The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is the self-styled “disruption wing” of the energy department.
“First. Fast. Ambitious. We’re an agency of energy scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs, engineers, and industry visionaries who dare to disrupt the status quo,” ARPA-E states on its website, highlighting that it is a “launchpad for new companies and major industry advancements and was founded to preserve America’s technological edge”.
Since 2009, ARPA-E has provided $4.29 billion in funding to more than 1,750 energy ideas, according to its website, which recently revealed the agency’s latest push to develop the energy sector.
Last month, ARPA-E announced, in a statement posted on its site, up to $45 million in federal funding “to unlock the full potential of America’s vast domestic energy and mineral resources”.
According to this statement, the program, dubbed Unlocking New Levels of Output and Capacity for Key Subsurface Resources (UNLOCK), will develop “breakthrough” technologies to increase oil and gas recovery from shale and other unconventional low-permeability formations, “with potential applications for geothermal energy production and the extraction of critical minerals and rare earth elements”.
In order to find out a little more about ARPA-E’s new program, and the agency’s other developments on the horizon, Rigzone spoke to ARPA-E Director Conner Prochaska. The director leads the DOE’s efforts “to develop and deploy transformative technologies that strengthen America’s energy security, economy, and technological leadership”, ARPA-E’s website highlights.
Rigzone: Can you tell us a little bit more about the UNLOCK program?
Prochaska: Here’s what I find remarkable. We’ve made incredible advances in drilling and hydraulic fracturing, but more than 80 percent of the oil and gas in America’s shale and other tight formations can still be left underground. That’s an enormous opportunity.
The program, Unlocking New Levels of Output and Capacity for Key Subsurface Resources, also known as UNLOCK, is ARPA-E’s new program committing up to $45 million to develop breakthrough technologies that could help us recover more of those resources. We’re looking beyond hydraulic fracturing to explore new ways to open up rock, get oil and gas flowing, and ultimately produce more energy from resources we already have.
This is about advancing President Trump’s American energy dominance agenda by boosting domestic production, reducing reliance on foreign energy, and making the most of America’s vast energy resources.
Rigzone: What could this program mean for the U.S. and global oil and gas industries?
Prochaska: Think about what it would mean if we could double the amount of oil and gas recovered from a well. We’ve already found the resources, drilled the wells, and built much of the infrastructure. Now imagine getting substantially more out of those same resources.
That’s the kind of game-changing opportunity we’re talking about. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing transformed the global energy industry once. I believe American engineers and innovators have what it takes to deliver the next big breakthrough and UNLOCK is about helping make that happen.
Rigzone: Do you see any challenges to UNLOCK uptake among oil and gas companies?
Prochaska: Absolutely, and that’s what makes this such an ARPA-E challenge. It’s one thing to make a technology work in a lab. It’s another to make it work thousands of feet underground, under real operating conditions, and at a cost that makes sense for producers.
That’s where ARPA-E comes in. We’re willing to take on the tough technical challenges and invest in promising ideas that might be too risky for industry to tackle alone. But we’re not interested in innovation just for innovation’s sake. We want technologies that work in the field, deliver real value, and that companies are excited to put to use.
Rigzone: What are the next key steps for the program?
Prochaska: Now comes the fun part. We want to see what America’s best engineers, scientists, and innovators can come up with when we challenge them to rethink how we recover oil and gas.
We’re looking at everything from entirely new ways to fracture rock to technologies that help free up trapped hydrocarbons, along with better sensors and computer models to understand what’s happening underground. We’re not prescribing one solution. We want bold ideas that challenge conventional thinking, and then we want to prove they can work in the real world.
Rigzone: Does ARPA-E have any other developments on the horizon?
Prochaska: One of the exciting things about energy innovation is that a breakthrough in one industry can open doors in another.
Look at Houston-based Fervo Energy. They took drilling technologies developed by the oil and gas industry and applied them to geothermal energy, with early support from ARPA-E. That’s a fantastic example of American ingenuity at work.
UNLOCK has that same potential. Advances in subsurface technologies could not only boost oil and gas production but also create new opportunities in geothermal energy and critical minerals.
And we’re not stopping there. ARPA-E has a series of major new programs on the horizon, including fusion and fission energy. We are also looking how to utilize emerging quantum technology for energy applications. We’re targeting some of the biggest opportunities for breakthroughs in energy technology – innovations that could reshape America’s energy future, strengthen our energy security, and advance President Trump’s American energy dominance agenda.
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