Steve at the Reservation Economic SUmmit

Assistant Secretary Steven Winberg (bottom right) joins his DOE colleagues and representatives from the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development at the Reservation Economic Summit to promote in March 2019. 

The first three months of 2019 have been busy for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE), including issuance of seven funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) totaling more than $176.3 million.

“The Office of Fossil Energy has been on the cutting edge of fossil energy research for more than a quarter of a decade,” explains Assistant Secretary Steven Winberg.  “This money will help fund some much-needed research that will continue this trend.”

In January, DOE and FE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), as part of an international partnership, successfully drilled and logged an initial test well within the Prudhoe Bay Unit on the Alaska North Slope. The well is part of an international effort to investigate the resource potential of natural gas hydrates in that area.

In January, FE issued two FOAs for Oil and Gas: $44 million for Advanced Technologies for Enhanced Oil Recovery and $44 million for Advanced Technologies for Recovery of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources

As a part of FE’s University Training and Research initiative, FE issued $4.8 million for University Training and Research for Fossil Energy Applications (January 7, 2019) and $6 million for University-Based Turbine Systems Research (January 15, 2019) a program supported by the University Turbine Systems Research program.

Finally, FE issued three Coal FOAs: $9.5 million for Maximizing the Coal Value Chain (January 15, 2019); $38 million for Improving Efficiency, Reliability, and Flexibility of Existing Coal-Based Power Plants (January 23, 2019); and $30 million for Front-End Engineering Design Studies for Carbon Capture Systems on Coal and Natural Gas Power Plants (March 14, 2019). 

In January, ASFE Winberg attended an event at NETL celebrating the lab’s more than 30 notable science and technology accomplishments of 2018. Researchers had the opportunity to showcase their work and demonstrate how they are using the capabilities of NETL to solve some of the nation’s greatest fossil energy challenges.

ASFE Winberg attended CERAWeek (March 11-15) where he participated in several events, including a panel on enhanced oil recovery (EOR). While on the panel, ASFE Winberg discussed the potential of EOR through carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and DOE’s efforts to expand CCUS technology development and deployment. In addition to the panel, ASFE Winberg participated in other high-level meetings including the U.S.-Poland dialogue on the current status of and future opportunities for Coal and LNG trade.

In late March, ASFE Winberg attended the 2019 Reservation Economic Summit in Las Vegas, Nevada, to discuss energy policy and opportunities with Native American leaders.

ICYMI, other important news updated between January 1 and March 31, 2019 include:

News Updates

  • February 14, 2019 – Chevron Technology Ventures, LLC announced three winners of the Chevron Tech Challenge for Produced Water, a competition supported by FE.
  • February 28, 2019 – FE announced a Notice of Sale of up to 6 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
  • March 5, 2019 – DOE issued a long-term order authorizing the export of domestically produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Venture Global Calcasieu Pass, LLC.
  • March 22, 2019 – DOE announced that it had awarded contracts to three companies from the most recent Strategic Petroleum Reserve crude oil sale.
  • March 25, 2019 – DOE issued a Request for Information for strategies for improving or creating emission-reduction or utilization technologies for hazardous substances resulting from coal combustion.

FOA Selections

In the first quarter, FE made selections for projects to receive funding under 3 different FOAs:

  • DE-FOA-0001792 – $24 million for Novel and Enabling Carbon Capture Transformational Technologies
  • DE-FOA-0001829 – $2 million for Developing Technologies for Advancement of Associated Geological Storage for Basinal Geo-Laboratories
  • DE-FOE-0001830 – $2.9 million for Transformational Pre-Combustion Carbon Capture Technologies.