Oak Ridge Today

Living Light solar-powered home moves to Children’s Museum

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Living Light House Trailer

The University of Tennessee donated the Living Light House to the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge, and the 750-square-foot solar-powered home was moved Saturday.

 

The University of Tennessee in Knoxville has donated its Living Light House to the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge, and the 750-square-foot solar-powered home was moved Saturday.

The award-winning home makes more energy than it uses, said James Rose, senior lecturer in UT’s College of Architecture and Design.

Moving the 80,000-pound house was a daylong project. The Children’s Museum is in a residential area in Oak Ridge, so the museum had to move trees, excavate a slope, and create a temporary road to get to the site.

Rose said the one-room home, which has mechanical and laundry areas, will be used at the Children’s Museum for outreach and to showcase the latest energy-efficient technologies.

“This is the perfect place for this building,” said Rose, the architect of record on the project and the leader of the student architecture studio that designed it. [Read more…]

Former Lady Dragon hired to lead CHS hoops program

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Information from WYSH Radio

Clinton High School has a new girls’ basketball coach. Athletic Director Dan Jenkins said former Lady Dragon standout Alicia Phillips has been hired to succeed Tonya Lively-Snyder, who stepped down after 15 years on the bench last month.

During her illustrious high school career, Phillips (then Brown) set several school records. After graduating from Clinton, she received a scholarship to play softball for the University of Tennessee and played two seasons there, including an appearance in the Women’s College World Series.

She later transferred to Maryville College, where she continued her softball career and got back on the court for the Lady Scot basketball team. [Read more…]

Conference USA Rowing Championships in Oak Ridge on Saturday

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Tennessee Rowing

Image courtesy Tennessee Volunteers Athletics

 

The 2014 Conference USA Rowing Championships are in Oak Ridge on Saturday. The regatta is at Melton Lake Park and the Oak Ridge Marina.

The University of Tennessee will be competing against Alabama, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Old Dominion, Sacramento State, San Diego State, Texas, Tulsa, and West Virginia for the 2014 C-USA Title. The championship begins at 9:00 a.m.

For a schedule of events this Saturday, visit http://www.conferenceusa.com/championships/w-rowing-championship-14.html.

The regatta is hosted by the Oak Ridge Rowing Association.

UT solar house donated, moving Saturday to Children’s Museum

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ut-living-light-house

 

KNOXVILLE—The University of Tennessee in Knoxville is donating the Living Light House— its award-winning, solar-powered project—to the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge.

The Living Light House will move to its permanent home on Saturday, May 17. Starting at 7 a.m., the 750-square-foot, zero-energy structure, will be transported from the UT Gardens to the Oak Ridge museum at 461 W. Outer Drive. The move is expected to take several hours.

“The house has served as an ambassador for good design and energy efficiency,” said James Rose, UT architecture lecturer and lead faculty member of the Living Light project. “One of the most satisfying things about giving tours of the house is the response from children. Young people are always fascinated by the house and leave it excited about the future. I cannot think of a better place for the Living Light house to carry on this mission than at the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge.”

The Living Light House, which was built through the efforts of more than 200 UT students, was an entry to the 2011 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C. It has traveled nearly 6,000 miles, been toured by more than 50,000 visitors, and was on exhibit at the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. [Read more…]

Urban design leader named newest UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair

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Phil Enquist

Phil Enquist

KNOXVILLE—Philip Enquist, partner in charge of urban design and planning and leader of the City Design Practice at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, has been named the 16th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill is one of the world’s leading urban planning, architecture, and engineering firms, a press release said.

Enquist and a select research team will serve as Governor’s Chair for High Performance Energy Practices in Urban Environments and will be affiliated with and administer projects through the UT College of Architecture and Design.

The Governor’s Chair team will be a research partnership among many designers at the firm who specialize in sustainable urbanism and high-performance buildings. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s City Design Practice is the world’s most highly awarded urban planning group.

The contract between ORNL, UT, and the design firm is pending, the press release said. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge senior Andrew Skipper earns UT-Battelle scholarship

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Andrew Skipper and Thom Mason

Andrew Skipper, left, the 2014 UT-Battelle Scholarship winner, is congratulated by ORNL Director Thom Mason. (Submitted photo)

Andrew Skipper, a senior at Oak Ridge High School, is the recipient of the 2014 UT-Battelle Scholarship to the University of Tennessee.

The four-year, $20,000 scholarship is presented annually to a graduating senior who plans to study science, engineering, or mathematics at UT and whose mother or father works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Andrew is the son of David and Maria Skipper. David Skipper works in ORNL’s Environmental Protection and Waste Services Division, and Maria Skipper works in ORNL’s Business Management Services Division. His grandmother, Margie Skipper, worked in ORNL’s Laboratory Protection Division for many years prior to her retirement in 1999.

Andrew’s goal at UT is to pursue a bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering before enrolling in graduate or medical school. [Read more…]

Lake City’s name change to Rocky Top on hold for now

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Tim Isbel at Hearing on Lake City Name Change to Rocky Top

Tim Isbel, president of the Rocky Top Marketing and Manufacturing Co., at a federal court hearing on Monday on Lake City’s proposed name change to Rocky Top.

Note: this story was updated at 2:52 a.m.

KNOXVILLE—Lake City’s proposed name change to Rocky Top is on hold for now as a federal judge considers a request to stop the move.

The name change has been proposed as part of an expensive plan to convert the former coal mining town in northern Anderson County into a tourist destination. But it has been challenged by the publisher of “Rocky Top,” a well-known bluegrass song and unofficial University of Tennessee anthem.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has signed a bill that allows the name change, but the proposal has not yet gone back to the Lake City Council for final approval. Under the state law, Lake City could become Rocky Top on July 3, said Tim Isbel, an Anderson County Commissioner and president of Rocky Top Tennessee Marketing and Manufacturing Co.

That company has proposed a development that could be worth up to $450 million over six years and include an indoor and outdoor water park, coal miners theater, children’s museum, train rides, restaurant, and candy company on some 300 acres near two exits off Interstate 75. During a hearing in U.S. District Court in Knoxville on Monday, officials said it could bring 200 new jobs to Lake City and generate another $6 million in sales tax per year. But the project hinges on the name change. [Read more…]

Campaign finance laws, U.S. politics to be discussed Tuesday

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Jon Shefner

Jon Shefner

A University of Tennessee professor will discuss campaign finance laws and U.S. politics during Lunch with the League on Tuesday.

Jon Shefner is professor and head of the Sociology Department at the University of Tennessee. He will be the guest speaker at Lunch with the League at noon Tuesday. The meeting will be held in the Social Hall of the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church.

“The ties between economic interests and political power are repeated throughout American history,” a press release said. [Read more…]

‘Atomic switcheroo’ explains origins of thin-film solar cell mystery

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Current Maps

Cross-sectional electron beam-induced current maps show the difference in cadmium telluride solar cells before (pictured above) and after (below) cadmium chloride treatment. The increased brightness after treatment indicates higher current collection at the grain boundaries. (Submitted photo)

Treating cadmium-telluride (CdTe) solar cell materials with cadmium-chloride improves their efficiency, but researchers have not fully understood why. Now, an atomic-scale examination of the thin-film solar cells led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory has answered this decades-long debate about the materials’ photovoltaic efficiency increase after treatment.

A research team from ORNL, the University of Toledo, and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory used electron microscopy and computational simulations to explore the physical origins of the unexplained treatment process. The results are published in Physical Review Letters, or PRL.

Thin-film CdTe solar cells are considered a potential rival to silicon-based photovoltaic systems because of their theoretically low cost per power output and ease of fabrication. Their comparatively low historical efficiency in converting sunlight into energy, however, has limited the technology’s widespread use, especially for home systems. [Read more…]

Student at UT’s Bredesen Center wins $50,000 ORNL prize

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Andrew Lepore Big Idea ORNL Check

Bredesen Center student Andrew Lepore stands with the $50,000 check he won as part of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Next Big Idea competition. (Photo courtesy University of Tennessee)

KNOXVILLE—With the first set of Bredesen Center graduates at the University of Tennessee set to receive their doctorates next week, students who will be in the next wave of graduates are already finding success.

Andrew Lepore, working out of the Materials Science and Technology Division through the center, recently won a prestigious Oak Ridge National Laboratory-related prize at the Next Big Idea competition. Lepore is on track to receive his doctorate in 2016.

“For him to go in there against some more seasoned researchers, against students who are further along, and come out with one of the three awards speaks highly of him and of the quality of students we have here,” said Bredesen Center Director Lee Riedinger. [Read more…]

Mason to brief feds on UPF alternatives report today

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Ernest Moniz, Lamar Alexander, Thom Mason, Joe DiPietro, Jimmy Cheek at University of Tennessee

From left are UT President Joe DiPietro, Chancellor Jimmy Cheek, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, and ORNL Director Thom Mason.

Note: This story was last updated at 2:30 p.m.

KNOXVILLE—Federal officials have expressed concerns about increasing cost projections and delayed construction dates for a new Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, and a so-called Red Team has drafted an alternative approach that could keep the project at $6.5 billion or less—and help workers get out of the aging Building 9212 at Y-12 by 2025.

Thom Mason, the director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, chaired the Red Team, and he is expected to brief federal officials in Washington, D.C., today (Monday) on the team’s report. The report will then go to Congress, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a media briefing at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center at the University of Tennessee on Friday.

Among the questions that could be answered are which old production buildings at Y-12 should be replaced and which can be refurbished. Y-12 was built to enrich uranium as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project during World War II as the United States raced to beat Germany to build the world’s first atomic weapons. [Read more…]

UT Arboretum to have presentation on bats on Thursday

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Bat at UT Arboretum

Northern Long-eared Bat (Photos courtesy of Middleton Photos)

The University of Tennessee Arboretum will host a presentation on bats—“Let’s Go BAT-ty”—from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday.

Gerry Middleton, a biologist who has studied bats extensively, will present a slide show at the Visitor’s Center to discuss his two-year study of Arboretum bats. Using his “bat detector,” he will take the group outside to look for the nocturnal creatures.

A biologist with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation in the U.S. Department of Energy-Oversight Office, Middleton promised that this will be an opportunity for all ages to learn more about the local bat population, a press release said. Middleton has an master’s degree in wildlife and fisheries from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. [Read more…]