![White car (Porsche Taycan) with the hood popped is inside the building with an american flag on the wall.](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_square_large/public/2024-06/2024-P09317.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=m6sQhZRq)
Filter News
Area of Research
News Topics
- (-) Fusion (54)
- (-) Mercury (12)
- (-) Net Zero (13)
- 3-D Printing/Advanced Manufacturing (119)
- Advanced Reactors (34)
- Artificial Intelligence (91)
- Big Data (53)
- Bioenergy (91)
- Biology (98)
- Biomedical (58)
- Biotechnology (22)
- Buildings (57)
- Chemical Sciences (63)
- Clean Water (29)
- Climate Change (99)
- Composites (26)
- Computer Science (187)
- Coronavirus (46)
- Critical Materials (25)
- Cybersecurity (35)
- Decarbonization (79)
- Education (4)
- Element Discovery (1)
- Emergency (2)
- Energy Storage (108)
- Environment (194)
- Exascale Computing (37)
- Fossil Energy (5)
- Frontier (42)
- Grid (62)
- High-Performance Computing (84)
- Hydropower (11)
- Irradiation (3)
- Isotopes (53)
- ITER (7)
- Machine Learning (47)
- Materials (143)
- Materials Science (139)
- Mathematics (7)
- Microelectronics (3)
- Microscopy (51)
- Molten Salt (8)
- Nanotechnology (60)
- National Security (61)
- Neutron Science (131)
- Nuclear Energy (107)
- Partnerships (43)
- Physics (61)
- Polymers (33)
- Quantum Computing (34)
- Quantum Science (69)
- Renewable Energy (2)
- Security (24)
- Simulation (47)
- Software (1)
- Space Exploration (25)
- Statistics (3)
- Summit (57)
- Sustainable Energy (125)
- Transformational Challenge Reactor (7)
- Transportation (97)
Media Contacts
![This simulation of a fusion plasma calculation result shows the interaction of two counter-streaming beams of super-heated gas. Credit: David L. Green/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-02/Fusion_plasma_simulation.jpg?h=d0852d1e&itok=CDWgjLPL)
The prospect of simulating a fusion plasma is a step closer to reality thanks to a new computational tool developed by scientists in fusion physics, computer science and mathematics at ORNL.
![Argon pellet injection text](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2019-11/13966_Ar_20degree_enhanced_0.jpg?h=8450e950&itok=tmff0GX_)
As scientists study approaches to best sustain a fusion reactor, a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory investigated injecting shattered argon pellets into a super-hot plasma, when needed, to protect the reactor’s interior wall from high-energy runaway electrons.
![Kathy McCarthy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2019-11/McCarthyHeadShot2018C.jpg?h=e7d676f3&itok=xsbZ-m2C)
Kathy McCarthy has been named director of the US ITER Project Office at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, effective March 2020.
![Cropped INFUSE logo](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2019-10/INFUSE_logo_cropped_0_0.jpg?h=99840d57&itok=4ca76j9U)
The U.S. Department of Energy announced funding for 12 projects with private industry to enable collaboration with DOE national laboratories on overcoming challenges in fusion energy development.
![Tungsten tiles for fusion](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2019-07/EBM-tungsten_tiles_ORNL.png?h=0c890573&itok=XgIsl0tA)
Using additive manufacturing, scientists experimenting with tungsten at Oak Ridge National Laboratory hope to unlock new potential of the high-performance heat-transferring material used to protect components from the plasma inside a fusion reactor. Fusion requires hydrogen isotopes to reach millions of degrees.
![Alex Johs at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2019-06/2019-p01807.jpg?h=f8570409&itok=KBUOueeI)
Sometimes solutions to the biggest problems can be found in the smallest details. The work of biochemist Alex Johs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory bears this out, as he focuses on understanding protein structures and molecular interactions to resolve complex global problems like the spread of mercury pollution in waterways and the food supply.
![An ORNL-developed graphite foam, which could be used in plasma-facing components in fusion reactors, performed well during testing at the Wendlestein 7-X stellarator in Germany.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2019-02/W7-XPlasmaExposure_0.jpg?h=d5d04e3b&itok=uKiauhdF)
Scientists have tested a novel heat-shielding graphite foam, originally created at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, at Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X stellarator with promising results for use in plasma-facing components of fusion reactors.
![Default image of ORNL entry sign](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-09/default-thumbnail.jpg?h=553c93cc&itok=N_Kd1DVR)
If you ask the staff and researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory how they were first referred to the lab, you will get an extremely varied list of responses. Some may have come here as student interns, some grew up in the area and knew the lab by ...
![Methanogen_mercury_study3.jpg Methanogen_mercury_study3.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/Methanogen_mercury_study3.jpg?itok=a79hsOOv)
Biologists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center have confirmed that microorganisms called methanogens can transform mercury into the neurotoxin methylmercury with varying efficiency across species.
![Lauren Garrison Lauren Garrison](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2015-P03829.jpg?itok=7aYmdo0N)
The materials inside a fusion reactor must withstand one of the most extreme environments in science, with temperatures in the thousands of degrees Celsius and a constant bombardment of neutron radiation and deuterium and tritium, isotopes of hydrogen, from the volatile plasma at th...