1. Nuclear Power and Research Reactors-From the Manhattan Project to the Generation of Electricity
The 1940s saw the birth of a number of power reactor concepts, with some developments considered still valid technologies. Because uranium was thought to be so scarce, some scientists came up with the idea of a fast reactor that would produce excess consumable plutonium.In 1945, Wigner and Harry Soodak published the first design for a breeder reactor cooled by sodium.
2. Reactor Chemistry - The Discovery of Promethium
In 1914, the year before he was killed in action in World War I, his work affected the final ordering of elements in the periodic table. Talented British physicists proved that between the rare earths neodymium and samarium there should exist the element 61. 1941-42 American chemists tried to make the element 61, but could not prove that the element had been made.
In 1945, under the leadership of Charles Coryell, chemists Jacob Marinsky and Larry Glendenin, working on a graphite reactor, made element 61.They obtained the element by fissioning uranium and bombarding neodymium with neutrons from fissioned uranium in the reactor. Working in a nearby thermal laboratory and chemistry building, they used ion-exchange chromatography to chemically identify two isotopes of element 61 for the first time.
Marinsky and Glendenin announced their chemical proof of the existence of element 61 at the 1947 meeting of the American Chemical Society, and in 1948, while working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they suggested that the element 61 "promethium" be named Prometheus (a Greek mythological giant. Prometheus (a giant in Greek mythology who, according to legend, was chained to a Caucasian cliff and tortured by divine eagles for stealing fire from the sky and giving it to mankind, angering the god Zeus). The idea came from Coryell's wife, Grace Mary, and the name was accepted by the International Union of Chemical Societies in 1949.
Promethium is a radioactive metal that has not been found to emit beta in the Earth's crust, and is seen in the spectrum of a star in the constellation Andromeda. Promethium 147 is used in instrumented nuclear power cells in missiles.
3. Nuclear isotopes
During World War II, the Oak Ridge Y-12 plant was used to electromagnetically separate two uranium isotopes to produce weapons-grade material for the Manhattan Project. After the end of the Great War, all but one of the halls of electromagnetic-type isotope separators were converted to other uses. The remaining facilities were turned over to ORNL to produce many isotopes for peaceful purposes.
4. Nuclear Medicine - Diagnosis and Treatment of Disease
Converting the radioisotopes produced at ORNL into reagents that can restore human health has long been a goal of ORNL's nuclear medicine researchers, who since the mid-1970s, under the leadership of Russ Knapp, have developed medical scans for the diagnosis of heart disease. The reagents have been tested in 350,000 patient studies around the world, industrially produced in Japan and Russia, and used to treat countless heart attack patients.The ORNL reagents, which are fatty acids labeled with radioactive iodine, can be used to detect how much of the heart muscle is still alive after a heart attack, and to predict whether bypass surgery or balloon-like angioplasty will restore all blood flow.
5. Nuclear Fuel-Developing New Processes
During World War II, the graphite reactor at Oak Ridge was operated as a pilot plant for demonstrating plutonium production, and ORNL researchers developed chemical processes for separating plutonium from spent uranium fuel and fission products. They used precipitation to extract plutonium from used fuel dissolved in nitric acid to design and apply the process.
6. Nuclear Fuel-New Designs for the Nuclear Industry
In the late 1940s, an ORNL group led by Eugene Wigner designed water-cooled heat-releasing elements to ensure that materials test reactors produced high enough neutron enrichment to determine which of the best-supported materials could be used in future reactors. The group designed the uranium heat-release elements to be placed between aluminum plates, surrounded on the outside by beryllium, to reflect neutrons back into the core.Wigner's most famous invention was to bend the aluminum plates so that in very hot conditions they bent in only one direction, preventing the compression of the water-coolant flux, which determines the neutron flow strength. This design was modeled for American research reactors and submarine cores.
7. Nuclear Fuel-International Software
SCALE is an easy-to-use computer software system used to determine whether the design of a nuclear device and the transmission or storage of data packages comply with nuclear safety standards.The system developed by ORNL has been used around the world to answer nuclear safety questions. For example, is a storage tank containing spent nuclear fuel sufficiently shielded to prevent employees from reaching harmful radiation levels? Would the design of the canisters, the placement of the canisters in a flatbed truck or train car, prevent a criticality accident involving uncontrolled release of energy and radiation?
8. Nuclear Safety - Understanding the Challenges
ORNL plays a role in nuclear safety in countless ways. It has trained more than 900 engineers in reactor design and safety operations. The Laboratory has published the Journal of Nuclear Safety for more than 30 years, and since the 1960s, ORNL has had a major impact on nuclear criticality safety - using industrial controls to prevent the potential consequences of unintentional uncontrolled chain reactions in uranium or plutonium processing, storage, and transportation. ORNL researchers have provided several standards for criticality safety and managed an international group that endorsed this guidance. by an international panel.
9. Nuclear Desalination - Longing for a Solution
The United Nations estimates that almost 1 in 6 of the world's 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe drinking water. One solution is to take water from the oceans and get rid of the salt.
10, Nuclear Non-Proliferation - Reducing the Nuclear Threat
In 2002, the ORNL group, along with experts from the U.S. Nuclear Security Administration, the State Department, and the International Atomic Energy Commission, safely removed 50 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium from a reactor in Yugoslavia. The material was shipped to Russia for conversion to reactor-grade fuel.
In an effort to reduce excess weapons-grade plutonium from U.S. and Russian reactors, ORNL manages multiple efforts to produce, irradiate, and test plutonium-based MOX fuel for light-water reactors, and ORNL manages and works with Russia to develop the technology needed to produce MOX fuel for Russian reactors.
Through its efforts to commercialize and re-industrialize technologies inherent to weapons researchers in the former Soviet Union, ORNL is creating meaningful work for them.
11. Neutron Scattering-An Instrument of Change
Clifford Shull, who pioneered materials research using neutron scattering at the Oak Ridge Graphite Reactor, shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1994.Shull and his mentor, Ernest Wollan, used neutron scattering to determine where the atoms in a crystal were located. where they are. Neutron scattering has been used around the world to study the structure and dynamics of materials, resulting in the development of strong plastics, improved magnetic materials seen in small electric motors, credit cards, computer disks, and CD disks. in late 1945, Wollan, who had studied solids and gases with X-ray scattering, considered studying scattering with neutrons from a graphite reactor. He produced a single-wavelength neutron beam stream by passing reactor neutrons through a crystal, and used a spectrometer to measure the angle and energy of the neutron scattering that occurs from interactions with the nuclei of the atoms in it. This information helped reveal the structure of matter.
12. Semiconductors-Building the Digital Future
Over the past 40 years, ORNL researchers have provided important information and technology that has produced the semiconductor industry and increased the economic significance of the industry.
In 1962, Ordean Oen and Mark Robinson conducted theoretical studies of radiation damage in crystalline materials along with computer simulations revealing that ionic channels affect the long-range motion of atoms parallel to long rows of atoms in solids. This work, along with high-energy ion-channeling experiments by Bill Appleton, Charles Moak, Sheldon Datz, Herb Krause, and others, enables an understanding of channeling phenomena that can help industry produce semiconductor materials with the correct properties for implanting ions.
13, Semiconductors-Transmitting Electricity
The power grid of the future will be much more efficient thanks to high-temperature superconducting wires and cables.ORNL researchers, working with industrial partners, have developed high-temperature superconducting wires that have much less resistance than copper wires, using a phenomenon discovered in 1986. Equipment using such wires takes up less space, is less expensive to operate, and uses less energy when compared to equivalent technologies. Superconducting cables in the U.S. power grid conduct five times more electricity than copper wires of the same size and dimension. Because high-temperature superconducting cables lose very little energy in the form of heat, losses in electrical transmission are cut in half, from 8 percent to 4 percent.
14, ion-implanted materials - really artificial joints
At ORNL, the remarkable discovery of ion channels by purely theoretical means eventually led to the development of an accelerator-based program to introduce ions into materials. The researchers found that ion implantation can improve the surface of many materials, including alloys used to make artificial hips and knees.
15. Environmental Impact Analysis - Finding the Balance
Facilities funded or approved by the federal government must be carefully examined for the effects of the work before they are built. Their costs and benefits must be weighed in an environmental impact statement. Such environmental impact statements have been prepared for nuclear power plants since 1971.Researchers at ORNL and three other national laboratories were involved in a contingency program to draft environmental impact statements for 90 operating nuclear power plants and those under construction or under design. In the 1970s, ORNL was also involved in deciding whether to build cooling towers for power plants proposed to protect striped bass in the Hudson River.ORNL engineers developed an electronic marker that was surgically implanted in the rain. The marker emits an ultrasonic signal that is used to observe changes in the salmon as they approach the hydroelectric dam - information that helps the fish pass safely upstream and downstream of the dam.
16. Environmental Quality - Planting the Seeds of Science
How do radioactive and hazardous materials from industrial facilities affect the plants and animals that make up ecosystems? How do ecosystems interact with the Earth's atmosphere?ORNL researchers have helped answer these and other questions for more than 50 years, breaking new ground in ecological research.
17. Space Exploration-The Last Frontier of Science
On August 20, 2002, NASA celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Voyager 2 space probe's journey through the solar system-possibly mankind's greatest feat of exploration of the universe. Voyager 2 sent back to Earth striking photographs of the topography, rings and moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2 was more than 6 billion miles away from the sun and carried materials manufactured by ORNL.
18, Graphite and Carbon Products - From Missiles to NASCAR
The name Graphite Reactor recognizes the properties that graphite needs to have. This form of crystallized carbon was chosen as the reducer for the first reactor at Oak Ridge and the Hanford Plutonium Generating Reactor. Graphite not only slows down the neutrons produced in uranium fission enough to allow plutonium to form, but it also becomes stronger at higher temperatures and resistant to radiation damage.
19, Advanced Materials-Alloys for Industrial Use
Materials SynthesisThe first alloy developed commercially by ORNL was the hydrochloric acid-resistant nickel-based alloy-N, first sold by International Nickel and marketed by Haynes International. This nickel-molybdenum-copper-iron alloy was developed by Hank Inouye and others and contains the fuel used in the molten salt reactors developed by ORNL. The alloy is resistant to aging, fracture and corrosion caused by exposure to hot fluoride-containing salts.
20, Advanced Materials-Tools, Turbines, and Diesel Engines
Many inventions don't make it from the lab to the factory for 10 to 15 years, but an ORNL ceramic became a commercial product three years after its discovery. The ceramic at this collection of celebrity relics is a composite of aluminum oxides and microscopic silicon carbide SiC whiskers made from common rice husks.
21. Biotechnology - Removal with Bacteria
One early example of ORNL's biotechnology was a 1972 demonstration by Chet Francis that bacteria in garden soil could remove nitrates and rare elements from industrial wastewater. an experimental bioreactor to treat nitrate waste. The Oak Ridge Y-12 National Security Package utilized the Francis design for a plant to treat nitrate waste. Biological treatment of subsurface wastes using recombinant and natural bacteria continues at these sites.
In the 1997 lysimeter experiment, ORNL employed genetically engineered microbes to detect soil contaminants; U.S. government agencies first approved it for controlled release to the environment at a Department of Energy site.
In the 1960s, Howard Adler and his assistants studied the effects of radiation on E. coli. Some of the radiation-damaged bacteria died, mysteriously unless they grew in the presence of other bacteria. The ultimate explanation was the presence of enzymes from the membrane portion of those other bacteria, which removed oxygen from the medium, allowing the damaged E. coli to recover.
Adler and Jim Copeland developed a technique for extracting and refrigerating these film fragments, and for using them to remove oxygen from the liquid medium that supports anaerobic microorganisms that die in oxygen. Their technique helped in the early detection of diseases caused by anaerobic microorganisms and the production of chemicals like butanol, such as tetanus and gangrene.In 1987, they founded Oxyrase, Inc. and continue to sell diagnostic media to hospital pathology and research laboratories in North and South America, Asia, and Europe.
Utilizing a new microorganism that converts common sugars to succinic acid, which is needed in the production of de-icers, food additives, solvents, and finally plastics, ORNL and other national laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy, along with Applied Carbo-Chemicals, developed a fermentation process.ORNL's Nhuan Nghiem and Brian Davison of ORNL developed the fermentation process in a bioreactor. Applied Carbon-Chemicals demonstrated this soon to be commercialized process for fermenting 100,000 liters.
22, Photosynthesis - Discovering Light
Discovering Light Several ORNL biologists interested in studying green plant cells and radiation have focused on photosynthesis.
23, Biosystems - A Glimpse of the Factory of Life
ORNL develops its biological research program with the aim of determining the nature of radiation and the effects of radiation on living cells.
These studies are motivated by concerns about the health effects of radiation from reactors, atomic weapons testing, and radioactive elements that enter the human body. Alexander Hollaender, a world authority on radiation biology, came to Oak Ridge in 1946 to lead ORNL researchers in studies of the effects of radiation on microorganisms, fruit flies, plants and, later, rats. He developed an extensive program that for a time made ORNL the largest biological laboratory in the world. Twenty researchers who had worked in the biological sciences at ORNL were elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
24. Computational Biology-Discovering Genes, Predicting Protein Structures
ORNL's computational biology researchers have been instrumental in engineering the human genome. 2001 saw the publication of sketches of the human genome in special issues of the journals Science and Nature, both of which referenced ORNL's bioinformatics research. ORNL's Frank Larimer, Jay Snoddy, and Ed Uberbacher were listed as two of the authors of the main paper in that issue of Nature.The GRAIL discovery gene tool developed by Uberbacher and Richard Mural was used in this work, and it was mentioned in Science's Chronology of the Genome Project.
Ying Xu and Dong Xu developed the Protein Structure Prediction and Evaluation Computer Toolbox (PROSPECT), a computational tool for predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins derived from amino acid sequences. Understanding these specific protein 3D structures is critical for disease research and drug discovery. PROSPECT can determine protein geometry in hours rather than the months required by traditional experiments. It is one of the best tools in the world for predicting protein structure.
25, Biomedical Technology-Screening and Preventing Disease
Over the past 50 years, ORNL researchers have invented big instruments, small analyzers, and small chips to diagnose or prevent human diseases and minor ailments.
In 1950, a group at ORNL, led by physicist P. R. Bell, invented an improved scintillation spectrometer that measured the number and intensity of flashes of light produced from phosphorescent bodies proportional to the radiation striking those crystals. The multiplexed analyzer recorded these scintillations with an electronics device that enabled rapid analysis of beta and gamma radiation energy.
In 1956, Bell's group found ways to incorporate electronic computers into medical scanners to more accurately highlight tumors that had absorbed radioisotopes, thus making it unnecessary to open up a surgery to check for cancer.These commercial models of imaging machines developed at ORNL are used in major medical centers around the world to ferret out the location of malignant tumors so that they can be treated to prolong the lives of patients.
In 1961, with funding from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the National Institutes of Health, a group at ORNL, led by Norman Anderson, discovered medical applications for centrifugation techniques used to produce enriched uranium for nuclear reactor fuel. The researchers demonstrated that fast spin separators, which separate substances into molecular components based on size and density, could purify vaccines by removing foreign proteins that could cause side effects in immunized patients. By 1967, commercial strip centrifuges based on ORNL's invention were producing safer vaccines for countless people.
Under Anderson's guidance, Charles Scott and other ORNL researchers invented liftable, rapid centrifugal analyzers in the late sixties and seventies for use in medical clinics throughout the United States. These analyzers tested the composition of bleeding, urine, and other fluids in the body in minutes, recording data for medical diagnosis.
The best-known of these machines was ORNL's GeMSAEC, which was co-funded by the General Medical Sciences Branch of the National Institutes of Health and the Atomic Energy Commission***. Using a rotor that spins 15 transparent tubes through a beam of light, the GeMSAEC displays the results on an oscilloscope, feeds the data into a computer, and completes 15 medical analyses in the same amount of time it took for a previous analysis. Medical analyzers based on this invention are used in many U.S. clinics.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Carl Burtis of ORNL invented the blood rotor, which utilized the latest technology and was based on the GeMSAEC concept. This small analyzer employs a variety of reagents that interact with blood components in the presence of a light beam, and is designed to provide clinicians and veterinarians with rapid and simultaneous measurements of human and animal blood components. The technology was transferred to Abaxis in 1992, and blood analyzers based on this technology are still produced.
In the 1990s, a technique to determine whether esophageal tumors were benign or malignant was developed by Tuan Vo Dinh of ORNL and Bergein Overholt and Masoud Panjehpour of the Thompson Cancer Survival Center in Knoxville. malignant by a nonsurgical laser technique.
This optical sensor uses an endoscope, a fiber optic, a laser, and algorithmic rules to collect and compare fluorescent patterns in the esophagus (normal malignant tissue is different). The sensor has been tested in 1,000 samples from 200 patients at the Thomson Cancer Lifesaving Center. Optical and surgical biopsies agreed in 98 percent of the trials, and ORNL has transferred the optical biopsy technology to the Oak Ridge Cancer Immediate Laboratory in Nashville.
Vo-Dinh, Alan Wintenberg, and others have invented an advanced, multifunctional biochip system that could someday quickly diagnose many diseases in a doctor's office. The technology has been transferred to HealthSpex Inc. of Oak Ridge.
An improved version of the "lab-on-a-chip" invented in the early 1990s by ORNL researcher Mike Ramsey has been commercialized by Caliper Technologies. These matchbox-sized chips have several channels thinner than a human hair, which are connected to a memory, all of which is etched on a tiny glass plate using micromachining technology. The chips can be used to analyze DNA, RNA, proteins, and cells.Caliper Technologies Inc. also sells equipment for high-input-output information-passage experiments aimed at drug discovery. The company's sales in 2001 were nearly $30 million, up 59 percent from 2000.
26. Smart Machines - Reducing Risks with Robotics
Mechanical manipulators have long been used in shielded rooms for work with highly radioactive materials to prevent users from coming into contact with them. Since the late 1970s, ORNL researchers have invented remote-controlled, dexterous servo manipulators that can be watched on television. This "remote-control" technology made it possible to work in radioactive areas that were too dangerous for people. This technology extends an earlier concept developed at Argonne National Laboratory, which initiated the ORNL robotics research. Since then, remote-control technology has been applied to nuclear fuel reprocessing, military battlefield munitions management, gas pedals, fusion reactors, and the U.S. Department of Energy's National Waste Plant Environmental Cleanup Project (e.g., remotely operated plasma arcs cutting through metal structures to remove contaminated equipment).
27, Hazardous Radioprotection Science and Radiometrics - Helping to Determine the Guiding Principles of Radiation Protection
When Chicago got its first controlled chain reaction in December 1942, a number of physicists measured the intensity of radiation at the workplace. Because the Manhattan Project had begun, there was a need to measure radiation emitted by man-made nuclides and to control radioactive contamination at the workplace by means of "hazardous radiation protection science".
28, radiation shielding - safety first
In the 1930s, Eugene Wigner invented a formula that showed that some materials were more effective than others in receiving or slowing down neutron scattering. This work established the basis for radiation protection research.
By 1951, under the direction of Everitt Blizard, ORNL became the place to perform calculations to determine the thickness and configuration of lead, steel, and concrete shielding needed to protect people and equipment from exposure to harmful radiation intensities. For the later abortive nuclear airplane project, ORNL researchers worked hard to find lightweight shielding materials to protect the crews of airplanes powered by small nuclear reactors from radiation. To provide data for this effort, the ORNL Integral Shielding Reactor and Tower Shielding Unit were built in the 1950s.
In 1958, ORNL researchers developed the Neutron Transmission Code and the Photon Transmission Code, whose shielding configurations optimally protect humans from neutron and gamma radiation, and in 1959 they evaluated the effectiveness of reactor shielding proposed for the Savannah, the first and only nuclear-powered civilian vessel in the United States.
In 1966, the Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator began providing shielding code developers with data on how radiation interacts with individual atoms in shielding materials. The gas pedal helped scientists answer questions like "How much neutron radiation is trapped or scattered by the nucleus?" and "How much fission is caused in atoms?" Questions like.
In 1967, ORNL developed a computational simulation code that is still used to evaluate the effectiveness of radiation shielding, and in 1986, the Oak Ridge Transport Model was published; this first publicly available simulation code for radiation transport was able to solve extremely large, complex, and three-dimensional shielding problems.
ORNL's shielding research is being used in the design of fission neutron source targets, medical radiation therapy, and homeland security engineering.ORNL researchers also respond to requests for advice on difficult shielding problems.
29. Information Centers-Sharing Scientific Data
Forty years ago, ORNL Director Alvin Weinberg led a presidential task force to study solutions to the rapidly growing volume of data. The panel recommended the creation of specialized information-processing centers charged with reviewing, analyzing, crunching, and interpreting scientific literature for the scientific community.
30, Energy Efficiency-Low Energy Consumption, High Cooling
Over the past three decades, ORNL has pioneered the development of freezing systems that consume less energy and pose less of a threat to the environment. This was made possible by the rise in energy prices since the 1970s due to the unstable supply of oil imported for fuel; the need to reduce targets for coal-fired power plants and therefore cut climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions, and the need to replace conventional coolants containing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in order to preserve the ozone layer that protects us in the stratosphere.
31. Energy efficiency - low energy consumption and high thermal efficiency
The Earth stores almost half of the energy it receives from the sun, which is at least 500 times more than the energy humans need each year. By tapping into this vast energy storage capacity, geothermal heating pumps heat and cool buildings and provide hot water. Utilizing underground pipes that do not interfere with environmental fluids, geothermal heating pumps transfer heat from hotter ground to buildings in the winter and heat from buildings to cooler ground in the summer.
32, Energy Efficiency - Buildings of the Future
After the 1974 Arab oil embargo on the U.S., long lines at U.S. gas stations, and skyrocketing energy prices, ORNL was asked to serve as the program administrator of the federal government's energy efficiency study. The ORNL Household Energy Conservation Program, led by Roger Carlsmith, works to reduce the use of oil, gas, and electricity (20 percent of which is supplied by fuel oil plants) in homes. Because heating and cooling account for 50 to 70 percent of the energy used in the average U.S. home, energy consumption and payments can be substantially reduced by adding insulation to cut off unwanted heat flow through walls.ORNL researchers study ways to improve insulation and calculate the amount of energy saved when insulation is added to homes and businesses.
33, Chemistry and Mass Spectrometry Succeed
ORNL chemists pioneered the invention of separating plutonium from other fission products derived from spent uranium fuel at its graphite reactors, thus achieving the mission the lab undertook to end World War II.
34, NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND ASTERO-PHYSICS-From Atoms to Exploding Planets
Nuclear physics research at ORNL began in the late 1940s, primarily because of the need for information on the behavior of neutrons produced by reactors and on the effects on shielding materials for the nuclear airplane project.In 1948 Arthur Snell began his research using a modified 3MV electrostatic gas pedal. This 3MV electrostatic gas pedal was a high-voltage DC gas pedal that produced neutron beams by bombarding lithium with protons. 1951 saw the installation of a 5MV electrostatic gas pedal, the highest-energy gas pedal of its kind in the world.
35. High-Performance Computing-Shocking the Limits
For 50 years, ORNL has been a leader in advancing computation. in 1954, an ORNL team led by Alston Householder, in collaboration with the Argonne National Laboratory, built a computer that, compared to other computers around the world, had the fastest and with the largest data storage capacity. Known as the Oak Ridge Automated Computer and Logic Engine, the machine helped scientists solve many problems in nuclear physics, radiation effects, and shielding aspects of engineering the development of the Doom nuclear airplane.
36, Software Simulation - A Model for Scientific Discovery
ORNL has had a major impact on software and algorithms used for scientific discovery worldwide. In the late 1980s, ORNL developed Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) software. With over 400,000 users in the mid-nineties, this software became the de facto standard worldwide for combining computers into virtual supercomputers.
37. Geographic Information Systems - Tracking the Earth
ORNL pioneered geographic information science in 1969, and more than a decade later the commercial geographic information systems (GIS) industry developed.GIS is a computerized system that collects, stores, controls, and displays geographic information, including imagery collected by satellites and aircraft. ORNL has used GIS to bring together several multidisciplinary research programs involving problems of local to global scope.
38, Transportation Logistics - Finding Shortcuts
What is the fastest way to move troops and needed equipment from U.S. bases to foreign bases for possible military operations? Thanks to special software developed for the U.S. Air Force by researchers at ORNL and the University of Tennessee, U.S. troops and equipment can be airlifted to potential war zones faster than ever before.
39. Biomass Energy - A New World for Wood
Industry has a more efficient source of pulp and wood for paper, building materials, and furniture thanks to a Department of Energy program that ORNL has managed for 20 years. The original purpose of the DOE's Feedstock Development for Bioenergy program was to develop sustainable crops that could be converted to fuel to be grown on farms. However, as a result of ORNL's work with the U.S. Agricultural Forest Service, agricultural research stations, several universities, and several forest products companies, several fast-growing trees and grasses have been selected and developed that can be used for wood products and energy. Aspen and willow jig millet emerged as typical crops.
40.Fusion Energy - Searching for the Last Source of Energy
Scientists from Russia and Japan to Europe and the United States have long sought to develop fusion energy as an abundant, safe and environmentally friendly source of electricity. To reach this ambitious goal, they must overcome problems within the range of scientific and engineering disciplines.ORNL is known in the international fusion community as a laboratory and as a laboratory with strong contributions in virtually every discipline of fusion science and engineering and with technologies that maintain a central role in the development of fusion energy.
41. Technology Transfer - From Bench to Market
For more than four decades, many of the technologies developed at ORNL have been transformed into the practical products and service programs that form the basis for the creation of new companies. As part of the Laboratory, ORNL's technology transfer programs and the economic growth they generate are "downstream" by-products of basic science research. Indeed, since April 30, 2000, 30 new companies have been formed using technology transferred from ORNL, including many in the Oak Ridge area.
42. Science Education - Laying the Foundation
Since its inception, ORNL has provided resources for educational training and research opportunities.When Eugene Wigner became ORNL's director of research in early 1946, he established the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology. The school became a model for nuclear engineering programs at several universities and was ORNL's greatest contribution to nuclear energy. Some of the school's graduates went on to become leaders in the nuclear industry, including Capt. Hyman G. Rickover, who came to ORNL to see if nuclear energy was available to the U.S. Navy.
43, Waste Management - Ending the Nuclear Cycle
Sixty years after graphite reactors became critical, today ORNL is helping to end the nuclear cycle by discovering safe ways to isolate nuclear waste. Probably the most important work relates to the siting of geologically disposed used fuel and highly radioactive nuclear waste storage sites, and it was part of the effort that led to Congressional approval of Silk Mountain (Nevada) as a possible disposal site. The effort began with a 1955 meeting of the National Academy of Sciences devoted to the development of a U.S. plan for the permanent disposal of reactor waste. Among the 65 scientists in attendance were ORNL scientists Floyd Culler, Roy Morton, and Ed Struxness.The attendees recommended the use of layered salts as the best method for disposal of highly radioactive waste, although other options existed.
44. Government Policy-Helping Science in the U.S.
ORNL's research has provided important information to the federal government's science and technology policy decision makers, creating controversy and sometimes becoming the wording of various laws, regulations, and other policies. For example, since the 1960s, ORNL research has led to the development of several regulatory standards that have improved the safety of nuclear power plant operations.
45. The Future of ORNL-The Next Generation of Great Science Parks
In 1943, more than 6,000 workers began construction on the roughly 150 buildings that would later comprise ORNL, which is being rebuilt by the Laboratory's entire staff. In addition to the $1.4 billion Scattered Neutron Source SNS, a $300 million modernization program will make it possible to attract the next generation of world-class scientists to ORNL. Privately Funded Facility:Built on land transferred by deed from the Department of Energy, the 300,000-square-foot facility houses state-of-the-art energy and computational science experiments.