Mirko Musa spent his childhood zigzagging his bike along the Po River. The Po, Italy’s longest river, cuts through a lush valley of grain and vegetable fields, which look like a green and gold ocean spreading out from the river’s banks.
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 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.
Climate change often comes down to how it affects water, whether it’s for drinking, electricity generation, or how flooding affects people and infrastructure. To better understand these impacts, ORNL water resources engineer Sudershan Gangrade is integrating knowledge ranging from large-scale climate projections to local meteorology and hydrology and using high-performance computing to create a holistic view of the future.
A new report published by ORNL assessed how advanced manufacturing and materials, such as 3D printing and novel component coatings, could offer solutions to modernize the existing fleet and design new approaches to hydropower.
Three researchers at ORNL have been named ORNL Corporate Fellows in recognition of significant career accomplishments and continued leadership in their scientific fields.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have identified a key need for future hydropower innovations – full-scale testing – to better inform developers and operators before making major investments.
Millions of miles of pipelines and conduits across the United States make up an intricate network of waterways used for municipal, agricultural and industrial purposes.
ORNL has provided hydropower operators with new data to better prepare for extreme weather events and shifts in seasonal energy demands caused by climate change.
As the United States moves toward more sustainable and renewable sources of energy, hydropower is expected to play a pivotal role in integrating more intermittent renewables like wind and solar to the electricity grid