Moving rods of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) to interim storage or a geologic repository requires road or rail travel. Although a heavy shielding cask protects the rods, long distance transportation subjects SNF to vibrations, sudden movements and other potentially agitating for...
Drafty buildings are a thermostat’s worst enemy. Leaks around windows and a multitude of other breaches in the building envelope can cause heat and air-conditioning systems to run excessively, hogging energy as it continually warms — or cools and dehumidifies — the invading outside air.
Predicting how forests will respond to increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide involves understanding the interplay among carbon dioxide, nutrients, water, plant and soil processes. This multitude of variables challenges scientists who are trying to gauge how future ecosystems will react in a changing climate.
Cameron Roberts, a recent High Flux Isotope Reactor visiting research user, stands out from the usual queue of university academics, industry R&D staff, and DOE scientists—this user is a junior in high school.
Run-2 for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)—the world’s largest and most powerful particle collider—began April 5 at CERN, the European Laboratory for Nuclear Research. In preparation, Thomas M. Cormier, who leads the LHC Heavy Ion group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, led an upgrade of the electromagnetic calorimeter used for LHC’s experiment called ALICE (for A Large Ion Collider Experiment).
A group of 13 Ph.D. students from 3 partnering universities—the University of Missouri, Indiana University, and North Carolina State University—gathered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in April for an intensive course in how to apply neutron scattering to their studies of materials science and biological systems.
From the bluebird painting propped against her office wall and the deer she mentions seeing outside her office window, Linda Lewis might be mistaken for a wildlife biologist at first glance. But rather than trailing animal tracks, Lewis, a researcher at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is more interested in marks left behind by humans.
With more than 30 patents, James Klett is no stranger to success, but perhaps the Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher’s most noteworthy achievement didn’t start out so hot – or so it seemed at the time.
Just as a delicate balance of ingredients determines the tastiness of a cookie or cake, the specific ratio of metals in an alloy determines desirable qualities of the new metal, such as improved strength or lightness.
Drivers trying to get to work or home in a hurry know traffic congestion wastes a lot of time, but it also wastes a lot of fuel. In 2011, congestion caused people in US urban areas to travel an extra 5.5 billion hours and purchase an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel costing $121 billion. But despite the tangle of vehicles at busy intersections and interstate ramps, most of the country’s highways are open road with vehicles occupying only about 5 percent of road surface.