The awardees were chosen for their respective abilities to advance the agency's dedication to boosting clean coal technologies such as carbon capture, utilisation, and storage; coal to products; rare earth element recovery; crosscutting coal R&D; steam turbine efficiency; and advanced materials.

Federal funding was distributed under six separate funding opportunity announcements (FOAs). They included $10 million for 10 projects for Maximising the Coal Value Chain; $11.9 million for two projects for Advancing Steam Turbines for Coal Boilers; $9.3 million for 10 projects for Crosscutting Research for Coal-Fueled Power Plants; and $5 million for five projects under for Advanced Materials for High-Efficiency, Flexible and Reliable Coal-Fueled Power Plants.

In addition, three projects were selected to receive up to $15 million for Process Scale-Up and Optimisation/Efficiency Improvements for Rare Earth Elements (REE) and Critical Materials (CM) Recovery from United States Coal-Based Resources, and two projects were picked to get $5.3 million for Transformational Sensing Systems for Monitoring the Deep Subsurface.

Some of the winners include Thermosolv, Battelle Memorial Institute, George Washington University, Ramaco Carbon, GE, Siemens and West Virginia University.

"The Department of Energy is committed to advancing technologies that will allow us to meet our energy needs in an environmentally responsible way," US secretary of energy Rick Perry said.

"We are excited about the transformative potential of these projects. Advancing this coal R&D is paving the way for future technology innovation and integration," assistant secretary for fossil energy Steven Winberg added.