The great captain of industry Henry Ford once said that, “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.”

That spirit of collaboration resonates strongly here at NETL, as evidenced by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) extension the Laboratory recently executed with the president of the Brazilian Coal Association (BCA).

The extension builds upon a remarkable record of success attained under the original MOU signed in 2007 – a collaboration between BCA and NETL that helped attain key progress toward reducing the cost of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies and advancing gasification research.

NETL has shared its expertise in CCS and gasification computer modeling and provided training workshops to BCA. BCA, in turn, sent researchers to our labs to share their expertise. The collaborative research focused on many different clean coal topics, and resulted in several technology advancements and publications.

This new extension will ensure that one of our most valuable international partnerships will remain in place for many more years. That’s important because, in the western hemisphere, Brazil’s economy is second only to our own, and we have common goals and interests when it comes to energy production.

Both nations seek to strengthen energy security, create new jobs and industries, and advance clean coal technologies. Working together, our countries have made great strides toward those goals – much of it resulting from the work of NETL and BCA.

The fossil energy research we undertake at NETL helps to assure that the United States achieves energy dominance, but the impact of our work stretches beyond our borders. The technology and knowledge generated by our lab has the potential to affect economies world-wide.

So, when we have a chance to work with experts from another nation like Brazil that shares our vision for forward-thinking energy innovation, then as Henry Ford said, “success will take care of itself.”

As Acting Director of NETL, Sean I. Plasynski, Ph.D., builds on an extensive background in energy as he leads NETL in its mission to enhance the nation’s energy independence and protect the environment for future generations. For more information about Sean Plasynski's experience, please click here.