The aim is to improve on capture and storage techniques, and to develop advanced energy systems, as well as sensing and advanced process controls. NETL's coal program also investigates a range of advances in combustion, gasification, turbines, fuels, and fuel cell technologies that can increase power plant efficiency, improve plant economics, and reduce the amount of byproduct per unit of electricity generated. Development of these systems is designed to enable continued use of the United States’ significant fossil fuel resources as a major contributor to the nation's energy portfolio. The goals of NETL's research in advanced energy systems are to develop a new generation of clean coal-fueled energy conversion systems capable of producing competitively priced electric power while reducing and other emissions, improving efficiency, increasing plant availability, and reducing cooling water requirements. Key aspects of this research include improving overall system thermal efficiency, reducing capital and operating costs, and enabling affordable capture. Technology research areas include Gasification Systems, Advanced Combustion Systems, Advanced Turbines, Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, Carbon Capture, Carbon Storage, and Crosscutting Research. NETL's coal program also manages the Clean Coal Research Program's portfolio of large-scale technology demonstration projects that test advanced Program-developed technologies at full scale in integrated facilities. Final technical, environmental, and financial challenges associated with new advanced coal technologies are overcome during full-scale testing so the technologies are ready for commercial deployment. The demonstrated technologies fall under four capture pathways, each followed by storage: pre-combustion, post-combustion, oxy-combustion, and industrial carbon capture and storage. Oil and Gas NETL helps advance development of technologies supporting efficient, environmentally benign unconventional domestic oil and gas resources. The Lab's research projects help catalyze the development of these new technologies, provide objective data to help quantify the environmental and safety risks of oil and gas development, and characterize emerging energy resources like methane hydrate or shale gas production. The program foci are on deep-water technology, enhanced oil recovery, and methane hydrate. NETL's research on unconventional oil and gas includes efforts for improving wellbore cement used to stabilize wells for deep-water drilling; expeditions to determine presence and volume of methane hydrate along coastlines; development of hydraulic fracturing data collection tools to improve environmental reporting, monitoring, and protection; analysis to determine alternate sources of freshwater for oil and gas development, as well as many other areas of expertise. Natural gas and oil resources supply two-thirds of the United States’ primary energy supply, and researching