The U.S. Department of Energy recently issued a $12 million Funding Opportunity Announcement to support the extraction and conversion of lithium from geothermal brines to use in batteries for stationary storage and electric vehicles.  This investment will support projects that strengthen and diversify the lithium supply chain—an important step on the path to achieving the Biden Administration’s goals of a net-zero clean energy economy by 2050 and 50% electric vehicle adoption by 2030.

The Biden-Harris Administration, through the U.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Nov. 10, 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $1.5 million in funding for five projects that will advance key clean-hydrogen technologies while growing the skills and knowledge of science and engineering students at Minority Serving Institutions.

NETL representatives are supporting U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) efforts to gather information about the status of gasification technologies for biomass and solid waste at a special virtual workshop set for 9 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Nov. 30.

NETL selected six projects last year to receive a total of nearly $1 million to create a sustainable supply chain of critical minerals (CMs), including rare earth elements (REEs), which are crucial to the development of clean energy and national defense technologies. These projects have since made great strides toward their objectives, including drafting a report to provide insights into consumption and price data, characterizing midstream REE concentrates, and conducting a value analysis to determine the recoverable value of REEs from acid mine drainage (AMD).

NETL researchers presented the Lab’s work on new laser-based optical sensors that have the potential for use in subsurface fluid management, among other applications, during the 2022 National Lab Accelerator (NLA) Pitch Event, held Wednesday, Nov. 16, in Palo Alto, California.

NETL researchers have created a compact, portable device that can be used to detect cobalt at low concentrations in liquids, such as process streams from U.S. coal byproducts like fly ash and to prospect for cobalt in acid mine drainage – an innovation with financial, environmental and geopolitical implications for recovering the element that is currently produced mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, China and Zambia.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Nov. 7, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $30 million in financial assistance grants to Minority Serving Institutions (MSI) in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington. These grants, distributed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program (MSIPP), will help develop highly qualified science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students and foster a well-trained, technically skilled, and inclusive workforce.

NETL’s Charles Damianides, Ph.D., has received a 2022 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award from the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

After visiting several project sites in conjunction with NETL partner organizations in Kentucky, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Lab’s Point Source Carbon Capture Team gained valuable perspective to enhance their work on future carbon capture projects.