Enabling Safe and Reliable Underground Storage Operations for Hydrogen and Carbon Dioxide

The National Energy Technology Laboratory's (NETL's) record of success has been built on understanding the future of energy and the technologies required to make that future possible. We’ve long touted our success in developing the technologies that took on acid rain in the 1970s and mercury in the early 2000s. More recently, NETL has a leading role in President Biden’s ambitious climate goals, including a carbon emission-free power sector by 2035 and a net-zero economy by 2050.

Program Goals

The NETL Postgraduate Research Program (PGRP) is a high-intensity program designed to identify recent Master’s and Doctoral graduates of high promise and to foster advanced skill development. It allows the postgraduate to systematically outline career goals and helps provide the means of achieving these goals. NETL principal investigators and leads serve as mentors to PGRP participants during the program. This interaction affords the postgraduate a unique opportunity to develop critical skills needed to become an independent professional.

The program goals include providing the opportunity to participants to:

• Develop skills and knowledge in their field of study
• Engage with new areas of basic and applied research
• Network with world-class scientists
• Exchange ideas and skills with the Laboratory community
• Use state-of-the-art equipment
• Contribute to answers for today's pressing scientific questions
• Collaborate with the broader scientific and technical communities

Project Details

Through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), this posting seeks a post-Doctoral or post-Master's researcher to engage in projects with the Research Innovation Center (RIC) at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in the area of SHASTA and Carbon Storage under the mentorship of Angela Goodman. This project will be hosted at the NETL Pittsburgh, PA campus.

Large-scale geologic storage research is ongoing to mitigate emissions of carbon dioxide and to transition to clean low-carbon fuel options with hydrogen. Our goal is to decarbonize transportation, electricity generation, manufacturing applications, and other clean energy applications that could accelerate the nation’s transition to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy. The relevance of this project is to fully examine underground storage options and infrastructure to enable mitigation of carbon dioxide and the early adoption of the low-carbon energy carrier such as hydrogen. The goal of this project is two-fold where we conduct research to establish to the technical criteria for pure and blended hydrogen storage in subsurface geologic reservoirs and explore the feasibility of an alternative form of geologic carbon dioxide storage via mineralization.

Project will focus on 1) designing experimental approaches with reaction vessels and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) at subsurface pressure and temperatures to define appropriate metrics to quantify fluid movement and reactivity with subsurface reservoir materials and 2) predicting how much carbon dioxide could be stored in underground storage reservoirs and in materials left over from industrial byproducts at the surface.  The participant will learn about hands on lab experience, modeling, and presenting and publishing results.

Stipend: The selected participant will receive a monthly stipend commensurate with educational level and experience.

• Post-Master's stipend is $6393 per month.
• Post-Doctoral stipend is $7735 per month.

Deliverables: To document the effectiveness of the program, participants are required to submit a pre-appointment and post-appointment survey, as well as a reflection on their appointment experience when they renew or end their appointment. The reflection should summarize their project(s), additional activities, and overall experience. Details are provided as the appointment end date approaches.
Participants may also have the opportunity to contribute to manuscripts, journal articles, book chapters, conference presentations, posters, patents, and other publications as a part of their appointment. Such achievements should also be reported to ORISE; additional details are provided after an offer has been accepted.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), part of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory system, is owned and operated by the DOE. NETL supports the DOE mission to advance the energy security of the United States. This is an educational opportunity offered by NETL and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. Participants in the program are not considered employees of NETL, DOE, the program administrator, or any other office or agency.

Qualifications

To be eligible, you must have received a Master's degree within the last three years or a Doctoral degree within the last five years; or be planning to receive a Master's degree or doctoral degree prior to the appointment start date.

The ideal candidate would have some, but not necessarily all, of the following:

• The Candidate should have a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Geology, Chemistry, GeoChemistry, Physics or a related field.
• Experience with experimental reaction vessels and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is desirable.
• The candidate is ideally expected to be familiar with advanced topics in heat and mass transfer and fluid mechanics.