NETL Teams Earn Prestigious Secretary’s Honor Awards

Four NETL teams recently received Secretary's Honor Awards for demonstrating exceptional creativity, drive, and commitment that has a lasting impact on the mission of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). These honors represent the highest internal, nonmonetary recognition that DOE employees and contractors can receive for their service and contributions to the Department's mission and to the nation.

"These prestigious honors reflect our Lab's commitment to driving high-impact innovation that transforms domestic resources into affordable, reliable, and secure energy solutions for our nation," said NETL Acting Director Sean Plasynski . "Whether derisking advanced geothermal systems to catalyze historic private-sector investment, unlocking domestic critical minerals to protect supply chains, breaking new ground in modular chemical manufacturing, or delivering data tools that empower industry, our researchers consistently translate visionary science into real-world outcomes."

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright presented the awards at a ceremony Sept. 28, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Descriptions of NETL's honorees follow.

The NETL Center for Microwave Chemistry was recognized for pioneering a microwave-based reactor that transforms chemical manufacturing. By lowering operating temperatures and minimizing thermal loss through direct microwave-material interaction, the modular system delivers up to 60% greater energy efficiency than conventional methods. It converts distributed feedstocks - such as biomass, waste plastics, and carbon dioxide - into hydrogen, ammonia, and critical minerals. Spinoff startup Cecilia Energy is pursuing commercialization of this technology.

The WELLS Team was recognized for creating and releasing America's first public-source national wellbore database and interactive platform, the Wellbore Exploration of Location Logistic System (WELLS), hosted on the Energy Data eXchange®. Uniting geospatial science, computer science, and petroleum engineering, the team standardized over 6 million records across more than 65 disparate sources into an interactive tool. Featuring an automated, continuously updating workflow, WELLS resolves critical data fragmentation to accelerate national energy initiatives across DOE.

The National Prospectus Team was recognized for rapidly producing the first-ever national estimate of critical mineral potential from unconventional feedstocks, the "Prospectus." Completed in just nine months through collaboration between NETL and the Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office, the team formulated new, statistically sound estimation methods to evaluate complex data from disparate sources. The Prospectus demonstrates the immense capacity of unconventional resources such as coal and coal byproducts to supply vital energy infrastructure materials.

Team FORGE (Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy), a collaboration between NETL and the Office of Geothermal Energy, was recognized for its pivotal role in enabling the largest renewable energy initial public offering in U.S. history, which raised over $1.9 billion and resulted in a market capitalization exceeding $10 billion. As the nation's premier enhanced geothermal systems platform, the team pioneered rapid drilling and fiber-optic fracturing diagnostics, publicly sharing more than 133 terabytes of data to derisk critical technologies, attract private capital, and accelerate commercial geothermal deployment.

NETL is a DOE national laboratory dedicated to innovating and accelerating the nation's energy solutions in hydrocarbons, geothermal energy, and critical minerals production. The Lab further strengthens its impact by engaging with industry, academia, and other stakeholders through four strategically located Centers of Excellence: Coal, Critical Minerals & Advanced Alloys, Oil & Gas, and Geothermal. With research sites in Albany, Oregon; Morgantown, West Virginia; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, NETL operates as one laboratory to create advanced energy technologies that support DOE's mission and enable affordable, reliable, and secure energy to fuel human prosperity.