An Industrial-Based Consortium to Develop Premium Carbon Products from Coal Final Report - Part 4

Since 1998, The Pennsylvania State University successfully managed the Consortium for Premium Carbon Products from Coal (CPCPC), which was a vehicle for industry-driven research on the promotion, development, and transfer of innovative technologies on premium carbon products from coal to the U.S. industry. The CPCPC was an initiative led by Penn State, its cocharter member West Virginia University (WVU), and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), who also provided the base funding for the program, with Penn State responsible for consortium management. CPCPC began in 1998 under DOE Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC26-98FT40350. This agreement ended November 2004 but the CPCPC activity continued under cooperative agreement No. DE-FC26-03NT41874, which started October 1, 2003 and ended December 31, 2010. The objective of the second agreement was to continue the successful operation of the CPCPC. The CPCPC enjoyed tremendous success with its organizational structure, which included Penn State and WVU as charter members, numerous industrial affiliate members, and strategic university affiliate members together with NETL, forming a vibrant and creative team for innovative research in the area of transforming coal to carbon products. The key aspect of CPCPC was its industry-led council that selected proposals submitted by CPCPC members to ensure CPCPC target areas had strong industrial support. CPCPC had 58 member companies and universities engaged over the 7-year period of this contract. Members were from 17 states and five countries outside of the U.S. During this period, the CPCPC Executive Council selected 46 projects for funding. DOE/CPCPC provided $3.9 million in funding or an average of $564,000 per year. The total project costs were $5.45 million with $1.5 million, or {approx}28% of the total, provided by the members as cost share. Total average project size was $118,000 with $85,900 provided by DOE/CPCPC. In addition to the research, technology transfer/outreach was a large component of CPCPC's activities. Efficient technology transfer was critical for the deployment of new technologies into the field. CPCPC organized and hosted technology transfer meetings, tours, and tutorials, attended outreach conferences and workshops to represent CPCPC and attract new members, prepared and distributed reports and publications, and developed and maintained a Web site. The second contract ended December 31, 2010, and it is apparent that CPCPC positively impacted the carbon industry and coal research. Statistics and information were compiled to provide a comprehensive account of the impact the consortium had and the beneficial outcomes of many of the individual projects. Project fact sheet, success stories, and other project information were prepared. Two topical reports, a Synthesis report and a Web report, were prepared detailing this information