Although blockchain is best known for securing digital currency payments, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using it to track a different kind of exchange: It’s the first time blockchain has ever been used to validate communication among devices on the electric grid.
Over the past seven years, researchers in ORNL’s Geospatial Science and Human Security Division have mapped and characterized all structures within the United States and its territories to aid FEMA in its response to disasters. This dataset provides a consistent, nationwide accounting of the buildings where people reside and work.
When Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico in 2017, winds snapped trees and destroyed homes, while heavy rains transformed streets into rivers. But after the storm passed, the human toll continued to grow as residents struggled without electricity for months. Five years later, power outages remain long and frequent.
The Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory earned the top ranking today as the world’s fastest on the 59th TOP500 list, with 1.1 exaflops of performance. The system is the first to achieve an unprecedented level of computing performance known as exascale, a threshold of a quintillion calculations per second.
Researchers at ORNL are teaching microscopes to drive discoveries with an intuitive algorithm, developed at the lab’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, that could guide breakthroughs in new materials for energy technologies, sensing and computing.
A study led by researchers at ORNL used the nation’s fastest supercomputer to close in on the answer to a central question of modern physics that could help conduct development of the next generation of energy technologies.
In the quest for advanced vehicles with higher energy efficiency and ultra-low emissions, ORNL researchers are accelerating a research engine that gives scientists and engineers an unprecedented view inside the atomic-level workings of combustion engines in real time.
Six scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory were named Battelle Distinguished Inventors, in recognition of obtaining 14 or more patents during their careers at the lab.
A team led by Dan Jacobson of Oak Ridge National Laboratory used the Summit supercomputer at ORNL to analyze genes from cells in the lung fluid of nine COVID-19 patients compared with 40 control patients.
Scientists at ORNL used neutron scattering and supercomputing to better understand how an organic solvent and water work together to break down plant biomass, creating a pathway to significantly improve the production of renewable