Carl Dukes’ career as an adept communicator got off to a slow start: He was about 5 years old when he spoke for the first time. “I’ve been making up for lost time ever since,” joked Dukes, a technical professional at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Nonfood, plant-based biofuels have potential as a green alternative to fossil fuels, but the enzymes required for production are too inefficient and costly to produce. However, new research is shining a light on enzymes from fungi that could make biofuels economically viable.
The presence of minerals called ash in plants makes little difference to the fitness of new naturally derived compound materials designed for additive manufacturing, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory-led team found.
What’s getting Jim Szybist fired up these days? It’s the opportunity to apply his years of alternative fuel combustion and thermodynamics research to the challenge of cleaning up the hard-to-decarbonize, heavy-duty mobility sector — from airplanes to locomotives to ships and massive farm combines.
David McCollum is using his interdisciplinary expertise, international networks and boundless enthusiasm to lead Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s contributions to the Net Zero World initiative.
Bruce Warmack has been fascinated by science since his mother finally let him have a chemistry set at the age of nine. He’d been pestering her for one since he was six.
A research team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory bioengineered a microbe to efficiently turn waste into itaconic acid, an industrial chemical used in plastics and paints.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have identified a statistical relationship between the growth of cities and the spread of paved surfaces like roads and sidewalks. These impervious surfaces impede the flow of water into the ground, affecting the water cycle and, by extension, the climate.
A new tool from Oak Ridge National Laboratory can help planners, emergency responders and scientists visualize how flood waters will spread for any scenario and terrain.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists evaluating northern peatland responses to environmental change recorded extraordinary fine-root growth with increasing temperatures, indicating that this previously hidden belowground mechanism may play an important role in how carbon-rich peatlands respond to warming.