Research boss anticipates growth for Albany’s national technology lab

By Steve Lathrop
Albany Democrat-Herald

Cindy Powell can’t predict the future. Still, she is confident that what she and her fellow researchers are doing at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Albany is going to bring growth to her field in general and to the lab in particular.

Powell is the materials science focus area lead for NETL’s Office of Research & Development.

Part of her growth prediction is due to the focus of the Albany lab. Of the 17 national labs under the direction of the Department of Energy’s NETL, the facility in Albany is solely dedicated to enhancing energy security through the use of U.S. natural resources, especially fossil energy.

The NETL sites, located in five different states, work under one management structure, led by NETL Director Carl Bauer. Individual sites no longer include directors; area leads report to the director.

Albany’s 44-acre site employs about 100 workers, and with energy on the national forefront, Powell believes what Albany researchers are doing is vital. She says 85 percent of the energy supply in the United States comes from fossil fuels, which are going to be a major player in transitioning to other, renewable forms of energy.

Powell says NETL researchers concentrate on making the production of energy from coal, gas and oil environmentally friendly, as well as reliable and economical. In Albany, the principal emphasis is on materials development and engineering that provides solutions to the barriers posed by clean fossil energy production.

Getting the job done has meant investing in the city and the state. Powell said that through its onsite operation, NETL contributes $14 million to the state’s economy through federal and contractor payroll and benefits and additional business expenditures.

The Albany site brings around 1,000 visitors to the city each year, and onsite operations and field research have combined to create as many as 280 jobs in the state.

Powell said NETL is hoping to expand its presence.

“We want to grow our relationships with colleges and industry in Oregon,” she said. “It seems a natural fit to work together.”

Powell said NETL currently has a number of partnership agreements, working on projects with Oregon State and other groups. Partnerships and collaborative research efforts are likely to continue and expand in the future.

The Albany campus represents the newest NETL site. It was created in 2005 but the site’s history in the city dates to 1943, when it was established as the Bureau of Mines Northwest Electro-Development Laboratory.

Both Oregon Metallurgical Corporation and Wah Chang trace their roots to the facility now recognized as a historical landmark by the American Society of Metals and the American Nuclear Society.

The current focus on research and development of materials also works to find ways to produce them at commercial scale.

“There are lots of dreams, but the reality is that there has to be affordable material that will perform in order to build the dream,” said Powell. “It’s unusual in a research laboratory to take a material from concept to reality.”

That’s where NETL fits in, says Powell.

NETL’s research efforts helped pioneer mineral carbonation, which is a method of carbon sequestration that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and returns it to the earth.

“We’ve proved that mineral carbonation can work, but it requires a lot of energy and cost,” said Powell. “It’s something we are not pursuing now but we may come back to it at some point.”

She says NETL is now working to aid in the gasification of coal and provide affordable material for high-temperature combustion systems, along with other projects requiring extensive expertise in metals melting and fabrication.

“What we do offers us an opportunity. We have the potential to grow beyond materials and we already have to some degree,” said Powell.

She pointed to computational research as an area that may well find a more prominent role.

“It offers so much. You can run an experiment in that process before you go to the lab, then see if the computer’s prediction will happen,” Powell said. “What could have taken six years in a lab you can do in six months on a computer.”