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Scientists designing the world’s first controlled nuclear fusion power plant, ITER, needed to solve the problem of runaway electrons, negatively charged particles in the soup of matter in the plasma within the tokamak, the magnetic bottle intended to contain the massive energy produced. Simulations performed on Summit, the 200-petaflop supercomputer at ORNL, could offer the first step toward a solution.

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Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using non-weather data from the nationwide weather radar network to understand how to track non-meteorological events moving through the air for better emergency response. 

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Researchers at Stanford University, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, or ECMWF, and ORNL used the lab’s Summit supercomputer to better understand atmospheric gravity waves, which influence significant weather patterns that are difficult to forecast. 

Man is flying drone in hurricane aftermath, holding the controller

During Hurricanes Helene and Milton, ORNL deployed drone teams and the Mapster platform to gather and share geospatial data, aiding recovery and damage assessments. ORNL's EAGLE-I platform tracked utility outages, helping prioritize recovery efforts. Drone data will train machine learning models for faster damage detection in future disasters. 

Summit Supercomputer

Scientists conducted a groundbreaking study on the genetic data of over half a million U.S. veterans, using tools from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to analyze 2,068 traits from the Million Veteran Program.

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A team of researchers at ORNL are using virtual reality to understand normal and abnormal human behavior in a given location – specifically, a nuclear reactor. As people move around their lives, they tend to do similar activities in the same
Pictured is a map that is color-coded into purple, black, orange, pink and yellow to depict building density and color based on morphology to predict height

Researchers are using machine learning to provide a more complete picture of building geometries that include building height to within three meters of accuracy. This model not only provides building height for any building in the world, but it will also feed into LandScan and other large government datasets for planning and response. 

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The Summit supercomputer did not have its many plugs pulled as planned after its five years of service. Instead, a new DOE Office of Science-backed allocation program called SummitPLUS was launched, extending Summit's production for another year. What did we learn during Summit’s bonus year of scientific discovery? Here are five projects with important results.

Big group photo standing outside of a brick building with text underneath describing the IAEA workshop on safety, security and safeguards

In early November, ORNL hosted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Interregional Workshop on Safety, Security and Safeguards by Design in Small Modular Reactors, which welcomed 76 attendees representing 15 countries, three U.S. national labs, domestic and international industry partners, as well as IAEA officers. 

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Joel Brogan, who leads the Multimodal Sensor Analytics group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elevated to senior membership in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.