels per day.
• DOE, Industry Consortium Project Deploys New Stripper Well Tool
  A novel technology has demonstrated significant cost and production benefits for lower-producing wells, called "stripper wells," while contributing to the security of the nation's oil and gas supplies. The technology, called the VortexFlow(TM) SX tool, addresses the turbulence and disorganization of liquids and gases as they flow through a pipe by converting the disorganized flow into an organized "vortex" flow that accelerates the velocity of water used in the process and reduces the friction that causes the pressure to drop as the fluids move through the pipe. The Stripper Well Consortium, co-funded by NETL in agreement with The Pennsylvania State University, sponsored the development of the tool, which has been deployed in more than 200 stripper well operations across the country.