NETL Regional University Alliance (NETL-RUA)

The history of collaborative R&D between RUA universities and NETL goes back to the very beginnings of research at the Laboratory’s R&D campuses. In 1917, the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) opened a facility for coal safety research adjacent to what was then the campus of the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now part of CMU). At WVU, energy research was underway as early as the end of World War II, when experimental facilities for producing synthesis gas from coal were established through a cooperative agreement with USBM. In the ensuing years, CMU, WVU, Pitt, PSU, and VT all performed research funded through NETL’s predecessor organizations.

In 2005, NETL began a significant new partnership with CMU, Pitt, and WVU that expanded the scope of interactions between NETL and the participating universities into a true collaboration in which university researchers worked side by side with NETL staff and contractors. The efforts of this collaboration resulted in fresh ideas and talent to the research portfolios at each of the institutions. Because it provided a unique opportunity to establish long-term relationships between NETL and university researchers, the collaboration enhanced possibilities for significant breakthroughs in fossil energy grand challenge issues. In its first year, the joint effort conducted less than $3 million in research. However, from that humble beginning, the collaboration grew significantly, and by the close of 2009 almost $44 million in research had been performed.

COLLABORATION TIMELINE (Click on image to enlarge)

Unlocking the Secrets of Nature: The Pittsburgh Experiment Station Under Construction

The USBM Pittsburgh Experiment Station, now CMU’s Hamburg Hall, housed administrative, mining, mine safety, and explosives offices, as well as chemical, physical, metallurgical, mechanical, electrical, and fuels investigations laboratories. At the station’s formal dedication in 1919, Director Van H. Manning called the keys “a symbol of the function of the Bureau to unlock the secrets of nature for the benefit of mankind.”

Experimenting on Exhaust Emissions
A Brockway five-ton truck at the Pittsburgh Experiment Station (now CMU). The truck participated in road tests that yielded vital data in motor-vehicles exhaust emissions. As part of these tests, researchers modeled conditions inside transportation tunnels by creating an “underground speedway.”
Photo Credit: National Archives and Records Administration

Energy Research Begins in Morgantown, WV
Dedicated in 1942, WVU’s Mineral Industries Building, now White Hall, was home to the first USBM offices and laboratories at Morgantown. Here, the Bureau set up its Synthesis Gas Production Laboratories, co-locating its facilities with the University. On October 23, 1945, WVU officers signed a cooperative agreement with USBM to host the experimental work of the Synthesis Gas Branch.

Dedication of a New Research Station at Bruceton, PA

To accommodate its new Office of Synthetic Liquid Fuels, USBM began construction in 1945 on a new station at Bruceton, PA. In 1948, a dedication ceremony formally transferred synthetic liquid fuels research from Pittsburgh to Bruceton. The Bruceton station was the largest, most complex component of the Bureau’s synthetic liquid fuels program and exemplified the trend of mid-twentieth-century science toward large team projects requiring collaboration among many specialists.

USBM-WVU Gasification Research Underway
Beechurst Avenue pilot-plant building, located next to the WVU field house, 1948. Aided by WVU engineers, USBM researchers devised a simple, reliable gasifier able to make synthetic gas directly from a wide variety of American coals. Developed in tandem with laboratory studies, the pilot plant could gasify up to 500 pounds of coal per day.

Filling Up with Synthesis Gas
Driving in the Labor Day parade at Morgantown in 1949, this USBM station wagon was powered by synthetic gasoline from coal. Bureau researchers collaborated closely with WVU to find quicker, cheaper ways of gasifying coal to produce synthesis gas.
Photo Credit: National Archives and Records Administration

CMU Aids Federal Environmental Study

In 1973, construction began on the Pittsburgh station’s Synthane demonstration plant. Included in the Synthane program was the Federal Government’s first systematic data collection of how coal gasification affects the environment. With help from CMU’s Environmental Studies Institute, researchers documented the quantity and chemical composition of substitute natural gas-production effluents, determining the environmental considerations any future substitute natural gas industry would have to address.

DOE Leads Energy Technology

The U.S. Department of Energy was officially activated on October 1, 1977. The Morgantown and Pittsburgh Energy Technology Centers (METC and PETC) of USBM joined this new Department and its mission of increased production, greater conservation, and the rapid deployment of alternative sources in the form of synthetic fuels and renewable energy. As pictured here, Morgantown’s administration building gets a new name.

Pittsburgh Builds a New Hub

In 1985, CMU bought the Forbes Avenue experiment station, and Bruceton became the hub of all DOE’s Pittsburgh operations. New structures arose for specialized research on coal preparation and combustion, while old buildings were converted into office space for Federal employees and contractors who would oversee project implementation. The physical modernization illustrated DOE’s increasing collaborations with private companies, universities, research institutes, and State and local governments. Shown here, NETL-Pittsburgh’s original buildings are now surrounded by recent additions.

The ENERGY Lab Emerges

In 1999, the U.S. Secretary of Energy elevated the Federal Energy Technology Center—which included the METC and PETC—to national lab status, forming the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Now, with sites in Morgantown, Pittsburgh, Houston, Texas, Albany, Oregon, and Fairbanks, Alaska, NETL continues to advance energy and environmental research, developing technologies for a sustainable and promising energy future. NETL dedicated its newest building, the “green” Technology Support Facility at Morgantown, in 2008.

NETL-RUA is Launched, Advancing Collaborative Energy Research

Established in 2010, NETL-RUA combines NETL’s fossil energy expertise with the broad capabilities of five regional universities, creating a regional research entity that shares intellectual capital, laboratory facilities, and other resources. Key partnerships with the region’s commercial energy sector aid deployment of new NETL-RUA technologies, stimulating regional economic development, spurring high-tech job creation nationwide, and fostering the education of America’s new energy leaders.

Today, NETL’s university collaboration includes five leading R&D universities teamed with several major industrial firms. Three competitive awards allow the consortium to participate in collaborative efforts across NETL:

Funding for the first year of the NETL-RUA collaboration is more than $16 million in ORD activities alone, involving nearly 200 university staff and graduate students. Research is conducted at NETL R&D campuses and on university campuses—wherever the specialized, unique laboratories most suitable to the research exist. The portfolio of projects performed by the collaboration reflect the needs of an expanding NETL carbon management mission in areas such as hydrogen storage, carbon sequestration, hydrogen turbines, combustion science, advanced fuels, water management, security systems analysis, infrastructure security, and coal supply vulnerability.

Building closer ties with these prestigious universities helps prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers who will address the challenges related to fossil fuel use and the transition to advance energy systems of the future. In addition, these research collaborations will position NETL to tap the student talent for medicine, computer science, and robotics attending these major regional universities, and apply that talent to pressing challenges in the energy arena. In turn, participation by university staff and students provides the opportunity to view real-world issues and experience research in a non-academic setting.

NETL-RUA is a natural outgrowth for a region that has a rich history of energy R&D. Under this new collaborative program, NETL-RUA is ready to distinguish itself as the research center for carbon management technologies, providing energy solutions in the carbon-constrained economy of the 21st century.