Oak Ridge National Laboratory Archives - Page 23 of 83

Oak Ridge hires new community development director

Posted at 12:23 pm July 20, 2017
By John Huotari 1 Comment

Wayne Blasius

Oak Ridge has hired a new community development director.

Wayne Blasius was selected to lead the department earlier this month, and he will start in his new position on August 28, a press release said.

Blasius is currently executive director of the nonprofit East Tennessee Community Design Center, the press release said.

“I am extremely pleased to announce that Wayne Blasius will be joining us in the City of Oak Ridge as our new director of community development,” City Manager Mark Watson said in the press release. “Wayne brings to us extensive public and private sector experience. He is particularly knowledgeable about the many changes in housing and public spaces in Knoxville and will bring that experience to Oak Ridge as we continue our own community renaissance and redevelopment.”

Blasius will replace Kathryn Baldwin, Oak Ridge’s current community development director. Baldwin announced in May that she is retiring after 16 years of service with the city, and her last day is July 28. [Read more…]

Senate bill also rejects Trump’s science cut, increases funding instead

Posted at 8:39 am July 20, 2017
By John Huotari 4 Comments

Energy Secretary Rick Perry, left, talks to reporters after touring Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Manufacturing Demonstration Facility on Hardin Valley Road on Monday, May 22, 2017. Also pictured is U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, center, a Tennessee Republican, and ORNL Director Thom Mason. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, center, a Tennessee Republican, is pictured above with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, left, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility in Hardin Valley on Monday, May 22, 2017. Also pictured is former ORNL Director Thom Mason. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

An appropriations bill approved by a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday rejects the Trump administration’s proposal to cut $919 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science in the fiscal year that starts October 1.

Instead of cutting, the Senate bill would actually increase funding for the Office of Science, boosting it to $5.55 billion in fiscal year 2018. That would be again a record funding level in a regular appropriations bill, according to U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who often advocates for the federal sites in Oak Ridge and chairs the Senate subcommittee.

Like the Senate this week, the House Appropriations Committee last week also rejected President Donald Trump’s request to cut DOE’s Office of Science.

Unlike the Senate bill, though, the House bill would keep funding flat at $5.39 billion, the same as in the current fiscal year. That level of funding was also a record in a regular appropriations bill, Alexander said in May.

The Office of Science is the nation’s largest supporter of research in the physical sciences.

The president’s budget request, submitted to Congress on May 23, would cut Office of Science funding by about 17 percent, dropping it to $4.47 billion.

Keeping Office of Science funding flat, or even increasing it, could be important to several of the federal sites in Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge National Laboratory is an Office of Science lab, and the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, or OSTI, is an Office of Science unit. [Read more…]

House bill keeps DOE Office of Science spending flat, increases NNSA funding

Posted at 2:02 pm July 18, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Photo by ORNL

Chuck Fleischmann

A House bill approved Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s proposed funding cut of about $900 million for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.

Instead of cutting, the House Appropriations Committee bill would keep spending flat for the Office of Science, holding it at $5.39 billion in the next fiscal year, the same as in the current fiscal year.

That could be good news for DOE Office of Science laboratories and offices here, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, or OSTI.

Separately, the House bill recommends a funding increase for the National Nuclear Security Administration. That’s something that the Trump administration had also proposed. The NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within DOE, and its activities include nuclear weapons work, nuclear nonproliferation efforts, and naval reactors. The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge is an NNSA site.

“Issues of national and economic security are continually on the forefront of the minds of all Americans,” said U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican whose district includes Oak Ridge. “Last week, the House Appropriations Committee, on which I serve, approved the Fiscal Year 2018 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill. I was proud to help direct additional funding towards the national security programs at Y-12.

“Additionally, funding levels included in this legislation will allow for cleanup of high risk excess facilities at Y-12. This is the first step in a long process, and I want to assure my constituents that I will continue fighting to ensure that Y-12, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and environmental management activities get the funding needed to continue their critical missions.” [Read more…]

DOE/NNSA test mobile nuclear facilities with Army during national security exercise

Posted at 6:08 pm July 17, 2017
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

Personnel from Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory participate in simulated radiation contamination and perform large drum packaging operations. (Photo by NNSA)

Experts from across the U.S. Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration recently teamed up with the U.S. Army at Naval Air Station Key West, Florida, to exercise the capabilities of two rapid response facilities critical to national security.

For six weeks in May and June, interagency partners practiced the operations and procedures necessary to deploy the Mobile Plutonium Facility and Mobile Uranium Facility as part of Exercise Corvina Loco, the NNSA said in a story published on its website in June.

“These two assets would allow the U.S. to package and safely remove nuclear materials quickly,” the NNSA said. [Read more…]

DOE funds Center for Bioenergy Innovation at ORNL to accelerate biofuels, bioproducts research

Posted at 5:17 pm July 17, 2017
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

Gerald Tuskan will serve as chief executive officer of the new ORNL-led Center for Bioenergy Innovation, one of four DOE bioenergy research centers. (Photo by ORNL)

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced funding for new research centers to accelerate the development of specialty plants and processes for a new generation of biofuels and bioproducts.

The Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI), led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is one of four bioenergy centers chosen by DOE to advance a new biobased economy with the production of fuels and other products directly from nonfood biomass. The DOE announcement provides a total of $40 million in initial funding for the four centers in fiscal year 2018, with plans for a total five years of funding, a press release said.

The new centers follow the success of predecessor Bioenergy Research Centers established by DOE’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research within DOE’s Office of Science in 2007. The ORNL-led BioEnergy Science Center (BESC), for instance, has demonstrated scientific breakthroughs in its mission to overcome the natural resistance of plants to being broken down and converted into useful bioproducts.

“Our team of leading researchers is excited to use new approaches in biology to address the basic research challenges in developing real-world applications in the future sustainable bioeconomy,” said CBI Chief Executive Officer Gerald Tuskan. Tuskan, an ORNL Corporate Fellow, led the sequencing of the genome of Populus—a fast-growing perennial tree recognized for its potential in biofuels production—as well as the largest study of natural diversity in poplar trees for BESC. [Read more…]

Trump nominates finance executive for DOE under secretary for science

Posted at 3:08 pm July 12, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Image by U.S. Department of Energy

President Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Paul Dabbar of New York, an investment banking executive at J.P. Morgan, to be under secretary for science in the U.S. Department of Energy.

Dabbar is managing director for mergers and acquisitions for J.P. Morgan, and he has more than $400 billion in investment experience across all energy sectors, according to a statement posted by the White House Office of the Press Secretary on Tuesday. Those energy sectors include solar, wind, geothermal, distributed-generation, utility, LNG, pipeline, oil and gas, trading, and energy technology, the statement said. Dabbar has also led the majority of all nuclear transactions.

Before joining J.P. Morgan, Dabbar served as a nuclear submarine officer in Mare Island, California, and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and he was deployed to the North Pole, where he conducted environmental research, the statement said.

Dabbar currently serves on the U.S. Department of Energy Environmental Management Advisory Board.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Dabbar would succeed Franklin “Lynn” Orr in the post. Orr left the job January 20, Inauguration Day, after serving as DOE’s first under secretary for science and energy. Orr started serving as under secretary on December 17, 2014. [Read more…]

President’s budget would close NOAA lab that has Oak Ridge division

Posted at 12:43 pm July 12, 2017
By John Huotari 4 Comments

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge is pictured above on Tuesday, July 11, 2017. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Note: This story was last updated at 9:20 a.m. July 13.

The Trump administration’s budget request for the next fiscal year would close a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration air research laboratory that has a division in Oak Ridge, according to budget documents posted online.

The budget request for fiscal year 2018, which starts October 1, would close NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory, or ARL, which has headquarters in College Park, Maryland. The Air Resources Laboratory has satellite campuses in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Mercury, Nevada. Those satellite campuses would also close, according to the documents, which were posted by the NOAA Budget Office.

The Oak Ridge campus is on South Illinois Avenue, in a historic building that was once an emergency hospital and then a health department. It now houses the Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division, or ATDD. The Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division is one of several field divisions of the Air Resources Laboratory. The ARL in turn is part of NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.

There are 33 employees at the Oak Ridge campus, including NOAA and ORAU workers. The primary focus of the ATDD is to maintain NOAA’s Climate Reference Network, a network of weather stations across the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, to monitor climate change.

The Oak Ridge division also works with other NOAA groups that study the formation of tornadoes, using unmanned aerial vehicles to understand tornado formation. It also works with the Air Resources Laboratory headquarters on air quality modeling and forecasting.

The NOAA budget request, which has not been approved by Congress, proposes zeroing out funding and employment at the Air Resources Laboratory, cutting base funding from about $4.7 million and 34 full-time equivalents (FTE) to $0 and zero FTE. President Donald Trump submitted his administration’s budget request to Congress on Tuesday, May 23. [Read more…]

Readers ask about layoffs at ORNL, UPF

Posted at 10:50 pm July 6, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Photo by ORNL

Oak Ridge Today readers have recently asked about layoffs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

In mid-June, ORNL said there had been about 10 employees who were laid off recently. They were from ORNL’s Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate.

“The layoffs were part of the normal course of business at the lab,” ORNL communications media manager Morgan McCorkle said in a statement. “We are constantly adjusting the size of the workforce to ensure efficient operations.”

On Thursday, McCorkle said there haven’t been any additional ORNL staff layoffs since then. ORNL has a staff of 4,750, including scientists and engineers in more than 100 disciplines.

Oak Ridge Today has also received a question from a reader about layoffs reported on the Uranium Processing Facility project, or UPF, at Y-12. [Read more…]

President’s budget: DOE cleanup funding could be up, with benefits for Oak Ridge

Posted at 2:05 pm July 6, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Jay Mullis, front center, acting manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, talks about federal site cleanup work in Oak Ridge during a visit by Energy Secretary Rick Perry, left, on Monday, May 22, 2017. Pictured between Perry and Mullis are U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, both Tennessee Republicans. (Photo by DOE)

Note: This story was last updated at 4:30 p.m.

Cleanup funding could be up for the U.S. Department of Energy under the budget request from the Trump administration for fiscal year 2018, and there could be benefits for Oak Ridge, according to budget documents.

President Donald Trump submitted his budget request to Congress on Tuesday, May 23. In that request, the DOE Office of Environmental Management, or EM, asked for $6.5 billion, the largest request in a decade. That would be $290 million above fiscal year 2016.

The funding request for Oak Ridge includes $390 million, or $78 million below fiscal year 2016, to continue deactivation and demolition of remaining facilities at East Tennessee Technology Park, continue preparing Building 2026 to support the processing of the remaining U-233 material at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and to support activities for the Mercury Treatment Facility at Y-12 National Security Complex.

It’s not clear whether that $390 million in the funding request includes part of the $225 million in funding requested for high-risk excess contaminated facilities at Y-12 and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. It’s also not clear whether the total funding for Oak Ridge cleanup programs would be up or down, compared to previous years. The DOE public affairs office in Washington, D.C., has not responded to about a dozen budget-related inquiries from Oak Ridge Today since May 23.

Among the highlights of the EM request for Oak Ridge, according to budget documents posted online by DOE and an EM press release: [Read more…]

NNSA: Y-12 funding would be up 25 percent under president’s budget request

Posted at 11:51 am July 6, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge is pictured above in June 2012. (Photo courtesy NNSA)

Note: This story was last updated at 4:20 p.m.

Funding for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge would be up about 25 percent under the budget request submitted to Congress in May, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The total funding for Y-12 would be $1.64 billion, the NNSA said. That’s an increase of 25.4 percent over fiscal year 2016.

The budget request for fiscal year 2018, which starts October 1, was submitted by President Donald Trump to Congress on Tuesday, May 23. The NNSA request of $13.9 billion would increase funding by 7.8 percent compared to fiscal year 2017, Administrator Frank G. Klotz said during a teleconference with reporters on May 23.

Trump’s budget request has not yet been approved by Congress, where there has been bipartisan opposition, particularly to the proposed cuts. In Oak Ridge, sites and programs that could be cut include Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which would have a funding reduction of $206 million over two years, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, or EERE.

But Y-12, a National Nuclear Security Administration site, could benefit if the president’s budget request were approved by Congress. A House spending bill introduced last week for federal energy and water departments appears to include proposed spending levels for the NNSA, a semi-autonomous agency within DOE, that are similar to what the Trump administration has proposed. [Read more…]

New director hired at ORNL Carbon Fiber Technology Facility

Posted at 11:17 am July 4, 2017
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

Merlin Theodore, new director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Carbon Fiber Technology Facility. (Photo by ORNL)

A new director has been hired at the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Merlin Theodore most recently worked in Moses Lake, Washington, where she established a laboratory and promoted organizational excellence at a startup facility, SGL Automotive Carbon Fiber, ORNL said in a story published on its website in March. SGL Automotive Carbon Fiber is one of the largest carbon fiber production facilities in the United States, ORNL said.

While at SGL Automotive Carbon Fiber, Theodore boosted workflow efficiency by 97 percent and achieved 94 percent cost savings by developing new testing methods to determine sizing concentration on fiber surface, ORNL said. She also played an instrumental role in resolving technical issues for automaker BMW.

Theodore was the first in her family of 11 siblings to pursue graduate studies and then take up a career as a technology innovator. Her path eventually led her to ORNL, the lab said.

Before the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility and SGL Automotive Carbon Fiber, Theodore worked for Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Georgia Tech, and Universal Technology Corporation, or UTC, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as a research scientist and laboratory manager. [Read more…]

Australian ornithologist finds secretive marsh bird on Oak Ridge Reservation

Posted at 8:00 pm July 3, 2017
By John Huotari 1 Comment

An Australian ornithologist has found a secretive marsh bird, a Purple Gallinule, on the Oak Ridge Reservation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory said in a post published on Twitter on Sunday, July 2, 2017. (Screenshot from ORNL video)

An Australian ornithologist has found a secretive marsh bird, a Purple Gallinule, on the Oak Ridge Reservation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory said in a video post published on Twitter on Sunday.

Australian ornithologist Liz Znidersic recently came to ORNL to study secretive bird species, ORNL said in the video. She found the new bird using video and audio equipment.

The Purple Gallinule is typically only found in coastal or tropical areas.

“The Purple Gallinule has not been found on the Oak Ridge Reservation ever,” Znidersic said in the video. “This is the first one to be found also in Roane County.” [Read more…]

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