In fiscal year 2023 — Oct. 1–Sept. 30, 2023 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory was awarded more than $8 million in technology maturation funding through the Department of Energy’s Technology Commercialization Fund, or TCF.
ORNL, a bastion of nuclear physics research for the past 80 years, is poised to strengthen its programs and service to the United States over the next decade if national recommendations of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, or NSAC, are enacted.
In June, ORNL hit a milestone not seen in more than three decades: producing a production-quality amount of plutonium-238
Neutron experiments can take days to complete, requiring researchers to work long shifts to monitor progress and make necessary adjustments. But thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, experiments can now be done remotely and in half the time.
JungHyun Bae is a nuclear scientist studying applications of particles that have some beneficial properties: They are everywhere, they are unlimited, they are safe.
ORNL will team up with six of eight companies that are advancing designs and research and development for fusion power plants with the mission to achieve a pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.
How did we get from stardust to where we are today? That’s the question NASA scientist Andrew Needham has pondered his entire career.