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(Knoxville News Sentinel) Following a ceremony last week at the Spallation Neutron Source, I had a chance to talk with ORNL Director Thom Mason about the state of the lab, etc., and not surprisingly he was pretty upbeat..."The budget that we got this year, even aside from Recovery Act, was very solid, and we've been very successful at competing for new programs and so forth. In some of the base programs of the lab, like Basic Energy Sciences, even setting aside the big facilities, we got almost a 30 percent increase in funding. And that's setting aside Recovery Act funding. So that's sustainable, long-term growth."...9/28
(Azomaterials.com) To recognize members for their distinguished contributions to the field of materials science and engineering, the 2009 Class of Fellows has been announced by ASM International, the U.S.-based materials information society...Dr. Craig A. Blue, Program Director for Energy Materials, Industrial Technologies and Fossil Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn.: For pioneering the development of advanced both black-body and plasma-based infrared processing technologies, and for application of advanced materials processing technologies in industrial applications...9/28
(UPC Wire) The University of Tennessee (UT) will receive $10 million from the National Science Foundation over four years to establish a new, state-of-the-art visualization and data analysis center aimed at interpreting the massive amounts of data produced by today's most powerful supercomputers. The TeraGrid eXtreme Digital Resources for Science and Engineering (XD) award will be used to fund UT's Center for Remote Data Analysis and Visualization (RDAV), a partnership between UT, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Wisconsin, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory...9/28
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(Knoxville News Sentinel) Jeff Christian is on the hunt for a perfect set of houses in which to demonstrate the ultimate energy home improvement project. After pouring his energy efficiency know-how into several newly constructed homes throughout the area, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher is setting his sights on existing homes, which represent the lion's share of residential energy usage. Thanks to promised stimulus funds - the final amount hasn't been determined - from the Department of Energy, Christian is beginning to recruit approximately 10 homeowners throughout East Tennessee to participate in a new effort that should improve energy efficiency in these houses 40-50 percent...9/29
(R&D Magazine) The Department of Energy's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), already the world's most powerful facility for pulsed neutron scattering science, is now the first pulsed spallation neutron source to break the one-megawatt barrier..."The attainment of one megawatt in beam power symbolizes the advancement in analytical resources that are now available to the neutron scattering community through the SNS," said ORNL Director Thom Mason, who led the SNS project during its construction. "This is a great achievement not only for DOE and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but for the entire community of science."...9/28
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National
(Wall Street Journal) The Obama administration and its Western allies are looking at new ways to constrict Iran's energy, transportation and financial sectors in the wake of last week's revelation that Tehran had secretly developed a second nuclear-fuel facility...9/29
East Tennessee
(Knoxville News Sentinel) TVA announced today it has tapped a manager of three extensive environmental cleanup efforts to become general manager of the Kingston Ash Recovery Project. Effective immediately, Steve McCracken will be responsible for all aspects of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s role in the coal fly ash recovery effort at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Harriman...9/28
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DOE
(Canadian Driver) The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has joined with researchers to develop and test a new method for predicting the real-world fuel and electricity consumption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is working with the Idaho National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. After examining data, the NREL-developed method shows promise for reasonably predicting the PHEV’s average fuel and electricity use...9/29
State & Regional
(Chemical Online) Eastman Chemical Company has been ranked 95th on Newsweek magazine's list of the 500 Greenest Companies in America. "Eastman has a proud history of responsible environmental stewardship," said Theresa Lee, senior vice president with responsibility for the company's environmental, health, safety and security programs...9/29
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energy & science policy
(NPR) ...The Interior Department has proposed allowing two dozen solar energy study areas on public land in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. These would be industrial facilities that would require huge amounts of land and water to operate. They wouldn't allow room for other uses on the land such as recreation...9/28
(The Plain Dealer) A Senate version of controversial and far-reaching federal climate-change legislation is expected Wednesday with initial hearings possible later in the week and throughout October. As passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in June, the so-called "cap-and-trade" law would remake American industry in ways that neither critics nor supporters have probably imagined...9/29
9/28 A daily report on U.S. energy policy
[ORNL users only]
-Carbon price 'essential:' Exelon CEO
-Co-ops urge affordable climate bill
-Large munis advocate price collar
-OTC ban seen hindering CO2 market
-DOJ aims to reinstate drilling plan
-Facts on 'fracking' lacking: IPAA
science & technology
(NY Times) ...Over the past 10 years, scientists have made enormous strides in their ability to identify and make images of the underlying mechanics of flowing air and water, and to predict how objects move through these flows...9/29
(National Geographic News) New species discovered along Asia's Mekong River in 2008—including a leopard gecko and a fanged frog that eats birds—are already under serious threat because of climate change, WWF says...9/28
(Wired Science) That dark matter has never been found is no deterrent to the physicists who are looking for it. “Even if we don’t know what dark matter is, we know how it must act,” said Eduardo Abancens, a physicist at Spain’s University of Zaragoza and designer of a prototype dark matter detector...9/28
(PhysOrg.com) Since May 2009, the tropical Pacific Ocean has switched from a cool pattern of ocean circulation known as La Niña to her warmer sibling, El Niño. This cyclical warming of the ocean waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific generally occurs every three to seven years, and is linked with changes in the strength of the trade winds...9/29
Other Stories
(NY Times) When President Obama stood last week with the leaders of Britain and France to denounce Iran’s construction of a secret nuclear plant, the Western powers all appeared to be on the same page...9/29
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