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Media Contacts
![Porter Bailey started and will end his 33-year career at ORNL in the same building: 7920 of the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-01/2020-P17836.jpg?h=4cdfc2d0&itok=2rFoZlS6)
Porter Bailey started and will end his 33-year career at ORNL in the same building: 7920 of the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center.
![INFUSE logo](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-12/infuse_logo-011.jpg?h=f46fb64e&itok=Yrutrfll)
The INFUSE fusion program announced a second round of 2020 public-private partnership awards to accelerate fusion energy development.
![asset management](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-05/Picture9.png?h=cf4f3851&itok=rVU02eNT)
East Tennessee occupies a special place in nuclear history. In 1943, the world’s first continuously operating reactor began operating on land that would become ORNL.
![Researchers Adam Guss and Melissa Tumen-Velasquez work with microbes to understand how the organisms consume plastics and break them into chemical components that can be used to make higher-value products.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-11/2020-P17629.jpg?h=98541007&itok=54ubVna4)
From soda bottles to car bumpers to piping, electronics, and packaging, plastics have become a ubiquitous part of our lives.
![Chuck Kessel](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-11/ChuckKesselProfile_0.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=pTBVa7QK)
Chuck Kessel was still in high school when he saw a scientist hold up a tiny vial of water and say, “This could fuel a house for a whole year.”
![These fuel assembly brackets, manufactured by ORNL in partnership with Framatome and Tennessee Valley Authority, are the first 3D-printed safety-related components to be inserted into a nuclear power plant. Credit: Fred List/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/FramatomeCB1.jpg?h=7c790887&itok=oVGkqZYZ)
The Transformational Challenge Reactor, or TCR, a microreactor built using 3D printing and other new advanced technologies, could be operational by 2024.
![Xunxiang Hu, a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division, designed this machine to produce large, crack-free pieces of yttrium hydride to be used as a moderator in the core of ORNL’s Transformational Challenge Reactor and other microreactors. Credit: Xunxiang Hu/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/HuYHxphoto.jpg?h=eef83f16&itok=7KfkqQLh)
About 60 years ago, scientists discovered that a certain rare earth metal-hydrogen mixture, yttrium, could be the ideal moderator to go inside small, gas-cooled nuclear reactors.
![A selfie from the Curiosity rover as it explores the surface of Mars. Like many spacecraft, Curiosity uses a radioisotope power system to help fuel its mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/Curiousity_1.jpg?h=86a9dded&itok=Jo0vD321)
Radioactive isotopes power some of NASA’s best-known spacecraft. But predicting how radiation emitted from these isotopes might affect nearby materials is tricky
![Innovation Network for Fusion Energy, or INFUSE](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/INFUSE-thumb.jpg?h=10c96a29&itok=_nmt5JT4)
The Department of Energy announced awards for 10 projects with private industry that will allow for collaboration with DOE national laboratories in accelerating fusion energy development.
![This photo shows the interior of the vessel of the General Atomics DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, where ORNL researchers are testing the suitability of tungsten to armor the inside of a fusion device. Credit: General Atomics](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-08/X2001140_Tungsten_DIIID_GeneralAtomics_Bumpus_jnj_0.jpg?h=fa422108&itok=9R1Nn6B_)
The inside of future nuclear fusion energy reactors will be among the harshest environments ever produced on Earth. What’s strong enough to protect the inside of a fusion reactor from plasma-produced heat fluxes akin to space shuttles reentering Earth’s atmosphere?