Number of Projects	Total Value* (Million $)	DOE Share (Million $)	Job Benefits**
Coal & Power Projects	5	$8.65	$6.37	246
Oil & Gas Projects	2	$3.49	$2.85	99

*Includes DOE and private sector cost-sharing

**An average of 28.5 direct and indirect jobs per $1 million in R&D funding is used based on the Department of Commerce's Regional Input-Output Modeling System II formula.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Receives DOE Fossil Energy Funding for Advanced Ceramics, and Carbon Sequestration

• The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) plays a key role in several DOE Fossil Energy projects. The laboratory is one of the world's leaders in advanced materials science, and historically, DOE's Fossil Energy program has turned to lab experts for research into higher strength, more durable alloys and ceramics for future energy plants.

• Advanced Power-Related Research - The DOE Fossil Energy Program is currently supporting one advanced power-related project at ORNL.

  • Reliability of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Materials - In this fully DOE-funded $2.7 million project, a methodology will be developed and applied for predicting the life and reliability of ceramic components for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Data will be generated to screen and rank materials that can be used to design SOFCs. The failure mechanisms for SOFCs will also be investigated.

• Carbon Sequestration Research at ORNL - ORNL is an active participant in the Office of Fossil Energy's carbon sequestration program. The program will develop technologies that will safely store greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, in an efficient and environmentally sound manner.

  • Geological Sequestration - CO2 sequestration will enable continued use of fossil fuels while helping the next generation of power systems to be emissions free. DOE is completely funding this $1.69 million project to lower the cost of sequestering CO2 in geological formations such as oil and natural gas reservoirs. Sequestration in these types of formations also has the added benefit of recovering additional oil and natural gas because CO2 will push these resources closer to the surface where they can be economically recovered.

TVA Helping to Improve Air Quality, Address Global Warming

• PM2.5 Monitoring - The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Chattanooga, TN, is working with the DOE Office of Fossil Energy to measure airborne levels of PM2.5 - microscopic particles so small that 30 of them would barely equal the width of a human hair. These particles, emitted from power plants, auto exhausts, and a variety of human activities, are now believed to pose a potential health hazard. TVA is conducting a $3.06 million program (DOE share: $1.11 million) to study how PM2.5 particles are formed in the atmosphere and transported.

• Fossil Plant Wastewater Treatment - TVA, in cooperation with EPRI and the American Electric Power (AEP), plan to install a demonstration passive treatment system at the Paradise Fossil Plant near Drakesboro, Kentucky, to treat ammonia in the flue gas desulfurization effluent stream. The passive system will be used to convert ammonia in the wastewater to nitrate in an aerobic component, followed by denitrification in anaerobic wetlands.  DOE is contributing $667,000 toward this $942,000 project.
  

Universities Developing Advanced Materials

• Advanced Materials for Ultrasupercritical Coal-Fired Boilers - Researchers at Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville, TN, will develop a low-temperature (700 degrees Celsius) diffusion aluminide coating with reduced brittleness via pack cementation for protection of ultrasupercritical boiler internal tubing. Potential Aluminum (Al)-containing binary alloys will be identified using thermodynamic computations and physical metallurgy principles. These masteralloys will be utilized instead of pure Al to reduce the Al activity during the aluminizing process, which is expected to avoid the formation of liquid Al as well as Al-rich, extremely brittle intermetallic phases. DOE is contributing $200,000 to this $254,900 project.
  

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Conducting Oil and Gas Technology Research 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN, is the site of two projects that are studying the fundamental properties of heavy oil, and gas hydrates.

• Thermodynamics/Basic Chemistry of Heavy Oil - ORNL researchers received $2.25 million from DOE for this $2.89 million project to study the fundamental chemistry of heavy oil.  The project team will investigate the effective management of hydrogen during the upgrading of heavy oil feedstocks.  Researchers will examine the distribution of hydrogenated products in the process streams and the conditions needed for their formation.

• Dissociation of Natural Gas Hydrates - ORNL researchers will obtain samples of naturally occurring and synthetic gas hydrates to measure the dissociation and formation characteristics for input to reservoir modeling efforts. DOE is fully funding the $595,000 project.