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non-powered dam

Although more than 92,000 dams populate the country, the vast majority — about 89,000 — do not generate electricity through hydropower.

ORNL researchers are developing a method to print low-cost, high-fidelity, customizable sensors for monitoring power grid equipment. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A method developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to print high-fidelity, passive sensors for energy applications can reduce the cost of monitoring critical power grid assets.

Philip Bingham

Philip Bingham has two pieces of advice for researchers new to Oak Ridge National Laboratory: (1) develop a skill set that can be applied to multiple research areas, and (2) get out and meet folks across the lab. “The favorite part of my work is that I’ve done a lot of very diffe...

The sensors measure parameters like temperature, chemicals and electric grid elements for industrial and electrical applications. Credit: Carlos Jones/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Brixon, Inc., has exclusively licensed a multiparameter sensor technology from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The integrated platform uses various sensors that measure physical and environmental parameters and respond to standard security applications.

An ORNL report provides best practices for electric utilities using drones to monitor transmission systems.
Electric utilities seeking to enhance worker safety and system reliability by using drones to inspect their transmission systems can look to a new report by Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers to help guide their efforts. The report by ORNL’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Research Ce...
ORNL researcher Xiaobing Liu  works in the laboratory’s Building Technologies Research and Integration Center.

As a boy growing up in China, Xiaobing Liu knew all about Oak Ridge and the World War II Manhattan Project. He had no idea that he would one day work at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Secret City’s successor. Liu is a lead researcher in geothermal heat pump (GHP) techn...

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Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have produced the next generation of the National Hydropower Map – a visualization tool that provides updated statistics on overall capacity and performance on the nation’s hydropower fleet. The map is part of the lab’s National Hydropower ...
Fullerenes appear as small silver spheres spread consistently throughout a network of small molecules, or polymers, in this schematic illustration of the morphology of a BHJ film with solvent additives. Credit: ORNL.
Advances in ultrathin films have made solar panels and semiconductor devices more efficient and less costly, and researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory say they’ve found a way to manufacture the films more easily, too. Typically the films—used b...
Doug Abernathy, left, ARCS instrument scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Marc Janoschek, Los Alamos National Laboratory, prepare their sample for experiments at the Spallation Neutron Source.
Groundbreaking work at two Department of Energy national laboratories has confirmed plutonium’s magnetism, which scientists have long theorized but have never been able to experimentally observe. The advances that enabled the discovery hold great pro...
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In the early 1980s, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory was just beginning to explore transfer of technology from the lab to industry. Now it's the norm, and one historical example illustrates the long-term benefits.