ORNL will lead three new DOE-funded projects designed to bring fusion energy to the grid on a rapid timescale.
Creating energy the way the sun and stars do — through nuclear fusion — is one of the grand challenges facing science and technology. What’s easy for the sun and its billions of relatives turns out to be particularly difficult on Earth.
ORNL researchers, in collaboration with Enginuity Power Systems, demonstrated that a micro combined heat and power prototype, or mCHP, with a piston engine can achieve an overall energy efficiency greater than 93%.
ORNL will team up with six of eight companies that are advancing designs and research and development for fusion power plants with the mission to achieve a pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers demonstrated that microchannel heat exchangers in heating, ventilation and air conditioning units can keep refrigerants evenly and continually distributed by inserting a device called a piezoelectric-driven
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers demonstrated that an electrochemical sensor paired with a transmitter not only detects propane leaks within seconds, but it can also send a signal to alert emergency services.
Of the $61 million recently announced by the U.S. Department of Energy for quantum information science studies, $17.5 million will fund research at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. These projects will help build the foundation for the quantum internet, advance quantum entanglement capabilities — which involve sharing information through paired particles of light called photons — and develop next-generation quantum sensors.
To minimize potential damage from underground oil and gas leaks, Oak Ridge National Laboratory is co-developing a quantum sensing system to detect pipeline leaks more quickly.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers designed and field-tested an algorithm that could help homeowners maintain comfortable temperatures year-round while minimizing utility costs.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory expertise in fission and fusion has come together to form a new collaboration, the Fusion Energy Reactor Models Integrator, or FERMI