GILLETTE, Wyo. — Today, the University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources announced that it has a new lease at the Wyoming Innovation Center, a coal-to-products research facility north of Gillette.
This is the second project affiliated with SER to take up residence at the facility, which opened in June 2022, according to an SER news release. SER is collaborating with the first tenant, National Energy Technology Laboratory, on a project at the site that aims to produce a pilot-scale facility at the center that will launch a new industry in extracting rare earth elements from fly ash of the state’s Powder River Basin coal.
With the new lease, SER will expand its research and demonstration of a coal processing technology that originated in its Center for Carbon Capture and Conversion, the release said. The center is focused on producing non-thermal products from coal.
Center for Carbon Capture and Conversion Director Trina Igelsrud-Pfeiffer said there are several advantages of moving technologies to the Wyoming Innovation Center. The facility will provide larger volumes of material for research teams working in high-volume coal-derived products. It will also allow researchers to collect data for designing a commercial facility.
“We are excited to now have a lease with WyIC, yielding the opportunity to advance multiple research and demonstration projects at a much larger scale,” SER Executive Director Holly Krutka said. “SER has been grateful to be part of making WyIC a reality from day one and we are thrilled to have some of the first projects to move onto the site. We aim to develop new opportunities for consuming Wyoming coal, and where better to demonstrate them than in Campbell County, where the largest coal mines in the world reside.”
Energy Capital Economic Development CEO Phil Christopherson said scaling up technologies that use coal as a raw material could bring new manufacturing of carbon-based products to Wyoming.
“This will help preserve jobs in the coal industry while introducing new markets for one of Wyoming’s most abundant mineral resources,” Christopherson said. “As the nation moves away from coal as an energy source we are working diligently to find, develop and create new markets for coal and coal by-products. We are grateful for our long partnership with SER. Their dedication to a strong economic future in Wyoming is shown by their past work and by scaling up their research at the WyIC.”
More information on the Wyoming Innovation Center is available here.
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