National Energy Technology Laboratory history

In 1943, with two competing designs under consideration -- the gun model and the implosion model -- the head of the Ordnance Engineering Group for the Manhattan Project traveled to Pittsburgh to enlist the help of the Explosives Research Laboratory in testing the implosion model.

The hard work and collaboration paid off when the first successful test explosion of an atomic bomb, using the implosion model, took place in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945.

1954 – The Appalachian Experiment Station for on-site coal research starts up at the current Morgantown location.

When the United StatesS. Nautilus, the world’s first atomic-powered submarine, reached the geographic North Pole on August 3, 1958, Kroll-process zirconium was in the reactor’s core.

The United States patent office has issued the Lab more than 650 fossil-energy patents since 1976, and the Lab has earned 21 R&D 100 Awards in the past 10 years.

1983 – Under a cooperative agreement, the National Institute for Petroleum and Energy Research (NIPER) is founded when DOE transfers operation of the Bartlesville research facility to IIT Research Institute, a private organization based in Chicago.

1993 - DOE selects BDM-Oklahoma Inc. to take over operation of the Bartlesville facility and to oversee a national field demonstration effort.

1996 - The Federal Energy Technology Center (FETC) is launched through the unification of METC (Morgantown) and PETC (Pittsburgh). Although the sites are 65 miles apart, communications technology makes feasible a seamless organization.

1998 - To align more strategically with national energy objectives, DOE opens the National Petroleum Technology Office (NPTO) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and closes the Bartlesville Project Office.

2005 - The Albany Research Center (ARC) in Albany, Oregon, is realigned by DOE and incorporated under NETL management.