DOE-EERC jointly sponsored research program

Abstract

The objective of the JSRP was to advance the deployment of advanced technologies for improving energy efficiency and environmental performance through jointly sponsored research on topics that would not be adequately addressed by the private sector alone. The selection of particular research projects was guided by a combination of DOE priorities and market needs, as provided by the requirement for joint venture funding approved both by DOE and the private sector sponsor. The JSRP is a complement to an associated Base Program, which seeks to further the understanding of basic scientific and engineering foundations for new and improved technologies. This JSRP Cooperative Agreement and the complementary Base Cooperative Agreement were designed as a model for research, development, demonstration, and commercialization partnerships between government, industry, and the applied science and engineering community that can bring cutting-edge science closer to commercial application. Under this agreement covering the period from fiscal year 1993 through 1997, the EERC negotiated the 64 JSRP tasks shown in Table 1. The DOE share of these projects was $11,997,297 (43%), while the nonfederal share totaled $16,189,257 (57%). The nonfederal sponsors are listed on Table 2. The EERC's internal goal of 60% nonfederal funding was achieved in each of the last three fiscal years. The JSRP tasks funded under this agreement covered a broad range of topics of mutual interest to both DOE's Office of Fossil Energy and nonfederal sponsors, ranging from fundamental research to highly applied development. The topics addressed included climate change; resource characterization; underground coal gasification; air toxic emissions; groundwater quality; environmental remediation of soils; fuel upgrading, blending, and switching; boiler performance indices addressing ash fouling and other operational issues; optimizing atmospheric fluid-bed combustion sulfur removal and reducing bed agglomeration; ash behavior under reducing conditions; hot-gas filter blinding; coal combustion byproduct utilization; alternative fuels and chemicals; plastics recycling; and distributed power generation.