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ORNL’s Bruce Pint, left, and Marie Romedenne review experiment results. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Practical fusion energy is not just a dream at ORNL. Experts in fusion and material science are working together to develop solutions that will make a fusion pilot plant — and ultimately carbon-free, abundant fusion electricity — possible.

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ORNL scientists will present new technologies available for licensing during the annual Technology Innovation Showcase. The event is 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday, June 16, at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL’s Hardin Valley campus.

A team of fusion scientists and engineers stand in front of ORNL’s Helium Flow Loop device. From back left to front right: Chris Crawford, Fayaz Rasheed, Joy Fan, Michael Morrow, Charles Kessel, Adam Carroll, and Cody Wiggins. Not pictured: Dennis Youchison and Monica Gehrig. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL.

To achieve practical energy from fusion, extreme heat from the fusion system “blanket” component must be extracted safely and efficiently. ORNL fusion experts are exploring how tiny 3D-printed obstacles placed inside the narrow pipes of a custom-made cooling system could be a solution for removing heat from the blanket.

LandScan Global depicts population distribution estimates across the planet. The darker orange and red colors above indicate higher population density. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

It’s a simple premise: To truly improve the health, safety, and security of human beings, you must first understand where those individuals are.

The ORNL researchers’ findings may enable better detection of uranium tetrafluoride hydrate, a little-studied byproduct of the nuclear fuel cycle, and better understanding of how environmental conditions influence the chemical behavior of fuel cycle materials. Credit: Kevin Pastoor/Colorado School of Mines

ORNL researchers used the nation’s fastest supercomputer to map the molecular vibrations of an important but little-studied uranium compound produced during the nuclear fuel cycle for results that could lead to a cleaner, safer world.

ORNL, VA and Harvard researchers developed a sparse matrix full of anonymized information on what is thought to be the largest cohort of healthcare data used for this type of research in the U.S. The matrix can be probed with different methods, such as KESER, to gain new insights into human health. Credit: Nathan Armistead/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A team of researchers has developed a novel, machine learning–based  technique to explore and identify relationships among medical concepts using electronic health record data across multiple healthcare providers.

ORNL scientists created a new microbial trait mapping process that improves on classical protoplast fusion techniques to identify the genes that trigger desirable genetic traits like improved biomass processing. Credit: Nathan Armistead/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy. Reprinted with the permission of Oxford University Press, publisher of Nucleic Acids Research

ORNL scientists had a problem mapping the genomes of bacteria to better understand the origins of their physical traits and improve their function for bioenergy production.

High voltage power lines carry electricity generated by the Tennessee Valley Authority to ORNL. Credit: Dobie Gillispie/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

ORNL and the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA, are joining forces to advance decarbonization technologies from discovery through deployment through a new memorandum of understanding, or MOU.

 Caption: This computer-generated image of the JET tokamak shows what one would see if its walls were transparent, revealing the plasma inside. Credit: UK Atomic Energy Authority

A new fusion record was announced February 9 in the United Kingdom: At the Joint European Torus, or JET, the team documented the generation of 59 megajoules of sustained fusion energy, more than doubling the

ORNL fusion scientist Elijah Martin is working with TAE Technologies to demonstrate the feasibility of field-reversed configuration reactors, a possible alternative to the traditional tokamak-based devices. Credit: ORNL.

ORNL manages the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy Program, or INFUSE, with Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, to help the private sector find solutions to technical challenges that need to be resolved to make practical fusion energy a reality.