U.S. Department of Energy awards $17.4M to university-led decarbonization, emissions research
Through the University Training and Research (UTR) program, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) this week invested $17.4 million into early-stage green research projects at 17 U.S. colleges and universities.
These projects include new visiting scholars programs, academic curricula related to geosciences, and interdisciplinary training in humanities-driven science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, all focused on decarbonization and emissions reduction efforts.
“FECM is excited to partner with our universities in communities located throughout the country to develop a skilled and diverse workforce of professionals helping to achieve our goal of a clean energy and industrial economy,” Brad Crabtree, Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management, said. “The projects announced today will help advance innovative ideas and technologies across FECM’s portfolio—supporting carbon capture, carbon dioxide removal, carbon conversion, hydrogen with carbon management, and critical minerals and materials programs.”
Of these projects, five will create a visiting scholar program with multi-institution collaborations on student exchanges from minority-serving institutions. Another five will work to improve recovery of critical minerals and materials from coal-based resources, followed by another five devoted to finding the technical feasibility and community benefit of repurposing existing energy assets for clean energy. The remainder include three projects with humanities-driven support and interdisciplinary student training for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and a single effort to create an academic curriculum on critical mineral and materials production in the field of geosciences.
In all, 19 projects benefit from the federal funding. All will be managed by DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), backed by FECM.
