Researchers at ORNL are developing battery technologies to fight climate change in two ways, by expanding the use of renewable energy and capturing airborne carbon dioxide.
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.
Groundwater withdrawals are expected to peak in about one-third of the world’s basins by 2050, potentially triggering significant trade and agriculture shifts, a new analysis finds.
An international team using neutrons set the first benchmark (one nanosecond) for a polymer-electrolyte and lithium-salt mixture. Findings could produce safer, more powerful lithium batteries.
Shift Thermal, a member of Innovation Crossroads’ first cohort of fellows, is commercializing advanced ice thermal energy storage for HVAC, shifting the cooling process to be more sustainable, cost-effective and resilient. Shift Thermal wants to enable a lower-cost, more-efficient thermal energy storage method to provide long-duration resilient cooling when the electric grid is down.
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 Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is providing national leadership in a new collaboration among five national laboratories to accelerate U.S. production of clean hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers.
The United States could triple its current bioeconomy by producing more than 1 billion tons per year of plant-based biomass for renewable fuels, while meeting projected demands for food, feed, fiber, conventional forest products and exports, according to the DOE’s latest Billion-Ton Report led by ORNL.
Chelsea Chen, a polymer physicist at ORNL, is studying ion transport in solid electrolytes that could help electric vehicle battery charges last longer.
ORNL climate modeling expertise contributed to a project that assessed global emissions of ammonia from croplands now and in a warmer future, while also identifying solutions tuned to local growing conditions.