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High voltage power lines carry electricity generated by the Tennessee Valley Authority to ORNL. Credit: Dobie Gillispie/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

ORNL and the Tennessee Valley Authority, or TVA, are joining forces to advance decarbonization technologies from discovery through deployment through a new memorandum of understanding, or MOU.

An artist's rendering of the Ultium Cells battery cell production facility to be built in Spring Hill, Tennessee, which will employ 1,300 people. Recognizing the unique expertise of their organizations, ORNL, TVA, and the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development have been working together for several years to bring startups developing battery technologies for EVs and established automotive firms to Tennessee. Credit: Ultium Cells

ORNL, TVA and TNECD were recognized by the Federal Laboratory Consortium for their impactful partnership that resulted in a record $2.3 billion investment by Ultium Cells, a General Motors and LG Energy Solution joint venture, to build a battery cell manufacturing plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

Biofuels, such as those derived from the switchgrass being harvested in this field in Vonore, Tennessee, are just one of the technology-based solutions that ORNL summit participants identified recently as key to decarbonizing the agriculture sector. Credit: Erin G. Webb, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy.

Energy and sustainability experts from ORNL, industry, universities and the federal government recently identified key focus areas to meet the challenge of successfully decarbonizing the agriculture sector

Miaofang Chi, a scientist in the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, received the 2021 Director’s Award for Outstanding Individual Accomplishment in Science and Technology. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A world-leading researcher in solid electrolytes and sophisticated electron microscopy methods received Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s top science honor today for her work in developing new materials for batteries. The announcement was made during a livestreamed Director’s Awards event hosted by ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia.

ORNL researchers are examining ways to increase the amount of carbon sequestered in soils by crops such as switchgrass. Credit: Jason Richards/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Nearly a billion acres of land in the United States is dedicated to agriculture, producing more than a trillion dollars of food products to feed the country and the world. Those same agricultural processes, however, also produced an estimated 700 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

As part of the Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments Arctic project, scientists are gathering and incorporating new data about the Alaskan tundra into global models that predict the future of our planet. Credit: ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

Improved data, models and analyses from ORNL scientists and many other researchers in the latest global climate assessment report provide new levels of certainty about what the future holds for the planet 

ORNL used novel additive manufacturing techniques to 3D print channel fasteners for Framatome’s boiling water reactor fuel assembly. Four components, like the one shown here, were installed at the TVA Browns Ferry nuclear plant. Credit: Framatome

Four first-of-a-kind 3D-printed fuel assembly brackets, produced at the Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have been installed and are now under routine operating

David Sholl is director of the new ORNL Transformational Decarbonization Initiative, working to elevate the lab’s prominence in decarbonization science and technology. Credit: Genevieve Martin, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy.

David Sholl has come to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory with a wealth of scientific expertise and a personal mission: hasten the development and deployment of decarbonization solutions for the nation’s energy system.

L-R: ORNL’s Omer Onar and Veda Galigekere with the dynamic wireless charging test bed at ORNL’s Grid Research Integration and Deployment Center. Credit: Carlos Jones, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

Consumer buy-in is key to the future of a decarbonized transportation sector in which electric vehicles largely replace today’s conventionally fueled cars and trucks.

Data from the ORNL Free Air CO2 Enrichment experiment were combined with observations from more than 100 other FACE sites for this analysis, which revealed new insights about the relationship between plant biomass growth and soil carbon storage. Credit: Jeff Warren/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Oak Ridge National Laboratory was among an international team, led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who synthesized 108 elevated carbon dioxide, or CO2, experiments performed in various ecosystems to find out how much carbon is