PROGRAM AREA OVERVIEW
OFFICE OF FOSSIL ENERGY
Fossil energy
plays a key role in our Nation's prosperity, and it is important that we secure
an adequate energy supply from our coal, natural gas, and oil resources.
However, national complacency, derived from low-cost imported oil, has allowed
petroleum imports to increase to alarming levels. We need not go far back
in history to find out how uncertainty in petroleum supply can affect our
Nation's economic growth. Nonetheless, our near term power generation,
heating, and transportation needs still require the utilization of these
hydrocarbon-based fuels. As the economy expands, demand for hydrocarbons
will increase accordingly. Therefore, the Office of Fossil Energy seeks to
develop advanced fossil energy technologies that are environmentally sound and
economically competitive.
Technological
innovation is required to take advantage of the United States' large supply of coal and natural gas reserves. Coal's major drawback is
that it contains sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, and other trace heavy metals,
precursors of pollutants that could have deleterious effects on the environment.
Also, natural gas is produced with a wide variety of pollutant-forming
compounds, which preclude some applications such as fuel cells. For both
coal and natural gas, further improvements are needed to develop advanced, low
cost, high-efficiency processes for the production of clean energy. In
addition, it is prudent to consider ways to reduce carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases that are generated by the combustion of fossil fuels, to
investigate carbon sequestration in geological and other systems, to consider
hydrogen as an alternate fuel, and to mitigate impacts on water resources.
Advanced technology development in materials that assure compatibility with
advances in power systems – as well as innovations in fuel cells,
measurements, sensors, monitors, and controls – will be needed for these
technologies to be commercially competitive.
Improvements
are also needed in our ability to recover both oil and natural gas. About
two-thirds of our national petroleum reserve is "unrecoverable"; i.e.,
it cannot be extracted economically by conventional means. This unused
resource could play a major role in supplementing the national petroleum supply
if efficient approaches were developed for improved extraction. Natural
gas production and utilization could also be increased through improved
characterization of reserves and through better infrastructure.
The following topics seek the participation of small businesses in addressing problems related to utilization of coal and natural gas to produce power, and to the recovery of oil and natural gas. Many of the topic offerings indirectly support the DOE’s FutureGen initiative, a program to demonstrate hydrogen production and carbon sequestration. The objectives of FutureGen are to produce hydrogen at $4/MMBtu, sequester 100% of the carbon-dioxide, and produce electricity with zero emissions at less than a 10% increase in cost.
For additional information regarding the Office of Fossil Energy priorities, click here.
TOPICS:
18. Coal Gasification and Combustion Technologies
a. High Temperature Heat Recovery Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC)
b. Novel Concepts in Industrial Gasification
c. Novel Concepts in Hydrogen Production and Process Intensification
d. Hydrogen and Syngas, Novel Concepts in Liquid Fuels Production and Process Intensification with Carbon Management
a. 1 to 5 kWe Diesel Reformer
b. Evolved Designs for High-Power, Low Cost, High Performance Fuel Cell Power Conditioning Systems
c. Innovative Cooling Approaches
d. Increasing Performance of Gas Turbine Exhaust Systems
20. High Performance Materials for Long Term Fossil Energy Applications
a. Surface Modification of Alloys for Ultrasupercritical Coal-Fired Boilers
b. Sealing Technology for Gas Separation Devices
c. Computational Tools for Materials Development
21. Environmental Innovations for Fossil Energy Applications
a. Development of Technologies to Reduce Freshwater Use and Consumption in Coal-Fired Power Plants
b. Novel Technologies for Sequestering Mercury in Flue Gas Desulfurization Solids Under Disposal or Beneficial Use Environments
c. Novel Approaches for Monitoring the Condition of Advanced Power Plants
22. Oil and Natural Gas Technologies
a. CO2 Flooding
b. Methane Hydrates
23. Climate Control Technology for Fossil Energy Applications
a. Breakthrough Performance Improvements on Supporting Systems for Post Combustion CO2 Capture
b. Advanced Monitoring Technologies for Geologic CO2 Sequestration
Return to the Complete List of Topics