The heart of the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s (NETL) research site in Albany, Oregon, is its cutting-edge metallurgy and materials research capabilities. Situated on 42 acres, NETL’s Albany complex has specialized facilities for materials fabrication and performance testing of advanced high-temperature, corrosion-resistant structural ceramic composites and metal alloys.

As a young boy in Taiwan, NETL’s Chung Yan Shih, Ph.D., enjoyed playing with Legos and similar toys. But while many children tended to place their Legos in large piles, Shih preferred to organize his blocks into small, separate groupings based on size and other characteristics. He found that approach made it possible to piece together buildings and other structures that sprang from his inquisitive mind with assembly-line efficiency. “I was always interested in new stuff and challenging stuff. I dreamed about finding ways to make processes more efficient,” Shih recalled.

As a world leader in high-performance and advanced materials research, NETL’s Crosscutting High Performance Materials Program presents the Regional Work Force Initiative (RWFI) Energy 101 Series, which shares how the Lab’s work and expertise translates to savings and benefits for industry and the local economy.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) recently implemented a significant update to the Energy Data eXchange (EDX), a virtual platform for public curation and functionality to promote data-driven collaboration on research from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE). The update offers improved and streamlined functionality so data from a wide variety of sources can be accessed with ease through a secure platform to further FE’s development of critical energy technologies.

Working with university and industry partners, NETL is finding new ways to use concrete, a widely available and inexpensive building material, to create next-generation energy-storage systems and ensure the availability of reliable, affordable electricity as the nation shifts to renewable sources such as wind and solar. Concrete thermal energy storage (CTES) systems may be significantly less expensive than other technologies and have the potential to meet longer-duration storage needs, which will be critical as more renewable intermittent energy sources come online.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) serves the United States in a critical capacity, providing innovative solutions and cutting-edge research to power your computer, keep the lights on in your home and provide businesses, industries, hospitals and schools with abundant and affordable electricity.

As computational resources continue to evolve, NETL researchers look to new and more powerful tools to bolster their ability to model complex fossil energy power systems. The Lab has decades of experience developing this kind of software — known as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code — including the award-winning Multiphase Flow with Interphase eXchanges (MFiX).

NETL-supported research to secure a domestic supply of rare earth elements (REEs) shows economic potential regarding efficiency and cost savings and progresses along the pathway to commercial viability.

A cooperative partnership with NETL is advancing the development of next-generation gas turbines to perform with greater efficiency and at higher temperatures to meet the nation’s energy needs while generating cleaner power.

The first-known complete core of the Caney Shale Formation has been obtained as part of an NETL-supported project to find more efficient methods to extract petroleum from unconventional shale deposits and further U.S. energy independence.