The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), an agency within the US Department of Energy (DOE), has a remarkable number of projects underway, partly as a result of a record-breaking budget in 2009, some derived from stimulus funding.

NETL is organized into seven strategic units at five US locations with about 1,100 staff (half contractors):

• Strategic Center for Natural Gas and Oil;

• Strategic Center for Coal;

• Office of Systems, Analyses and Planning;

• Project Management Center;

• Office of Research and Development;

• Office of Institutional and Business Operations; and

• Office of Crosscutting Functions.

NETL does some exclusive research, but the organization’s emphasis is on partnering with industry and academic research groups, national laboratories, and other government agencies to develop commercially viable technology through cooperative R&D agreements in five focus areas: Oil and natural gas supply; Coal and power systems; Carbon sequestration; Hydrogen and clean fuels; and Technology transfer.

In October, NETL introduced a new online database at the Society of Petroleum Engineers' Annual Technical Conference in New Orleans. The Knowledge Management Database (KMD) includes decades of oil and natural gas research results, available through its portal at www.netl.doe.gov/KMD.

The KMD includes information from historical and ongoing DOE oil and gas R&D programs and provides both documents and GIS visualization of spatial data.

Another highlight in 3Q 2009 was NETL’s participation in methane hydrate research off Alaska. The 12-day expedition in September was the first comprehensive study of the continental shelf and slope found under the US Beaufort Sea.

Budget

NETL’s research portfolio includes more than 1,800 projects, with a total award value of more than US $9 billion and private sector cost-sharing of more than $5 billion. NETL manages contracted research in the US and in more than 40 countries.

The agency was involved in more than 80 carbon sequestration projects in fiscal year 2009 (ended Sept. 30, 2009), with a budget that grew from next to nothing in 1997 to nearly $150 million. About 68% of the projects are allocated to regional partnerships; 12% to pre-combustion capture of CO2; 9% to CO2 monitoring, verification, and accounting (MVA); 4% each to geologic carbon storage and to simulation and risk assessment; and 3% to CO2 use and re-use.

The Office of Fossil Energy received an additional $3.4 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. All of this stimulus funding was allocated for carbon capture and storage projects, including:

• $1 billion for fossil energy R&D programs;

• $800 million for Clean Coal Power Initiative Round III;

• $1.52 billion for industrial carbon capture and energy efficiency improvement projects;

• $50 million for site characterization activities in geologic formations (in the context of CO2 sequestration);

• $20 million for geologic CO2 sequestration training and research grants; and

• $10 million for program-direction funding.

Outreach

NETL funds nearly 500 R&D energy science and technology projects at US universities. NETL’s outreach efforts include a speakers’ bureau, visiting professor program, Adopt-a-School program, high school science bowls, in-school demonstrations, computer donations to area schools, job shadowing for high school students, and other initiatives that encourage careers in engineering and science.

The teachers and scientists program provides opportunities to students and teachers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics throughout the US.

Natural gas, drilling

Development of natural gas as a resource has been the fastest growing activity this decade, particularly shale and LNG.

In April 2009, NETL released a primer on modern shale gas development in the US, directed by the Groundwater Protection Council with ALL Consulting as lead researcher.

This followed on the heels of the Natural Gas Program Archive, a compendium of data and research results on eastern gas shales, western gas sands, secondary recovery, methane hydrates, methane recovery from coalbeds, and deep source gas, issued by NETL in 2007.

Among the technologies developed for drilling are the Microhole program led by the Gas Technology Institute. GTI and other contractors developed a coiled tubing rig and slimhole drilling system and drilled 25 test wells to 3,000 ft (915 m) in as little as 19 hours each. This commercial Niobrara drilling program saved 25% to 35% in drilling costs compared to drilling using conventional equipment. NETL also funded research on a microhole drilling tractor, bottomhole assemblies, and advanced mud systems for coiled tubing drilling.