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Media Contacts
![Mandy Mahoney, third from left, director of the DOE Office Of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Building Technologies Office, welcomed 21 students representing seven universities across the nation to the sixth annual JUMP into STEM finals competition at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Credit: Kurt Weiss/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-02/2024-P01069.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=J32GbOKM)
Students with a focus on building science will spend 10 weeks this summer interning at ORNL, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Pacific Northwest Laboratory as winners of the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Building Technologies Office sixth annual JUMP into STEM finals competition.
![An Oak Ridge National Laboratory study projects how geothermal heat pumps that derive heating and cooling from the ground would improve grid reliability and reduce costs and carbon emissions when widely deployed. Credit: Chad Malone, ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-02/23-g06128_xiaobingliu_geothermalheatpumpimage-r2_short_1mu.jpg?h=f5f11cfe&itok=mOIlnbmz)
A modeling analysis led by ORNL gives the first detailed look at how geothermal energy can relieve the electric power system and reduce carbon emissions if widely implemented across the United States within the next few decades.
![Jason DeGraw, a buildings researcher in thermal energy storage at ORNL, has been named a 2024 ASHRAE Fellow. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-02/2021-p04745_1_0.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=P15vx4CX)
The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, or ASHRAE, selected Jason DeGraw, a researcher with ORNL, as one of 23 members elevated to Fellow during its 2024 winter conference.
![An encapsulation system developed by ORNL researchers prevents salt hydrates, which are environmentally friendly thermal energy storage materials, from leaking and advances their use in heating and cooling applications. Credit: Andy Sproles/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-02/injection03.jpg?h=d1cb525d&itok=i7T5oyDo)
ORNL researchers have developed a novel way to encapsulate salt hydrate phase-change materials within polymer fibers through a coaxial pulling process. The discovery could lead to the widespread use of the low-carbon materials as a source of insulation for a building’s envelope.
![ORNL's Kyle Gluesenkamp received the FLC Outstanding Researcher Award.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2024-01/gluesenkamp1_0.jpg?h=319b3f54&itok=kpelvP3i)
Four ORNL teams and one researcher were recognized for excellence in technology transfer and technology transfer innovation.
![Karen White](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-12/karen-white.png?h=82115ee8&itok=oxhQuzGO)
Karen White, who works in ORNL’s Neutron Science Directorate, has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
![ORNL researchers found that a polyelectrolyte additive can improve the stability and performance of a salt hydrate PCM, enhancing the potential for use in heat pumps. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-11/HP_liquid_storytip02%5B97%5D_0.jpg?h=d1cb525d&itok=iGZRyRQC)
ORNL researchers demonstrated that an additive made from polymers and electrolytes improves the thermal performance and stability of salt hydrate phase change materials, or PCMs, a finding that could advance their integration into carbon-reducing heat pumps.
![Sarah Walters portrait](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/CSJ_0837%20-%20R.jpg?h=a64773ff&itok=TGiNzHPR)
Walters is working with a team of geographers, linguists, economists, data scientists and software engineers to apply cultural knowledge and patterns to open-source data in an effort to document and report patterns of human movement through previously unstudied spaces.
![The sun sets behind the ORNL Visitor Center in this aerial photo from April 2023. Credit: Kase Clapp/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/sunset_visitor-center_0.png?h=10d202d3&itok=jLImPT0R)
In fiscal year 2023 — Oct. 1–Sept. 30, 2023 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory was awarded more than $8 million in technology maturation funding through the Department of Energy’s Technology Commercialization Fund, or TCF.
![When exposed to radiation, electrons produced within molten zinc chloride, or ZnCl2, can be observed in three distinct singly occupied molecular orbital states, plus a more diffuse, delocalized state. Credit: Hung H. Nguyen/University of Iowa](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-10/bernard-wide_0.png?h=dba5e3ef&itok=DgnYZ_Vy)
In a finding that helps elucidate how molten salts in advanced nuclear reactors might behave, scientists have shown how electrons interacting with the ions of the molten salt can form three states with different properties. Understanding these states can help predict the impact of radiation on the performance of salt-fueled reactors.