Oak Ridge Today

(For members) New DOE security contractor will take over in December

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The Joe L. Evins Federal Building is pictured above in Oak Ridge on Monday, Nov. 19, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

The Joe L. Evins Federal Building is pictured above in Oak Ridge on Monday, Nov. 19, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The Joe L. Evins Federal Building is pictured above in Oak Ridge on Monday, Nov. 19, 2018. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

After a protest was denied this month, a new security contractor will take over protecting U.S. Department of Energy sites in Oak Ridge at the end of December.

The contract could be worth close to $66 million and be in place for five years.

The rest of this story, which you will find only on Oak Ridge Today, is available if you are a member: a subscriber, advertiser, or recent contributor to Oak Ridge Today. 

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Controlled burns scheduled in North Boundary Greenway Area

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Controlled burns are scheduled soon on part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Reservation.

DOE’s Oak Ridge Office said it will start controlled burns of woodland areas of the Oak Ridge Reservation that are within the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency’s Black Oak Ridge Conservation Easement East Tract and Parcel ED-6 along North Boundary Road and Wisconsin Avenue in west Oak Ridge.

“Firebreak installation activities supporting these burns will begin in the near future, with ignitions taking place as soon thereafter as weather conditions permit and continuing through December 2018,” a press release said. [Read more…]

SSAB to hear about DOE work to ensure sufficient waste disposal capacity

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EMWMF

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…]

Supercomputers: Summit at ORNL still number one

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Summit supercomputer was named number one on the TOP500 List, a semiannual ranking of the world’s fastest computing systems on Monday, June 25, 2018. (Photo credit: Carlos Jones/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Summit supercomputer was again named number one on the TOP500 List, a semiannual ranking of the world’s fastest computing systems on Monday, Nov. 12, 2018. (Photo credit: Carlos Jones/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy)

 

The 200-petaflop Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory stayed at number one on the semiannual TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers released Monday.

The Sierra supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, climbed to number two from number three. That means the United States now has the top two systems in the world, a position that China held a year ago.

Summit, a water-cooled IBM-built supercomputer, debuted at number one on the TOP500 list in June. That was the first time since 2012 that the United States had the most powerful supercomputer in the world. The earlier top system, Titan, a Cray machine, is also located at ONRL. ORNL and LLNL are both U.S. Department of Energy laboratories.

Officials celebrated the launch of Summit in a ceremony attended by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on June 8. The supercomputer is capable of 200 petaflops, or 200,000 trillion calculations per second. That makes it about about eight times more powerful than Titan, its predecessor.

Besides being the most powerful, Summit has been described as the world’s smartest supercomputer, a machine that can learn. As big as two tennis courts, Summit has 4,608 compute servers. Each has two 22-core IBM Power9 central processing units (CPUs) and six NVIDIA Tesla V100 graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerators. That’s more than 9,000 conventional processors and nearly 28,000 graphics processors, or about 37,000 total. [Read more…]

Tonight: Public meeting on DOE landfill

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There is a public meeting about the Environmental Management Disposal Facility in Oak Ridge tonight (Wednesday, November 7).

The meeting is scheduled from 6 to 8 p.m. in the New Hope Center auditorium at the Y-12 National Security Complex on Scarboro Road. Presentations are expected to begin around 6:30 p.m., and a question and comment period could start around 7:15 p.m. [Read more…]

Power of Synergy Space Symposium at New Hope Center this week

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John Rather and Dean Hartley examine same-scale globes of the Earth, Moon, and Mars. (Submitted photo)

John Rather and Dean Hartley examine same-scale globes of the Earth, Moon, and Mars. (Submitted photo)

 

A Power of Synergy Space Symposium will be at New Hope Center in Oak Ridge this week.

The symposium will include leaders from NASA, U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency—Energy (ARPA-E), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Y-12 National Security Complex, industry, and academia, a press release said.

The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop will be hosting the unique symposium in order to promote safe, fast, and affordable human development of the solar system, the press release said. The speakers will discuss and advocate breakthrough technologies to enable routine transportation to permanent colonies on the moon and the first human trips to Mars within a decade.

More information about the symposium can be found on the website at https://tviw.us/tviw-symposium-on-the-power-of-synergy/. Registration is also available on the website; the fee includes breaks, lunches, and receptions, the press release said.

Here is more information from the press release: [Read more…]

ORNL demonstrates 120-kilowatt wireless charging for vehicles

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Researchers demonstrated a 120-kilowatt wireless power transfer at the National Transportation Research Center, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. From left to right above are ORNL’s Saeed Anwar, Burak Ozpineci, Gui-Jia Su, and David Smith; DOE Vehicle Technology Program’s Lee Slezak; and ORNL’s Veda Galigekere, Omer Onar, and Jason Pries. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

Researchers demonstrated a 120-kilowatt wireless power transfer at the National Transportation Research Center, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. From left to right above are ORNL’s Saeed Anwar, Burak Ozpineci, Gui-Jia Su, and David Smith; DOE Vehicle Technology Program’s Lee Slezak; and ORNL’s Veda Galigekere, Omer Onar, and Jason Pries. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

By Stephanie Seay/ORNL

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have demonstrated a 120-kilowatt wireless charging system for vehicles—providing six times the power of previous ORNL technology and a big step toward charging times that rival the speed and convenience of a gas station fill-up.

The wireless system transfers 120 kilowatts of power with 97 percent efficiency, which is comparable to conventional, wired high-power fast chargers. In the laboratory demonstration, power was transferred across a six-inch air gap between two magnetic coils and charged a battery pack.

ORNL researchers created and demonstrated the world’s first 20-kilowatt wireless charging system, which is being modified for applications such as commercial delivery trucks.

“It was important to maintain the same or smaller footprint as the previous demonstration to encourage commercial adoption,” said project lead Veda Galigekere of ORNL’s Power Electronics and Electric Machinery Group. [Read more…]

Public availability session on proposed DOE landfill is Thursday

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There is a public availability session on the proposed federal landfill in Oak Ridge on Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Energy has issued a proposed plan to build a new landfill on the Oak Ridge Reservation. The landfill, the Environmental Management Disposal Facility, would be in Bear Creek Valley west of the Y-12 National Security Complex. It is intended for disposal of radioactive, hazardous, and toxic wastes. It would be used as cleanup work ends at the East Tennessee Technology Park and the existing landfill, the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility fills up, and cleanup work moves to Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

A press release said the Sierra Club has invited state and federal officials from DOE, Environmental Protection Agency, and Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to be available for public questions about the Environmental Management Disposal Facility. The public availability session has been scheduled from 2 to 8 p.m. Thursday, October 11, at the TDEC office at 761 Emory Valley Road in Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

Centrus Energy has $15 million project to prepare K-1600 for demolition

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The "footprint," the area where the K-25 Building used to be in west Oak Ridge, is pictured above at the East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge. The white K-1600 Building is pictured in the middle of the "footprint." The brick building in the foreground is Oak Ridge Fire Station No. 4. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management)

The K-25 “footprint,” the area where the K-25 Building used to be in west Oak Ridge, is pictured above at the East Tennessee Technology Park in west Oak Ridge. The white K-1600 Building is pictured in the middle of the “footprint.” The brick building in the foreground is Oak Ridge Fire Station No. 4, and it includes the K-25 History Center. (Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management)

 

Centrus Energy Corporation has a $15 million project to prepare K-1600, a building in the middle of the historic K-25 “footprint,” for demolition.

On Tuesday, Centrus announced that it had received a work authorization from the U.S. Department of Energy for decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) work at the building. The work will include removing and disposing of equipment and materials to make K-1600 non-radiologically contaminated and non-possessing (i.e. unclassified), a press release said. The work will occur between October 1, 2018, and September 30, 2019.

After the work is completed, DOE will be able to turn over K-1600 to a contractor to demolish it, the press release said. It’s one of the last remaining “legacy structures” on the 2,200-acre site of the World War II-era K-25 uranium enrichment plant, now known as the East Tennessee Technology Park, the press release said.

Many other buildings have been demolished there, including the five large gaseous diffusion buildings once used to enrich uranium for atomic weapons and commercial nuclear power plants. ETTP is now being converted into a large industrial park in west Oak Ridge. [Read more…]

DOE award recognizes UCOR safety performance

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UCOR President and Project Manager Ken Rueter is pictured above at the K-25 History Center on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

UCOR President and Project Manager Ken Rueter is pictured above at the K-25 History Center on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017. (File photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

URS|CH2M Oak Ridge LLC (UCOR) has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for outstanding safety performance in its role as lead cleanup contractor for the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge, a press release said.

UCOR received the DOE Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star of Excellence at the VPP Participants Association national conference in Nashville. This is the second consecutive year UCOR has won the award, the press release said.

The Star of Excellence recognizes UCOR’s outstanding level of performance in meeting established safety and health goals, actively conducting outreach to others, and in achieving an injury and illness rate significantly below the average of similar businesses and operations, the release said.

“The work we perform every day is some of the most hazardous and challenging in the nation,” said Ken Rueter, UCOR president and chief executive officer. “As our work continues expanding to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex, we have continued our high level of safety performance despite having to tackle new challenges.” [Read more…]

Low-flying helicopters part of emergency exercise Wednesday

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There will be an emergency exercise on Wednesday, and it will include low-flying helicopters, a press release said.

The emergency exercise is being conducted by emergency responders from the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, along with state and local emergency management personnel.

“The public may observe emergency responders simulating response activities in the area surrounding the Oak Ridge Reservation,” a press release said. “Additionally, low-flying National Guard helicopters will be performing training in the area. The helicopters will be flying in the Melton Hill Lake area near ORNL. These activities are part of the exercise.” [Read more…]

Air Force, ORNL partner in high-performance computing & weather modeling system

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To extend its weather modeling capabilities, the U.S. Air Force has joined the computing experts at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a strategic collaboration that includes procurement and operation of a new high-performance weather modeling computer system. Key members of the Air Force and ORNL teams gathered on July 10, 2018, to kick off the project and tour the facilities supporting the new system. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

To extend its weather modeling capabilities, the U.S. Air Force has joined the computing experts at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a strategic collaboration that includes procurement and operation of a new high-performance weather modeling computer system. Key members of the Air Force and ORNL teams gathered on July 10, 2018, to kick off the project and tour the facilities supporting the new system. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

For the U.S. military, accurate weather prediction is vital to both the planning and execution of worldwide missions. To extend its weather modeling capabilities, the U.S. Air Force has joined the computing experts at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a strategic collaboration that includes procurement and operation of a new high-performance weather modeling computer system. Key members of the Air Force and ORNL teams, including computing and global security team members, gathered on July 10 to kick off this project and tour the facilities supporting the new system, according to a story posted by ORNL.

The Air Force 557th Weather Wing provides the Air Force and Army with global- and regional-level numerical weather model forecasts. With the increasing scale of the requirements for the new system, the Air Force and ORNL identified an opportunity to take advantage of the capabilities of ORNL’s National Center for Computational Sciences—including expertise in high-performance computing facilities and infrastructure, systems administration, computing procurement and acquisition, and system operations, the story said.

“We learned about the Air Force’s needs, and it was immediately clear that ORNL could help them solve their problems,” said Jim Rogers, NCCS director of computing and facilities. “We can integrate the Air Force weather team’s needs into our facilities in a cost-effective way, leveraging our capabilities to deliver exceedingly high availability to support their mission.” [Read more…]