Oak Ridge Today

Gov. Haslam supports national preservation award for Alexander Inn

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Alexander Inn Groundbreaking

Local, state, and federal officials join volunteers and nonprofit and business executives for a groundbreaking ceremony at the historic Alexander Inn in November.

Gov. Bill Haslam is supporting a nomination for a national historic preservation award for a project converting the Alexander Inn in Oak Ridge into an assisted living center.

Knox Heritage and East Tennessee Preservation Alliance have nominated the hotel for the 2014 The National Trust/Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Award for Federal Partnerships in Historic Preservation.

In a Feb. 25 letter, Haslam said he supports the nomination. The letter was sent to Stephanie Meeks at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington, D.C.

The Alexander Inn was built during World War II, when Oak Ridge raced to help build the world’s first atomic weapons as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. Guests who once stayed at the two-story hotel included Gen. Leslie Groves, Secretary of War Henry Stimson, and physicists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi. [Read more…]

Controlled burns on Oak Ridge Reservation through April

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office will have a series of controlled burns of grassland areas on parts of the Oak Ridge Reservation during February, March, and April.

The prescribed burning at the East Tennessee Technology Park and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was scheduled to start this week.

Weather permitting, the controlled burns are scheduled to take place on: [Read more…]

Oak Ridge High first in Tennessee Science Bowl, headed to D.C. in April

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Oak Ridge High School Tennessee Science Bowl Winners

From left to right are members of Oak Ridge High School’s Team 1:  Tina Wang, Albert Xue, Gaibo Zhang, Aram Bejnood, Bo Hyun Moon, and Coach Sharon Thomas. (Photo courtesy DOE)

ORHS team will compete in National Science Bowl

High school students from across Tennessee competed on Saturday, Feb. 22, at Pellissippi State Community College’s Blount County Campus, in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Tennessee Science Bowl competition. Fifty-five high school teams comprised of four students, and one alternate student, answered challenging mathematical problems and tested their knowledge in broad disciplines including chemistry, biology, earth and space science, physics, and energy.

Training for months after school, the student competitors committed hours of study to expanding and honing their mathematics and science knowledge and competition skills. And, all their work showed. Many of the competition rounds came down to the last nail-biting seconds before a winner emerged. However, in the end, Oak Ridge High’s Team 1 edged out their competitors, placing first.

Oak Ridge High School received a $1,000 cash prize, a first-place trophy, and an all-expenses-paid trip to the DOE National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C., from April 24-28, when they will compete against other winning teams from around the nation. [Read more…]

RSI names new president, will succeed company founder

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Paul Clay and RSI

Paul Clay has been named president of Restoration Services Inc., or RSI.

Restoration Services Inc., or RSI, has named a new president.

Paul Clay will succeed company founder and outgoing president Staci Ferguson, a press release said. Ferguson will continue as vice president of corporate relations.

RSI is a small employee-owned environmental and project management services company that has its headquarters in Oak Ridge. Its clients include the U.S. Department of Energy, Tennessee Valley Authority, and UCOR, DOE’s cleanup contractor in Oak Ridge.

Clay joined RSI in 2008 as director of environment, safety, health, and quality, the press release said. Before joining RSI, he worked for Jacobs Engineering Group, where he was vice president and deputy general manager for the Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC joint venture in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

ORNL microscopy system delivers real-time view of battery electrochemistry

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ORNL Battery Electrochemistry

A new in situ transmission electron microscopy technique enabled ORNL researchers to image the snowflake-like growth of the solid electrolyte interphase from a working battery electrode. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

Using a new microscopy method, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory can image and measure electrochemical processes in batteries in real time and at nanoscale resolution.

Scientists at ORNL used a miniature electrochemical liquid cell that is placed in a transmission electron microscope to study an enigmatic phenomenon in lithium-ion batteries called the solid electrolyte interphase, or SEI, as described in a study published in Chemical Communications.

The SEI is a nanometer-scale film that forms on a battery’s negative electrode due to electrolyte decomposition. Scientists agree that the SEI’s formation and stability play key roles in controlling battery functionality. But after three decades of research in the battery field, details of the SEI’s dynamics, structure, and chemistry during electrochemical cycling are still debated, stemming from inherent difficulties in studying battery electrode materials in their native liquid environment.

“We’ve used this novel in situ method to understand the dynamics of how this layer forms and evolves during battery operation,” said Raymond Unocic, ORNL research and development staff scientist. [Read more…]

U.S. attorney: Y-12 security compromises will be vigorously prosecuted

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Bill Killian

William C. “Bill” Killian

U.S. Attorney William C. “Bill” Killian commended the sentences given to the three Y-12 protesters on Tuesday, and he said he hoped it would send a strong message.

“The Y-12 National Security Complex plays a critical role in our country’s national defense,” Killian said in a Wednesday statement. “People cannot take the law into their own hands and unlawfully intrude upon sensitive government facilities. Those who violate the law and compromise the security of the Y-12 National Security Complex will be vigorously prosecuted.”

The three anti-nuclear weapons activists were convicted of sabotage in May 2013 for breaking into Y-12 on July 28, 2012, cutting through high-security fences, and splashing blood and spray-painting slogans on the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility. The fortress-like HEUMF stores most of the nation’s bomb-grade uranium. [Read more…]

ORNL’s CASL, Westinghouse simulate neutron behavior in nuclear reactor core

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AP1000 Pressurized Water Reactor

CASL is developing and applying new modeling and simulation technology (Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications Core Simulator or VERA-CS) to resolve and predict the detailed neutron distribution of the power-generation reactor core residing in reactor vessels. (Image courtesy of Westinghouse)

Test run signals emergence of the next generation in nuclear power reactor analysis tools

Scientists and engineers developing more accurate approaches to analyzing nuclear power reactors have successfully tested a new suite of computer codes that closely model “neutronics”—the behavior of neutrons in a reactor core.

Technical staff at Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, supported by the research team at the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, or CASL, used the Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications core simulator (VERA-CS) to analyze its AP1000 advanced pressurized water reactor. The testing focused on modeling the startup conditions of the AP1000 plant design. [Read more…]

ORNL, Ohio company work together on new large-scale 3-D printing system

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ORNL and Cincinnati Inc. CRADA

From left are David Danielson, DOE assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy; Johnny Moore; DOE site office manager, Andy Jamison, Cincinnati Inc. CEO; and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann. (ORNL photo/Jason Richards)

Technology seeks to provide new capabilities for auto, aerospace, other U.S. industries

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is partnering with Cincinnati Inc., a manufacturer of high quality machine tools located in Harrison, Ohio, to develop a large-scale polymer additive manufacturing (3-D printing) system.

The partnership aims to accelerate the commercialization of a new additive manufacturing machine that can print large polymer parts faster and more cheaply than current technologies. The partnership agreement supports the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative to increase the efficiency of the U.S. manufacturing sector and ensure that innovative clean energy technologies continue to be developed in America.

ORNL is a DOE lab. [Read more…]

UT names bioenergy expert as 14th UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair

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Art Ragauskas

Arthur Ragauskas

KNOXVILLE—Arthur Ragauskas, an authority in bioenergy, has been named the 14th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.

He will serve as Governor’s Chair for Biorefining, based in UT’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a complementary appointment in the UT Institute of Agriculture’s Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries.

He will also serve in the Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate, Biosciences Division, at ORNL and as a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center, or BESC.

Ragauskas begins at UT on June 1. [Read more…]

ORNL’s Jack Fellows receives NCSE Lifetime Achievement Award

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Jack Fellows

Jack Fellows

The National Council for Science and the Environment has presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Jack D. Fellows for his part in co-founding the U.S. Global Change Research Program, or USGCRP.

Fellows is director of ORNL’s Climate Change Science Institute at the U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory.

The USGCRP consolidates global change research across 13 federal departments and agencies to advance research on climate change in the United States and use that knowledge to inform policy and the public. The program cooperates with organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [Read more…]

Former energy secretary compares global warming path to Russian roulette, with gun pointed at knee

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Steven Chu on Global Warming at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

During a lecture at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, former Energy Secretary Steven Chu compares global warming to Russian roulette, but with the gun pointed at a kneecap.

Former Energy Secretary Steven Chu sounded an alarm about global warming during a visit to Oak Ridge last week, comparing the current path to Russian roulette, but with the gun pointed at a knee—and with more bullets added each decade.

“Every decade you put in a bullet and you pull the trigger,” said Chu, a Stanford University professor who won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1997. “After four or five more decades, it could be fully loaded.”

The longest-serving secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, Chu gave a lecture at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Wednesday.

The globe is warming, and we might not feel the full effect of the greenhouse gases emitted by humans for another half-century or more, after the ocean has been warmed, Chu said.

“We’re going to glide to a temperature that we’re not really sure about, but I can guarantee that it’s warmer than it is today because of that ocean,” Chu said. “The damage that we’ve done today will not be seen for at least 50 years.” [Read more…]

NNSA celebrates five years of radiological alarm response training

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Last week was the fifth anniversary of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s Alarm Response Training program for local law enforcement and other critical first responders around the country. In the five years of providing this course, NNSA has trained more than 3,000 on-site radiation safety and security personnel, local law enforcement officers, and other first responders on how to respond to a security incident involving nuclear or radiological materials, a press release said.

“One of the greatest threats to national and global security is the danger of nuclear and radiological terrorism, and the Alarm Response Training program directly addresses this threat,” said NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Anne Harrington. “We recognize that reducing the risk of radiological or nuclear terrorism requires a whole-of-community approach that brings together officials and responders from the federal, state, local, and facility levels. NNSA is able to utilize its unique expertise and technical resources to partner with local communities and other agencies to make our cities safer here and around the world.” [Read more…]