Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Teaming Up: ExxonMobil, NREL & NETL


A recent post from EnergyFactor by ExxonMobil alerted me to the following partnership …

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A partnership for scaling lower-emission innovations
EnergyFactor by ExxonMobil
Finding new energy solutions requires the skills and input from many scientists and engineers. That’s why ExxonMobil, in its search to develop lower-emission technologies, has created a new partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).
Considered the crown jewels of American research and home to groundbreaking innovations, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Laboratories represent a scientific network that spans the country. And ExxonMobil’s partnership will further breakthroughs in energy research, such as improved cellulosic biofuels or low-cost carbon capture technologies.
ExxonMobil is investing up to $100 million over the next 10 years into the partnership, which is among the largest of its kind.
Vijay Swarup, the company’s vice president of research and development, says the cooperation will help “open a full spectrum of innovation” propelled by collaboration between scientists from the National Laboratories and ExxonMobil.
These advancements will help address the dual challenge of providing the world with the affordable, scalable energy it needs while also mitigating the risks of climate change.
source: https://energyfactor.exxonmobil.com/news/doe-partnership/?utm_source=Exxon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b64f17b121-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_09_05_56&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_591a587b0d-b64f17b121-94938153
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TIP: Get some background. Google® "Vijay Swarup", the company’s vice president of research and development

One result … a very insightful Forbes article. Here are some excerpts …

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Over A Barrel: ExxonMobil Preps For The Low-Carbon Future
This story appears in the February 28, 2018 issue of Forbes.
In an exclusive interview, ExxonMobil's new CEO lays out his plan to supply a growing world with energy -- without destroying it in the process.
By Jamel Toppin, for Forbes.
Darren Woods strides down the long linoleum halls of ExxonMobil's research center in Clinton, New Jersey. Named Exxon's CEO in January 2017, the tall 53-year-old electrical engineer is comfortable here in this nerds' paradise, nestled safely on 750 bucolic acres, behind gates, armed guards and X-ray scanners. Exxon's legions of scientists, including the 300 based in New Jersey, are spending $1 billion a year trying to solve one of the greatest challenges of our time: how to reduce emissions while supplying ever more energy to a world Exxon expects to grow to 9 billion people by mid-century. Woods agreed to meet Forbes here for an exclusive interview, thousands of miles from Exxon's executive God Pod outside Dallas. The point is to stress that he gets it--carbon dioxide really does threaten to disrupt the global climate. "We understand the risk and that it needs to be addressed," Woods says. "We're sincere in that. We believe that."
But what does that really mean? After all, Exxon is not about to leave oil in the ground, as the anti-carbonistas would prefer. In fact, by 2025 the company intends to boost its U.S. oil production by more than 600,000 barrels a day and to get another 200,000 bpd from giant new discoveries off the coast of Guyana. Exxon's megatrend watchers figure we will need every drop as the global middle class doubles in size and energy demand grows by 25% by 2040. "Go to places experiencing energy poverty. It motivates you," Woods says. "You can't just walk away and say, 'Let's turn off the valve here.' "
But Exxon is also staring down a perfect storm of regulatory, social and shareholder pressure to clean up its act. What's needed, says Vijay Swarup, the Exxon exec who runs the Jersey research center, are innovations that meet the four criteria of being "affordable, scalable, reliable and sustainable."

"It's an unselfish culture," Woods says. "The expectation is that the next guy comes in and does it better."
Doing it better means doubling down on green tech. Exxon has promised to spend $600 million on a venture with Craig Venter (who was the first to crack the human genome) and his Synthetic Genomics. The partnership started in 2009, and last summer they finally revealed a breakthrough. "We figured out the genetic pathway by which algae make lipids," Swarup says, referring to the fat cells that would be the building blocks of a sustainable algae oil. "Now we're going to do it at scale." But Woods, who spent the past decade running Exxon's refining and chemicals division, isn't interested in showing off a single batch of algae-derived jet fuel. What he wants is a 450,000-barrel-per-day Franken-algae refinery. And 20 years down the line--"aggressively patient" in Exxon-speak--the company just might get there.

Despite these advances, it's easy to be cynical. Exxon has a long, sad track record of knowing the "right thing" to do--and then not doing it. In 1978 Exxon climate researcher James Black wrote a report titled "The Greenhouse Effect," warning that carbon emissions could spur a two-degree rise in global temperatures and suggesting that the world had ten years to figure out what to do. "It is premature to limit use of fossil fuels but they should not be encouraged," he wrote. Also in the 1970s, Exxon scientists invented the lithium-ion battery, but the company didn't bother to commercialize it, investing instead in coal and uranium. Then came the Exxon Valdez spill.
Read the full text at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2018/02/13/over-a-barrel-exxonmobil-preps-for-the-low-carbon-future/#2d98ae6a70d8
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