UCOR presented awards to eight small business at its Inaugural Small Business Awards ceremony, held Wednesday, June 12, at the DoubleTree Hotel in Oak Ridge.
UCOR is the U.S. Department of Energy’s cleanup contractor for the Oak Ridge Reservation, and it has subcontracted more than 70 percent of its work to small businesses, exceeding its subcontracting commitment to DOE, a press release said. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan, left, and RSI Vice President Rick Ferguson at a May 2012 ceremony for an RSI solar farm at Heritage Center. (Photo courtesy Lynn Freeny/U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office)
The U.S. Small Business Administration has named Restoration Services Inc. of Oak Ridge as Subcontractor of the Year in Region IV, which includes eight southeastern states.
RSI was recognized for its hard work, innovative ideas, and dedication to the community, a press release said.
“The SBA is pleased to recognize your achievements and your role in driving our nation’s economic growth,” said John Shoraka of the SBA Office of Government Contracting and Business Development. The SBA announced regional awards as they prepared to celebrate the 50th anniversary of National Small Business Week from June 17-21. [Read more…]
Lights on the Chinese Tianhe-2 supercomputer, which has a theoretical peak that is twice as fast as the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Jack Dongarra)
A Chinese supercomputer has bumped the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from the No. 1 spot on a semiannual ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.
The Tianhe-2, which was developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, is capable of 33.86 petaflops, or more than 33,000 trillion calculations per second.
Now ranked No. 2, Titan was able to perform 17,000 trillion calculations per second, or 17.59 petaflops, according to the list published in November. [Read more…]
The Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory was ranked as the world’s fastest supercomputer in November 2012. (Photo courtesy of ORNL)
By Leo Williams
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan supercomputer has completed rigorous acceptance testing to ensure the functionality, performance, and stability of the machine, one of the world’s most powerful supercomputing systems for open science.
The U.S. Department of Energy machine, the first to combine different types of processing units to maximize performance at such a large scale, ranked as the fastest supercomputer in the world in the November 2012 list published at http://www.top500.org/. Titan, a Cray XK7 supercomputer, is capable of more than 27,000 trillion calculations each second—or 27 petaflops. [Read more…]
Scott Curran
Ron Graves
Three Oak Ridge National Laboratory staff members—Scott Curran, Ron Graves, and Janet Hopson—were recognized following a U.S. Department of Energy Vehicle Technologies Office, or VTO, annual merit review.
Curran was recognized with a 2013 VTO Research and Development Award for “his leadership in transitioning reactivity controlled compression ignition combustion from a single cylinder to a multi-cylinder engine using bio-renewable fuels.” [Read more…]
Workers have demolished the damaged ballroom at the historic Alexander Inn, a dilapidated two-story hotel that has been vacant for years and is now being converted into an assisted living center.
Workers have demolished the ballroom at the historic but dilapidated Alexander Inn as part of a project to convert the vacant two-story hotel into an assisted living center.
There are about a dozen workers at the three-acre site on East Madison Road, including framers and demolition, cleanup, and abatement crews, project manager Shea Ramsey said Thursday.
The flat-roof addition that included the ballroom, kitchen, and dining room had leaked, and the wood had rotted. Project officials have previously said the ballroom and kitchen would be demolished and rebuilt. [Read more…]
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, right, tours the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility during his visit Monday to the Y-12 National Security Complex. Joining him are, from left, B&W Y-12 President and General Manager Chuck Spencer, Julie Huff of B&W Y-12’s Materials Management Organization, B&W Y-12 Senior Vice President of Security Rod Johnson, and NNSA Production Office Manager Steve Erhart.
New U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz visited the Y-12 National Security Complex this week.
Before touring production and storage facilities at the site, Moniz held an all-hands meeting with Y-12, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and federal employees at Y-12’s New Hope Center. Joining him at the meeting was U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a Tennessee Republican whose district includes Oak Ridge. [Read more…]
A new all-solid lithium-sulfur battery developed by an Oak Ridge National Laboratory team led by Chengdu Liang has the potential to reduce cost, increase performance, and improve safety compared with existing designs. (Submitted photo)
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have designed and tested an all-solid lithium-sulfur battery with approximately four times the energy density of conventional lithium-ion technologies that power today’s electronics.
The ORNL battery design, which uses abundant low-cost elemental sulfur, also addresses flammability concerns experienced by other chemistries.
“Our approach is a complete change from the current battery concept of two electrodes joined by a liquid electrolyte, which has been used over the last 150 to 200 years,” said Chengdu Liang, lead author on the ORNL study published this week in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. [Read more…]
Terry Mullins, the chief executive officer of Oak Ridge Tool-Engineering, Inc., has a pretty simple business philosophy:
“We just go after where the money is,” Mullins said. “We’re able to pick and choose which markets are hot.”
While the philosophy may be simple, the services the company provides are anything but. Oak Ridge Tool-Engineering designs and builds equipment used on some of the world’s most complex machinery—everything from submarines to the International Space Station. [Read more…]
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, second from right, toured Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Monday. Also pictured are ORNL Director Thom Mason, right; U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, left; and Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman.
During a short trip to Oak Ridge this week, new Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz toured Oak Ridge National Laboratory, planned to visit the Y-12 National Security Complex, and met with lab directors from across the country. He also met with U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.
Moniz was sworn in as the nation’s 13th Secretary of Energy on May 21, and during his visit to Oak Ridge, he said he is “looking at new ways of doing business” and considering organizational changes. He said his visit here gave him an overview of missions that includes cleanup work, clean energy, scientific research, and nuclear security.
“It’s a tremendous place to come to really get this broad panorama,” Moniz said. [Read more…]
The U.S. Department of Energy’s 2013 Oak Ridge facilities public bus tour begins June 3 and continues through Aug. 30. The tour offers visitors a first-hand look at the DOE’s Oak Ridge facilities and provides historical commentary on the transformation of the Oak Ridge Reservation during the past 70 years.
The reservation-wide tour is a popular destination for tourists visiting the area. Since its inception in 1996, the DOE public tour program has attracted more than 29,000 visitors from all 50 states. The three-hour tour allows visitors to see the reservation and learn historical facts and updates on the world-class missions under way in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]
Ernest Moniz
He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 97-0 vote on May 16, and on Monday, Ernest Moniz will visit Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the first time as energy secretary.
Moniz will meet with the media at the Spallation Neutron Source.
A former under secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, Moniz was sworn in as the nation’s 13th Secretary of Energy on May 21. [Read more…]
