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Man in blue shirt and grey pants holds laptop and poses next to a green plant in a lab.

John Lagergren, a staff scientist in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Plant Systems Biology group, is using his expertise in applied math and machine learning to develop neural networks to quickly analyze the vast amounts of data on plant traits amassed at ORNL’s Advanced Plant Phenotyping Laboratory.

ORNL researcher Louise Evans is working to ensure safeguards approaches and verification technologies are integrated early in the design process of advanced reactor technologies. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Researchers tackling national security challenges at ORNL are upholding an 80-year legacy of leadership in all things nuclear. Today, they’re developing the next generation of technologies that will help reduce global nuclear risk and enable safe, secure, peaceful use of nuclear materials, worldwide.

The transportation and industrial sectors together account for more than 50% of the country’s carbon footprint. Defossilization could help reduce new emissions from these and other difficult-to-electrify segments of the U.S. economy.

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and six other Department of Energy national laboratories have developed a United States-based perspective for achieving net-zero carbon emissions. 

New research predicts peak groundwater extraction for key basins around the globe by the year 2050. The map indicates groundwater storage trends for Earth’s 37 largest aquifers using data from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory GRACE satellite. Credit: NASA.

Groundwater withdrawals are expected to peak in about one-third of the world’s basins by 2050, potentially triggering significant trade and agriculture shifts, a new analysis finds. 

ORNL engineer Canan Karakaya uses computational modeling to design and improve chemical reactors and how they are operated to convert methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia or ethanol into higher-value chemicals or energy-dense fuels. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Canan Karakaya, a R&D Staff member in the Chemical Process Scale-Up group at ORNL, was inspired to become a chemical engineer after she experienced a magical transformation that turned ammonia gas into ammonium nitrate, turning a liquid into white flakes gently floating through the air. 

: ORNL climate modeling expertise contributed to an AI-backed model that assesses global emissions of ammonia from croplands now and in a warmer future, while identifying mitigation strategies. This map highlights croplands around the world. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

ORNL climate modeling expertise contributed to a project that assessed global emissions of ammonia from croplands now and in a warmer future, while also identifying solutions tuned to local growing conditions.

Alex May, pictured above, is the first and only full-time data curator at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. Credit: Carlos Jones and Wikimedia Commons, background/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Alex May is the first and only full-time data curator at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, evaluating datasets developed by computational scientists before they are made public through the OLCF’s Constellation portal for open data exchange.
The AI agent, incorporating a language model-based molecular generator and a graph neural network-based molecular property predictor, processes a set of user-provided molecules (green) and produces/suggests new molecules (red) with desired chemical/physical properties (i.e. excitation energy). Image credit: Pilsun You, Jason Smith/ORNL, U.S. DOE

A team of computational scientists at ORNL has generated and released datasets of unprecedented scale that provide the ultraviolet visible spectral properties of over 10 million organic molecules. 

ORNL researchers are establishing a digital thread of data, algorithms and workflows to produce a continuously updated model of earth systems.

Digital twins are exactly what they sound like: virtual models of physical reality that continuously update to reflect changes in the real world.

 

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory contributed to several chapters of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, providing expertise in complex ecosystem processes, energy systems, human dynamics, computational science and Earth-scale modeling. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Scientists at ORNL used their knowledge of complex ecosystem processes, energy systems, human dynamics, computational science and Earth-scale modeling to inform the nation’s latest National Climate Assessment, which draws attention to vulnerabilities and resilience opportunities in every region of the country.