Oak Ridge Today

UT-Battelle donation supports Roane State’s Middle College program

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Roane State Community College President Chris Whaley and Alan Icenhour, deputy director of operations for Oak Ridge National Laboratory, hold a replica of the $34,000 check that ORNL contractor UT-Battelle awarded the Roane State Foundation to help with college expenses for Roane State Middle College students. Also pictured is Roane State’s Interim Middle College Director Susan Pearson, Roane State Vice President for Student Learning Diane Ward, Roane State Foundation Executive Director Scott Niermann, Deborah Miller of Roane State’s Grants Development Office, Roane State Foundation Board Member Joy Goldberg, former ORNL Community Relations Manager Wade Creswell, Roane State Foundation Scholarship Specialist Pam Rudnitzki, and several RSCC Middle College students. (Photo submitted by Roane State)

By Bob Fowler, Roane State staff writer

The tradition of funding scholarships for Middle College students enrolled in Roane State Community College’s innovative program is going strong and continues to help participants reach long-term goals.

A $34,000 annual contribution from UT-Battelle helps cover tuition and other costs for students from Roane County’s five high schools to attend Middle College. This year, 57 Roane County students are enrolled in the curriculum.

UT-Battelle is the contractor that manages Oak Ridge National Laboratory, located in Roane County, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Middle College, now in its sixth year, is a two-year program for high-achieving high school students who want to get a head start on college.

High school juniors enrolled in Middle College take college courses at one of Roane State’s campuses in the mornings and return to their respective high schools in the afternoons. That way, they can graduate from high school at the same time they earn an associate degree from Roane State. Graduates can then transfer to other colleges and enroll as juniors.

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UCOR requiring COVID vaccinations

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UCOR is requiring its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

The requirement applies to all of its nearly 2,000 employees, and it is a condition of employment, the company said Tuesday.

The vaccination requirement was announced by UCOR President and CEO Ken Rueter on August 26.

The company, an Amentum-led partnership with Jacobs, is the U.S. Department of Energy’s lead environmental cleanup contractor on the Oak Ridge Reservation, and it has an award-winning safety record, the company said. Rueter said that the decision to require the vaccine was in line with the company’s commitment to safety and its culture of caring.

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Roane State grad now at ORNL, researching how to thwart vehicular cyberattacks

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Sam Hollifield (Submitted photo)

By Bob Fowler

Roane State staff writer

This Roane State Community College graduate now works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researching what he told an interviewer is “the cat-and-mouse game that is modern cybersecurity.”

Specifically, Samuel Hollifield Jr. is looking into ways to defend vehicles’ computer systems from being hacked. He’s a cybersecurity hardware engineer. “Never in my life would I think I’d have a job defending automotive networks,” he said.

His education at Roane State played a huge role in his career path, Hollifield said. “It sounds like a cliché, but Roane State, it changed my life,” he said. “I’m a huge cheerleader.”

A Kentucky native, Hollifield initially attended a community college there but had to withdraw as his late father’s health declined. Employed in the coal-mining industry and afflicted with black lung disease, his father died at age 56.

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ORNL will require COVID-19 vaccinations

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The main entrance at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will require all staff members to have a current COVID-19 vaccination by October 15, and new employees will be required to provide proof that they have been vaccinated.

UT-Battelle LLC, which manages the laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy, decided to require vaccinations after the Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, August 23.

For members: Big change for Y-12 water permit is Mercury Treatment Facility

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The planned Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. (Image courtesy UCOR/U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management)

The biggest change for a water discharge permit drafted for the Y-12 National Security Complex is the construction and operation of a Mercury Treatment Facility, a state official said Tuesday.

The mercury treatment facility, which is under construction and could begin operating next year, is expected to capture and treat most of the mercury released as old, unused mercury-contaminated buildings, equipment, and soils are demolished and removed, especially on the west side of the nuclear weapons production site.

For members: More than 4,000 fish, crayfish killed by Y-12 chlorinated water, mercury

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Upper East Fork Poplar Creek is pictured above at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge on Friday, May 22, 2020. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

More than 4,000 fish and crayfish were killed by chlorinated water and mercury at the Y-12 National Security Complex in two series of incidents in 2018 and 2021. 

The first series of incidents was likely caused by the release of mercury while crews were cleaning up and removing equipment at the Alpha-4 Building on the west side of Y-12, according to scientists and officials. Alpha-4 is the most contaminated of the four major mercury-contaminated buildings at Y-12. Millions of pounds of mercury were used at Y-12 decades ago to produce nuclear weapons parts. Removing mercury-contaminated buildings, equipment, and soil remains one of the top challenges of cleaning up the Oak Ridge Reservation.

Summit at ORNL remains No. 2 in world

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The Summit supercomputer, a 200-petaflop IBM system that is the world’s second most powerful, is pictured above at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Katie Bethea/ORNL)

The Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory remains the fastest supercomputer in the United States and the second most powerful in the world.

Summit, an IBM system, was the world’s most powerful supercomputer from June 2018 to November 2019, when the U.S. Department of Energy had the two fastest systems in the world.

DOE still has two of the three fastest supercomputers, Summit at ORNL and Sierra at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. And it has three of the top five systems in the world. DOE has a new supercomputer, Perlmutter, ranked at number five. It’s at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in Berkeley, California. Perlmutter was the only new system in the top 10 in the semiannual TOP500 list released Monday.

Summit was bumped from the top spot on the TOP500 list by a Japanese supercomputer, Fugaku, in June 2020.

Fugaku, which is in Kobe, Japan, remained in the top spot on the TOP500 list released in November and again on the list released Monday. The TOP500 list uses a benchmark test to rank the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

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International fusion energy project to be discussed

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David Rasmussen

 

An international fusion energy project that involves Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be discussed in an online meeting on Wednesday, May 19.

The featured speaker will be David Rasmussen, the leader of the technical integration of the U.S. contributions to the international fusion project, which is under construction in France and known as ITER.

Rasmussen’s areas of responsibility have included the ITER plasma heating and fueling systems, a press release said. He has been a plasma research scientist at ORNL since 1981. He has more than 35 years of fusion and plasma science experience in diagnostic measurements and the technology development needed for magnetic confinement fusion and other plasma technology applications, the release said. Rasmussen received a Ph.D. in applied science, specializing in plasma physics, from the University of California at Davis in 1981 where his graduate work was a study of inertial laser fusion wave plasma interactions.

The May 19 talk is hosted by ORION, an amateur science and astronomy club based in Oak Ridge. The talk is scheduled to begin on Zoom at 7 p.m. May 19, and it is open to the public. If you are interested in joining, the Zoom meeting ID is 885 2873 5960, and the passcode is 716689. Alternatively, you can follow this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88528735960?pwd=KzY4bnBHcjlhTzg3L3pOcjY0TFovUT09. [Read more…]

Demolition work at ORNL radioisotope lab could be complete this spring

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A view of the demolition of a hot cell inside a protective cover at the former Radioisotope Development Lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy UCOR)

Demolition work at a former radioisotope laboratory in Oak Ridge could be complete this spring.

The U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management and UCOR announced earlier this year that UCOR, a contractor, had begun removing the two remaining structures at the former Radioisotope Development Lab at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

“This project launches our next phase of major demolition and cleanup at ORNL,” said Nathan Felosi, OREM’s portfolio federal project director for ORNL. “Our work is eliminating contaminated structures, like this one, that are on DOE’s list of high-risk facilities and clearing space for future research missions.”

Known as “hot cells,” the structures being demolished are heavily shielded concrete rooms that provided researchers protection from highly radioactive material during the years the laboratory was operational, a press release said.

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Virtual talks on Weinberg and his archived papers on Apr. 20

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Alvin Weinberg, front center, with Senator John F. Kennedy, front left, at an Oak Ridge National Laboratory research reactor. (Submitted photo)


“A Tribute to Alvin Weinberg,” including information on the new online database of his scientific publications and other documents, will be presented virtually to the public from 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 20 (Weinberg’s birth anniversary).

The presentation, via Zoom, is sponsored by the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge and Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

“The purpose of this public online event is to honor Alvin Weinberg’s legacy and to celebrate the preservation and digitization of his papers,” said Rhonda Bogard, who led the digitization of the papers, most of which were initially donated to the Children’s Museum in 1986. [Read more…]

ORNL names operations deputy

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Alan Icenhour has been named deputy for operations at ORNL. (Photo credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory/U.S. Department of Energy)

Alan Icenhour has been named deputy for operations at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He will succeed Jeff Smith, who is retiring this spring after serving in the role since UT-Battelle began operating the lab in 2000, a press release said.

Icenhour joined ORNL in 1990 as an engineer, and he served most recently as associate laboratory director for the Isotope Science and Engineering Directorate. He led the Nuclear Science and Engineering Directorate from 2014 until the isotopes directorate was formed in October 2020. Icenhour has held a variety of other leadership positions as well as an assignment as senior technical adviser to the National Nuclear Security Administration, the press release said.

“Alan is a disciplined, thoughtful leader with broad experience at ORNL and proven success in a variety of roles,” ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia said in the press release said. “His ability to evaluate complex problems, find creative solutions, and build highly productive relationships will ensure the operational excellence necessary to support world-leading research and development.”

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Hear from ORNL scientists who worked on Perseverance mission

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Video published on YouTube by Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Three scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory will discuss their work this afternoon on technologies for the Perseverance rover, which uses plutonium-238 produced at the lab and will touch down on Mars on Thursday.

Perseverance is scheduled to make its final descent into Jezero Crater on the surface of Mars on Thursday. It’s the first NASA mission that uses plutonium-238 produced at ORNL.

The plutonium-238 is encased in iridium-alloy cladding, and it is insulated by carbon-bonded carbon fiber. It’s used in the heat source module that fuels Perseverance’s multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator. As the plutonium decays, the heat that is released is converted into electricity, charging the rover’s batteries and powering the onboard advanced imaging and sensor systems. (Learn more about the Mars mission here.)

The online event today featuring the three ORNL scientists is hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, and it is scheduled to start at 3 p.m.

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