As a research and development portfolio is selected and funded, managers must evaluate the progress and prospects of individual research projects and decide if the project should continue and what adjustments should be made. Energetics helps clients by providing expert evaluation and assessment of new technologies. For example, Energetics has been assisting the U.S. Department of Energy to evaluate clean coal projects such as the Western Greenbrier Co-Production Project. This project is a 90 MWe (net) waste-coal fired atmospheric fluidized bed boiler driving a steam turbine/generator set, and producing a salable cement by-product.

Energetics has been central in a decision to reconfigure the by-product from a patented building brick with no real market to a fast-setting, high-strength cement that does have a market and sells for a relatively high price. We were also instrumental in the decision to contract fuel recovery and delivery processes instead of owning them and other decisions directly related to staffing and sizing of on-site fuels and ash storage facilities.

Energetics has assisted the project manager with rapid reaction, written critiques of the industrial participant's cost plans. This enabled our client to drive cost controls that have slashed an expected project cost overrun of 40.5 percent to 14 percent, with good prospects of driving it even lower in the near future. These and similar efforts provide the decision support necessary to enhance both the technical and cost performance of major projects to ensure maximum program benefits.

With Energetics' assistance, the Waste Coal Boiler Project has slashed an expected project cost overrun of 40% to 14%, with good prospects of driving it even lower in the near future.