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ORNL’s Christine Walker, a technical consultant and researcher in the Integrated Building Performance Group, works with the nation’s federally owned buildings through the Federal Energy Management Program, helping to reduce their carbon footprint and improve their energy performance. Credit: ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

She may not wear a white coat or carry a stethoscope, but Christine Walker of ORNL spends her days diagnosing the energy health of buildings and figuring out how to improve their efficiency to achieve cost savings and reduce their carbon footprint.

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As the United States transitions to clean energy, the country has an ambitious goal: cut carbon dioxide emissions in half by the year 2030, if not before. One of the solutions to help meet this challenge is found at ORNL as part of the Better Plants Program.

ORNL’s Jason DeGraw, a mechanical engineer and indoor air quality expert, uses numerical equations powered by high-performance computing to analyze and solve problems related to the dispersion patterns of biological pathogens as well as chemical irritants in buildings. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Long before COVID-19’s rapid transmission led to a worldwide pandemic, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Jason DeGraw was performing computer modeling to better understand the impact of virus-laden droplets on indoor air quality

Aviation contributes about 2.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions. To greatly reduce its emissions, the U.S. commercial aviation sector needs new methods of making sustainable aviation fuel. Credit: Ross Parmly/Unsplash 

ORNL’s Zhenglong Li led a team tasked with improving the current technique for converting ethanol to C3+ olefins and demonstrated a unique composite catalyst that upends current practice and drives down costs. The research was published in ACS Catalysis.

Heavy-duty vehicles contribute 23% of transportation emissions of greenhouse gases and account for almost one-quarter of the fuel consumed annually in the U.S. Credit: Chris Bair/Unsplash

Through a consortium of Department of Energy national laboratories, ORNL scientists are applying their expertise to provide solutions that enable the commercialization of emission-free hydrogen fuel cell technology for heavy-duty

Kashif Nawaz, researcher and group leader for multifunctional equipment integration in buildings technologies, is developing a platform for the direct air capture of carbon dioxide that can be retrofitted to existing rooftop heating, ventilation and air conditioning units.  Credit: ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

When Kashif Nawaz looks at a satellite map of the U.S., he sees millions of buildings that could hold a potential solution for the capture of carbon dioxide, a plentiful gas that can be harmful when excessive amounts are released into the atmosphere, raising the Earth’s temperature.

Small, 3D-printed neutron collimators, designed by ORNL’s Jamie Molaison, yield reduced costs and manufacturing times and could enable new types of experiments. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

The ExOne Company, the global leader in industrial sand and metal 3D printers using binder jetting technology, announced it has reached a commercial license agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to 3D print parts in aluminum-infiltrated boron carbide.