The Anderson County Operations Committee will discuss the proposed U.S. Department of Energy landfill in a meeting this evening (Monday, January 14).
The meeting will start at 6 p.m. at the Anderson County Courthouse in Clinton.
The proposed landfill is known as the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, or EMDF. It would be in Bear Creek Valley west of the Y-12 National Security Complex. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is adding a three-story office and laboratory building on its central campus.
It would be the first time a building of this size has been added at ORNL since the Chemical and Materials Science building (Building 4100) was completed in 2011, spokesperson Morgan McCorkle said in a response to questions Thursday.
She said the new building will be located in the central part of the main ORNL campus between buildings 3500 and 3525.
“The facility will offer state-of-the-art laboratory space and offices to support a range of research activities, including growing missions in computing and materials science and development,” McCorkle said. “The space can be adapted to serve the needs of changing scientific programs and priorities.” [Read more…]
Suresh Babu
Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville have selected Suresh Babu as the next director of their jointly operated Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education.
Babu will retain his position as UT-ORNL governor’s chair for advanced manufacturing when he assumes his new role on January 3, a press release said. He will be replacing Lee Riedinger, who is retiring at the end of January.
“Dr. Babu has worked extensively with both UT and ORNL through his governor’s chair position, and we’re excited about him taking on this new role,†UT Knoxville Interim Chancellor Wayne T. Davis said in the press release. “He is a nationally recognized expert in the development of advanced materials and advanced manufacturing and has helped us emerge as a leader in those critical research areas.†[Read more…]
The Federal Building is pictured above in Oak Ridge on Monday, Nov. 19, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
The U.S. Department of Energy is not affected by the partial government shutdown that started at midnight, and DOE employees and contractors, including in Oak Ridge, are expected to continue their normal work schedules.
â€The partial government shutdown does not impact Department of Energy facilities,” federal officials said in a statement. “DOE’s fiscal year 2019 appropriations bill was approved by Congress and signed by the president in September. DOE employees and contractors are expected to continue to report to work according to their usual work schedule.”
Among the DOE sites and operations in Oak Ridge are East Tennessee Technology Park, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Office, Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, and Y-12 National Security Complex. Y-12 is overseen by the National Nuclear Security Administration, a DOE agency. [Read more…]
The Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has reached its operational power design level by running a neutron production cycle at 1.4 megawatts, the lab said Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018. (Photo courtesy ORNL)
The Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has broken a new record by ending its first neutron production cycle in fiscal year 2019 at its design power level of 1.4 megawatts.
Higher power provides more neutrons for researchers who use the facility to study a wide range of materials, an ORNL press release said. The achievement marks a new operational milestone for neutron scattering in the United States and opens the door to studying significantly smaller materials with greater complexity, the press release said.
“The operation of SNS at 1.4 megawatts this cycle has been an outstanding achievement,†said Paul Langan, associate laboratory director for neutron sciences. “It reflects on the maturity of our facility and the high level of technical excellence of our engineering, operational, and scientific staff.â€
The power increase was enabled by the combination of extensive improvements to the linear accelerator, including the recent replacement of the radio frequency quadrupole—the first accelerating structure of the accelerator’s frontend assembly, as well as improvements to the liquid mercury target. [Read more…]
Photo by ORNL
Starting in December, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex will both manage their own security forces to protect their sites.
Y-12 has been managing its own protective force for about six years, ever since a former contractor, B&W Y-12, terminated a contract with WSI Oak Ridge after a security breach at the 811-acre plant. The current Y-12 contractor, Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC, confirmed this month that it has been responsible for security and security police officers since it began managing and operating the plant in July 2014.
On Friday, UT-Battelle, which manages and operates ORNL for the U.S. Department of Energy, said it is assuming responsibility for providing protective force services at the laboratory starting December 30. That’s when a new security contractor will take over at some federal sites in Oak Ridge.
ORNL Media Relations Manager Morgan McCorkle said about 90 employees who have been providing security services at ORNL under a contract with National Strategic Protective Services LLC will transition from NSPS to UT-Battelle. [Read more…]
The High Flux Isotope Reactor vessel at Oak Ridge National Laboratory resides in a pool of water illuminated by the blue glow of the Cherenkov radiation effect. (Photo courtesy ORNL)
Experiments and isotope production have been affected, but employees are still able to carry out their normal duties at the High Flux Isotope Reactor as the U.S. Department of Energy investigates a slightly elevated radiation level in HFIR’s primary cooling system.
The High Flux Isotope Reactor, which is used for research and isotope production, is at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
In a response to questions on Wednesday, ORNL Communications Director David Keim said the slightly elevated reading in the primary cooling system was well below alarm levels.
“The HFIR operators promptly responded to the reading and placed the reactor in a safe condition,” Keim said. [Read more…]
The High Flux Isotope Reactor vessel at Oak Ridge National Laboratory resides in a pool of water illuminated by the blue glow of the Cherenkov radiation effect. (Photo courtesy ORNL)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is investigating an elevated radiation level in the cooling system at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, a research reactor that also produces isotopes.
Workers were bringing HFIR back online on Tuesday, November 13, after a planned outage when the elevated radiation level was detected in the cooling system, according to information provided by David Keim, ORNL communications director.
“HFIR operators decided to shut down the reactor in order to investigate and determine what happened,” Keim said. “The plant is in a safe condition.” [Read more…]
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Jeremy Smith is studying the recalcitrance of biomass to enable cheaper, more efficient biofuels, and other high-value chemicals. (Image courtesy ORNL)
Seven researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been chosen by the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment, also known as INCITE, program to lead scientific investigations that require the nation’s most powerful computers, a press release said.
INCITE awards computing time via a proposal process to researchers seeking to harness the power of DOE computing systems at the Argonne and Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facilities to solve some of the world’s greatest scientific challenges, the press release said.
Since INCITE’s inception in 2004, the ALCF and OLCF have continuously undergone significant upgrades to retain their edge in facilitating the most computationally demanding scientific projects. The ALCF’s most recent machine is Theta, an 11.69-petaflop Cray XC40 system whose 280,000-plus cores make it ideal for research at the nexus of simulation, data science, and machine learning. An even more powerful system, the exascale Aurora, is planned for deployment in 2021 and is projected to be capable of a quintillion (one billion billion) calculations per second. [Read more…]
Using the Atomic Forge, Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers brought two, three, and four silicon atoms together to build clusters (green) and make them rotate within a layer of graphene (blue). (Image courtesy ORNL)
By Shelby Whitehead and Sean Simoneau
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have received six R&D 100 Awards in recognition of their significant advancements in science and technology, a press release said. The honorees were recognized over the weekend at the 56th annual R&D 100 Conference, which is sponsored by R&D Magazine.
The awards, known as the “Oscars of Invention,†honor research and development pioneers and their revolutionary breakthroughs in materials science, biomedicine, consumer products, and more from academia, industry, and government-sponsored research agencies, the press release said. This year’s six honors bring ORNL’s total of R&D 100 awards to 216 since their inception in 1963.
ORNL researchers were recognized for the following innovations: [Read more…]
The sign at the main entrance to the Y-12 National Security Complex is pictured above on Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
A new security contractor will take over at federal sites in Oak Ridge at the end of December, but the contract does not include Oak Ridge National Laboratory or Y-12 National Security Complex. So Oak Ridge Today has requested information about who will provide security at those two sites.
On Tuesday, Y-12 sent a statement that it continues to be responsible for security and the security police officers who protect the plant. That has been true since since Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC began managing and operating the plant in July 2014, Y-12 said.
ORNL said it is working on a response. Oak Ridge Today will update this story, or publish a new one, when that information becomes available. [Read more…]
The Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board on Wednesday will hear about work by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management to ensure there is sufficient waste disposal capacity to complete future cleanup work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex.
DOE is considering a new landfill known as the Environmental Management Disposal Facility. It could be built in central Bear Creek Valley west of Y-12. There was a public meeting to discuss the project at the New Hope Center at Y-12 on Wednesday, November 7.
The existing landfill, the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility west of Y-12, is about three-quarters full, and it is expected to fill up in the early 2020s after cleanup work is complete at the East Tennessee Technology Park, the former K-25 site. [Read more…]
