DOE

Table of Contents

• DOE Building Energy Codes Website
• DOE Pulse - Research Highlights
• EERE Network News
• ORNL Review Magazine
• ORNL in the News
• ORNL News
• ORNL Story Tips
• ORNL Technical Calendar

DOE Building Energy Codes Website

News about energy code implementation and support.

• Bipartisan Agreement on Lighting Standards Would Boost Efficiency in Climate Bill
  Key members of the House and Senate today are set to announce a lighting standards agreement that would significantly boost efficiency provisions in the Senate climate and energy bill, efficiency advocates and lighting manufacturers said yesterday.
• U.S. Senate Legislation Would Extend Existing, Create New Energy Efficiency Tax Incentives
  On August 7, 2009, Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) co-sponsored bi-partisan legislation in the U.S. Senate to extend the $2,000 tax credit for energy efficient homes to December 31, 2012 and create a $5,000 credit for homes that use 50% less whole house energy than the 2004 IECC.
• Waste Not, Watt Not
  The American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454, -- which passed the House and is now pending in the Senate -- recognizes and invests in the economic benefits of energy efficiency. The bill would provide up to $65 billion in allowances from 2012 to 2020 for state and local government energy efficiency programs.
• ACEEE: California Leads the Country in Energy Efficiency Policies
  California topped the 2009 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, recently released by American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The third annual edition of the report from the nonprofit ranks states in six energy efficiency categories: utility-sector and public benefits programs and policies; transportation polices; building energy codes; combined heat and power; state government initiatives; and appliance efficiency standards. In the new scorecard, Massachusetts and Connecticut land in second and third place, respectively, while the states at the bottom of the list include Mississippi, North Dakota, and Wyoming.
• Obama Administration Announces More than $38 Million for Energy Efficiency and Conservation Projects in Alaska, Kansas, Utah and West Virginia
  Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that more than $38 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is being awarded to 4 states to support energy efficiency and conservation activities. Under DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program, these states will implement programs that lower energy use, reduce carbon pollution, and create green jobs locally.

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DOE Pulse - Research Highlights

DOE Pulse highlights work being done at the Department of Energy's national laboratories. DOE's laboratories house world-class facilities where more than 30,000 scientists and engineers perform cutting-edge research spanning DOE's science, energy, National security and environmental quality missions.

• Maksymovych delves into 'completely different' ferroelectrics
  Leaving his Ukraine roots destined for the United States to pursue a scientific career, Petro Maksymovych had little idea of the abundance of possibilities he would encounter.
• An accelerator warms up for fusion energy
  What a just-triggered nuclear bomb, an imploding inertial-fusion fuel capsule, and the core of a giant planet like Jupiter have in common is an unusual state of matter that physicists call warm and dense - merely ???warm??? because it???s not quite hot enough to undergo nuclear fusion, although it may be well on the way.
• For DOE Pulse's 300th issue, an extra helping of science news..
  Using a precision technique for making superconducting thin films layer-by-layer, physicists at DOE's Brookhaven Lab have identified a single layer responsible for one such material???s ability to carry current with no energy loss.
• LHC restart produces first particles in CMS detector
  Preparations for the restart of the Large Hadron Collider in Europe are in full swing.
• Where did the uranium go?
  Based on experiments and modeling, scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are learning how the chemistry brought on by a river's changing levels slows uranium's movement in the surrounding soil.

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EERE Network News

EERE's newsletter, the EERE Network News, covers national and international energy efficiency and renewable energy news and events, as well as new EERE Web sites and energy facts.

• United States and China to Cooperate on Clean Energy
  The United States and China have announced a range of clean energy initiatives, including the establishment of a U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center. designed to boost joint research and development of clean energy technology, as well as energy efficiency and electric vehicle initiatives.
• Ex-Im Bank to Boost Renewable Exports with $250 Million in Financing
  The U.S. Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank is launching a $250 million facility to finance the export of U.S. renewable energy products. The bank will also encourage various lending institutions to adopt policies to promote clean energy exports.
• DOE and USDA Offer $4 Million for Biomass Genomics Research
  DOE and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are soliciting genomic research projects designed to develop new plant feedstocks for use in biofuels.
• AIA Report Notes Surge in Green Building Programs
  The number of U.S. cities with green building programs has increased 50% since 2007, according to the American Institute of Architects (AIA). And in a reflection of this trend, the number of new homes earning the Energy Star label has topped the one million mark.
• Study Says Climate Change Could Displace 150 Million People by 2050
  Climate change is already attributable to the deaths of more than 300,000 people per year, according to a new study, and by 2050, as many as 150 million people could be forced from their homes. A separate study finds that many people in the U.S. Southeast could be among the displaced.

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ORNL Review Magazine

The ORNL Review is Oak Ridge National Laboratory's research and development magazine. Oak Ridge National Laboratory conducts basic and applied research that provides innovative solutions to complex problems.

• Of Scale and Science
  Boldly conceived as a neutron source that would surpass the performance of European and Asian competitors by a factor of ten, the Spallation Neutron Source was a design challenge beyond the capabilities of a single national laboratory.
• Now, The Science
  The SNS seeks to integrate a variety of scientific disciplines.
• Where None Have Gone Before
  The SNS seeks to break the world record by ten-fold.
• Cross Pollination
  The SNS is attracting research beyond conventional physics.
• Imitating Mother Nature
  Researchers use two ORNL facilities to develop synthetic cell membranes.

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ORNL in the News

News items about or related to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. These items do not reflect the opinions or views of ORNL staff or management.

• Shared Supercomputing and Everyday Research
  (NY Times) The price of supercomputers is dropping quickly, in part because they are often built with the same off-the-shelf parts found in PCs, as a supercomputing conference here last week made clear. Just about any organization with a few million dollars can now buy or assemble a top-flight machine... 11/22
• Locally made robotic equipment helps with flexibility issues
  (Knoxville News Sentinel) Larry Bohanan of Powell, 67, invented a prototype of the machine for his bedridden father to use 16 years ago. It was so helpful he made others for friends and relatives. Soon, Bohanan retired as a patent illustrator at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and sank his life savings into making Quadricisers... 11/21
• Nvidia previews next-gen Fermi GPU
  (The Register) The next-generation GPU co-processors were developed under the Fermi code-name and the details of which were previewed by El Reg last month and featured in a future hybrid supercomputer deal at Oak Ridge National Laboratory... 11/21
• ORNL-Led Team Takes Prize for World's Top Science App
  (HPC Wire) A team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL's) Markus Eisenbach was named winner Thursday of the 2009 ACM Gordon Bell Prize, which honors the world's highest-performing scientific computing applications. Another team led by ORNL's Edo Apr?? was also among nine finalists for the prize... 11/19
• Nevada emerges as a heat waste player
  (RG Journal) Power generation is especially notorious for producing waste heat. In the United States, more than two-thirds of the fuel used to generate power is lost as waste heat, according to a report prepared by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Department of Energy... 11/22

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ORNL News

Oak Ridge National Laboratory conducts basic and applied research that provides innovative solutions to complex problems.

• ORNL, Los Alamos pioneer new approach to assist scientists, farmers
  Sustainable farming, initially adopted to preserve soil quality for future generations, may also play a role in maintaining a healthy climate, according to researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge and Los Alamos national laboratories.
• ORNL, partners helping scientists deal with data deluge
  Vast amounts of information that could hold the key to breakthroughs in environmental research will be made readily available through a network created by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and partners.
• UT's Kraken Named World's Third Most Powerful Computer, ORNL's Jaguar No. 1
  KNOXVILLE - East Tennessee is now home to two of the world's three fastest computers, according to new rankings released today.
• NSF Dedicates Athena Supercomputer to Climate Research
  OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 16, 2009 --Thanks to the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute for Computational Sciences's (NICS's) Athena supercomputer is hosting one of the largest climate simulations in history.
• Oak Ridge 'Jaguar' Supercomputer is World's Fastest
  An upgrade to a Cray XT5 high-performance computing system deployed by the Department of Energy has made the "Jaguar" supercomputer the world's fastest. Located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Jaguar is the scientific research community's most powerful computational tool for exploring solutions to some of today's most difficult problems. The upgrade, funded with $19.9 million under the Recovery Act, will enable scientific simulations for exploring solutions to climate change and the development of new energy technologies.

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ORNL Story Tips

Story ideas from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

• Transportation - Gone hybrid
  Fuel economy ratings for the new 2010 model year automobiles are now posted at the www.fueleconomy.gov web site, which Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed and maintains for the U.S.
• Materials - Ferroelectric fury
  By discovering a technique to guide the ferroelectric switching process in bismuth ferrite, a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Nina Balke has moved one step closer to developing more rugged memory and logic devices.
• Manufacturing - Holey truck frames
  Heavy trucks are a little less heavy but just as safe and rugged because of steel rail frames provided by Metalsa Roanoke, which enlisted the help of Cam Hubbard and the High Temperature Materials Laboratory User Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
• Nanoscience - Using neural networks
  A new approach to crunching massive volumes of data uses neural networks, an architecture of multiple elements that is figuratively taught to pool imbedded information into results, like an artificial brain.
• Materials - Graphene cleanup
  Graphene, a single-layer sheet of graphite, has potential as a remarkable material, particularly for electronics and composite applications.

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ORNL Technical Calendar

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Technical Calendar. Oak Ridge National Laboratory conducts basic and applied research that provides innovative solutions to complex problems.

• Going with the flow: Australian Environmental Observation and Information Systems - November 23, 2009
  Stuart Minchin, Research Director, Environmental Sensing, Prediction, and Reporting CSIRO Land and Water, Australia, Environmental Sciences Division Seminar - 9:00 AM—10:30 AM November 23, 2009, D. J. Nelson Auditorium (Building 1505), - Bruce Wilson, wilsonbe@ornl.gov, 865.574.6651
• Extreme Iron Geomicrobiology - November 23, 2009
  Joel E. Kostka, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Biological and Environmental Sciences Directorate Seminar - 1:00 PM, November 23, 2009, Building 1505, Ocoee Conference Room (189), - Martin Keller, kellerm@ornl.gov, 865.574.4333
• CASMO-5 Gamma Library - November 23, 2009
  Nicholas Gheorghiu, Studsvik Scandpower, Inc., Worldwide, Nuclear Science and Technology Division Seminar - 2:00 PM, November 23, 2009, Research Office Building (5700), Conference Room 0304, - Stephen M. Bowman, bowmansm@ornl.gov, 865.574.5263
• Parametric decay instability in tokamaks - November 23, 2009
  Guangye Chen, ORNL, Fusion Energy Science and Technology Seminar - 3:00 PM, November 23, 2009, Research Office Building (5700), Room D-307, - Theodore Biewer, biewertm@ornl.gov, 865.574.2715
• Geographic Information in Support of Foreign Policy - November 24, 2009
  Lee Schwartz and Jerome Dobson, Office of the Geographer and Global Issues, U.S. Department of State, Computational Sciences and Engineering Division Seminar - 10:00 AM, November 24, 2009, Joint Institute for Computational SciencesS Lecture Hall (Building 5100), Room 128, - Budhendra Bhaduri, bhaduribl@ornl.gov, 865.241.9272