PROGRAM AREA OVERVIEW --

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, and trace heavy metals, precursors of pollutants that could have deleterious effects on the environment. Natural gas is also produced with a wide variety of pollutant-forming compounds, which preclude some applications such as fuel cells and advanced gas turbines. 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 alternate fuel, and to mitigate impacts on water resources. Advanced technology development in materials to assure compatibility with advances in power systems, will be needed for these challenges – as well as innovations in fuel cells, measurements, sensors, monitors, and controls – 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.

This solicitation seeks 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 initiative of FutureGen, a platform 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:

9. Capture, Sequestration, and Utilization of Carbon

a. Advanced Technologies for Monitoring, Mitigation, and Verification

b. Advanced Separation and Capture Techniques for CO₂

c. Non-Carbon Dioxide (Non-CO₂) Greenhouse Gas Reduction

d. Breakthrough Technologies

10. Coal Gasification Technologies

a. Technologies to Produce High-Value Added Products from Coal Gasification

b. Improved Methods for Cleanup of Multiple Contaminants

c. Novel Concepts in Air Separation (Non-Cryogenic)

d. Novel Gasifier Concepts