Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
5/1/2015
PITTSBURGH, Pa.—Grace Bochenek, the new Director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory, this week stressed the importance of expanding NETL’s industry partnerships in her vision for the future of the organization. “NETL is a great organization. It has great partnerships. It’s done great work. What I want to do is how do I take that to this next level of capability that will help us answer some of these more complicated and complex things that we want to do,” she said here this week at the 14th Annual Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage Conference. “The partnership with industry will remain a focus. I think what you might see [moving forward] is a much more strategic discussion about those partnerships and how do we actually collaborate in a different kind of way, in a different dialogue besides just a contractual relationship and I think that’s all healthy,” Bochenek said.
Bochenek stepped into her position at NETL in October after serving for several years as Director of the U.S. Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command’s (RDECOM’s) Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC). With seven months of experience, Bochenek has begun to develop a future outlook for NETL. Integration of work within the national laboratory system as well as increased industry partnership will be key to Bochenek’s vision for the organization. “We are taking this integrated aspect of our laboratory and really trying to accelerate the work we’re doing by becoming much more complimentarily to each other and integrating some of the activities,” she said.
NETL Looking to Have the Right Workforce for 2050
Fossil fuels are projected to remain a large part of the nation’s energy mix well into the future, according to projections by various organizations such as the International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration. For this reason, is it important to Bochenek that NETL also look well into the future, she said. “When I see these things that say fossil energy is going to be part of the equation of 2030, 2040, 2050, then what’s on my plate is how do I make sure I have the right workforce for 2050,” she said, going on to note that there are numerous facets of the organization that she will be considering in the future. “How is the lab structured, does that need focus? What are the right partnerships that have to be in place so that we think about that future? I think the one thing just from my perspective in NETL is taking the organization from a more near-term look to a farther term look at the same time,” she said.
An additional concern for Bochenek is ensuring that the technical workforce necessary to support the maturation of NETL’s innovative technology is available moving forward. “You’ll see us being very, very aggressive in terms of how we’re reaching out to the K-12,” she said. “How do we get the young people even thinking about that in their very early days of their formulating their lives all the way up to our programs? Am I concerned? I can’t say no. Yes, I am concerned. I think that’s one of my jobs and one of the jobs of NETL is to make sure we’re engaging in developing that pipeline.”
