NETL’s Coal Program, comprised of a world-class team of high-performing leaders, scientists, and engineers, houses the necessary engineering and scientific expertise to manage external R&D projects that further the DOE Fossil Energy Coal Program’s goals. Research in this area supports both existing and future power plants; the safe capture, use, and storage of carbon; high-value products from coal; and the stewardship of water used in energy production.
Effective Resource Development: Realizing the full economic value of our domestic coal resources by identifying novel applications for coal and coal by-products as feedstocks, high-value products, rare earth elements, and critical materials.
Efficient Energy Conversion: Revolutionizing fossil energy power generation with more efficient and robust power system technologies; advanced high-temperature materials; real-time monitoring; and comprehensive modeling, simulation, and analysis tools.
Environmental Sustainability: Safeguarding the environment with technologies that optimize carbon capture, utilization, and storage and reduce water used in energy production.
Developing and deploying more advanced, efficient, and robust coal-based power technologies to optimize the use of our abundant domestic fossil energy resources and leverage existing infrastructure.
Advancing technologies and techniques to effectively capture CO2 derived from power generation and other industrial processes.
Developing the tools, techniques, and innovations needed to enable safe, permanent CO2 storage and to pioneer its use and reuse for industry.
Accelerating science and engineering-based solutions across multiple operational platforms to optimize plant performance, reduce O&M costs and water consumption, and develop the next-generation of structural and functional materials.
Developing and modeling sCO2 power cycles with the potential to achieve efficiencies greater than 50%, and broad applicability to fossil, nuclear, waste-heat, and concentrated solar energy.
Developing novel extraction, processing, and manufacturing technologies to produce a cost-competitive domestic supply of rare earth elements from U.S. coal and coal by-products to sustain our Nation’s robust economy.
NETL’s Coal Program focuses on furthering research that addresses the challenges and opportunities facing the energy industry by advancing the technological solutions to make energy production more efficient, economical, and environmentally benign.
American Energy Resiliency, Reliability, Security, & Independence
Modernizing
Existing Coal Plants
Improving the performance, reliability, and efficiency of the existing coal-fired fleet
Developing and Deploying
Coal Plants of the Future
Advancing small-scale, modular coal plants that are highly efficient, flexible, and near-zero emissions
Pioneering High-Value
Products from Coal
Enhancing the value of coal as a feedstock by improving rare earth element separation and recovery technologies and manufacturing valuable products from coal
Reducing the Cost of CO2
Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS)
Reducing the cost and risk of CCUS to enable wider commercial deployment
Reducing Water Use
in Energy Production
Addressing water quality, sustainability, and availability for power generation
Expanding the Use of
Big Data by Leveraging Artificial Intelligence
Optimizing coal plant performance and CO2 sequestration with real-time analysis informed by machine learning
Heather Quedenfeld
Associate Director, Coal
Technology Development & Innovation Center