Scientists at ORNL completed a study of how well vegetation survived extreme heat events in both urban and rural communities across the country in recent years. The analysis informs pathways for climate mitigation, including ways to reduce the effect of urban heat islands.
ORNL researchers modeled how hurricane cloud cover would affect solar energy generation as a storm followed 10 possible trajectories over the Caribbean and Southern U.S.
A first-ever dataset bridging molecular information about the poplar tree microbiome to ecosystem-level processes has been released by a team of DOE scientists led by ORNL. The project aims to inform research regarding how natural systems function, their vulnerability to a changing climate and ultimately how plants might be engineered for better performance as sources of bioenergy and natural carbon storage.
The 2023 top science achievements from HFIR and SNS feature a broad range of materials research published in high impact journals such as Nature and Advanced Materials.
Lee's paper at the August conference in Bellevue, Washington, combined weather and power outage data for three states – Texas, Michigan and Hawaii – and used a machine learning model to predict how extreme weather such as thunderstorms, floods and tornadoes would affect local power grids and to estimate the risk for outages. The paper relied on data from the National Weather Service and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environment for Analysis of Geo-Located Energy Information, or EAGLE-I, database.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are supporting the grid by improving its smallest building blocks: power modules that act as digital switches.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a nationwide modeling tool to help infrastructure planners decide where and when to locate electric vehicle charging stations along interstate highways. The goal is to encourage the adoption of EVs for cross-country travel.