U.S. Department of Energy Research News

Public Release: 25-Jul-2013

PLOS ONE
Microbial who-done-it for biofuels
A multi-institutional collaboration led by researchers with the Joint BioEnergy Institute and Joint Genome Institute has developed a promising technique for identifying microbial enzymes that can effectively deconstruct biomass into fuel sugars under refinery processing conditions.

US Department of Energy Office of Science

Public Release: 10-Jul-2013
CASL milestone validates reactor model using TVA data
Today, the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) announced that its scientists have successfully completed the first full-scale simulation of an operating nuclear reactor. CASL is modeling nuclear reactors on supercomputers to help researchers better understand reactor performance with much higher reliability than previously available methods, with the goal of ultimately increasing power output, extending reactor life, and reducing waste.

Public Release: 9-Jul-2013
NREL research earns 3 prestigious R&D 100 Awards
A new energy-efficient approach to building occupancy detection, a better way to detect heat loss in electric-vehicle batteries and a high-efficiency silicon solar cell � all developed or advanced at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory -- have been named among this year's most significant innovations by R&D Magazine.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 9-Jul-2013

Nature Communications
Wildfires may contribute more to global warming than previously predicted
Wildfires produce a witch's brew of carbon-containing particles, as anyone downwind of a forest fire can attest. But measurements taken during the 2011 Las Conchas fire near Los Alamos National Laboratory show that the actual carbon-containing particles emitted by fires are very different than those used in current computer models, providing the potential for inaccuracy in current climate-modeling results.

Department of Energy Office of Science

Public Release: 9-Jul-2013
ORNL wins 6 R&D 100s
Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have received six R&D 100 awards, presented each year by R&D Magazine in recognition of the year's most significant technological innovations.

Public Release: 25-Jun-2013
DOE, NREL announce new research center to boost clean energy technologies on a smarter grid
The Energy Department and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory today announced the Energy Systems Integration Facility in Golden, Colorado, as the latest Energy Department user facility and the only one in the nation focused on utility-scale clean energy grid integration. The facility's first industry partner -- Colorado-based Advanced Energy Industries -- has already signed on to start work at ESIF, developing lower cost, better performing solar power inverters.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 25-Jun-2013

IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference
NREL reports 31.1 percent efficiency for III-V solar cell
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Lab has announced a world record of 31.1 percent conversion efficiency for a two-junction solar cell under one sun of illumination.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 21-Jun-2013

Advanced Materials
Beyond silicon: Transistors without semiconductors
Scientists at Michigan Technological University have built a nanoscale transistor that works at room temperature. The device, only 20 nanometers wide, is made of gold quantum dots mounted on boron nitride nanotubes. It was built in collaboration with colleagues at Oak Ridge National Lab.

US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Public Release: 18-Jun-2013

Advanced Materials
Printing tiny batteries
Three-dimensional printing can now be used to print lithium-ion microbatteries the size of a grain of sand. The printed microbatteries could supply electricity to tiny devices in fields from medicine to communications, including many that have lingered on lab benches for lack of a battery small enough to fit the device, yet provide enough stored energy to power them.

National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 11-Jun-2013
NREL teams with Navy, private industry to make jet fuel from switchgrass
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory is partnering with Cobalt Technologies, U.S. Navy, and Show Me Energy Cooperative to demonstrate that jet fuel can be made economically and in large quantities from a renewable biomass feedstock such as switch grass.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 11-Jun-2013
NREL adds eyes, brains to occupancy detection
It's a gnawing frustration of modern office life. You're sitting quietly -- too quietly -- in an office or carrel, and suddenly the lights go off.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 3-Jun-2013
June 2013 story tips
The following are story ideas from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory for June 2013.

Public Release: 27-May-2013

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
The formula for turning cement into metal
In a move that would make the alchemists of King Arthur's time green with envy, scientists have unraveled the formula for turning liquid cement into liquid metal. This makes cement a semi-conductor and opens up its use in the profitable consumer electronics marketplace for thin films, protective coatings, and computer chips.

National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 26-May-2013

Physical Review Letters
Models from big molecules captured in a flash
The structures of most of the two million proteins in the human body are still unknown, even at low resolution. A new algorithm developed by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and their colleagues solves the convoluted shapes of large molecules by using images of numerous individual samples, all caught simultaneously in a split-second flash of x-rays from a free-electron laser. The technique promises efficient information about the shapes of many more large biological molecules in their native, fluid state.

Department of Energy Office of Science, Human Frontier Science Program, National Science Foundation, University of Wisconsin, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Public Release: 21-May-2013
Army Ground Combat Systems adopts Sandia tool for choosing future warfighting vehicles
Sandia National Laboratories, working closely with the Army and other contractors, has developed key components of a software tool to help the Program Executive Office Ground Combat Systems analyze countless what-if scenarios that can be manipulated as technology advances and the global environment, the federal budget or other factors change. Sandia calls this advanced combination of modeling, simulation and optimization decision support software the Capability Portfolio Analysis Tool.

US Army

Public Release: 15-May-2013
The DOE Joint Genome Institute expands capabilities via new partnerships
Positioning itself to provide the most current technology and expertise to their users in order to address pressing energy and environmental scientific challenges, the DOE Joint Genome Institute announces six projects with which to launch the Emerging Technologies Opportunity Program. These new partnerships span the development of new scalable DNA synthesis technologies to the latest approaches to high throughput sequencing and characterization of single microbial cells from complex environmental samples.

DOE Office of Science

Public Release: 14-May-2013
Saudi Arabia looks to NREL for solar monitoring expertise
Saudi Arabia is planning to move aggressively into renewable energy, with plans to install more solar and wind power in the next 20 years than the rest of the world has installed to date. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is working with the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory for training and expertise in measuring its solar resource.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 9-May-2013

Science
Heady mathematics
Two UC Berkeley applied mathematicians have found a way to mathematically describe the evolution and disappearance of a foam. Using these equations, they were able to generate a movie that shows the complex draining, popping and rearrangement of these bubbles as the foam vanishes.

US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, NIH/National Cancer Institute

Public Release: 7-May-2013
NREL quantifies significant value in concentrating solar power
Researchers from the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory have quantified the significant value that concentrating solar power plants can add to an electric grid.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 7-May-2013
NREL staff recognized for breakthrough technologies
The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently recognized the professionals behind the lab's greatest innovations from the past year during its Intellectual Property & Technology Transfer Awards.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 6-May-2013
May 2013 story tips from Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The following are story ideas from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory for May 2013.

Public Release: 5-May-2013

Nature Methods
A new cost-effective genome assembly process
Genome assembly, the molecular equivalent of trying to put together a multi-million piece jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the picture on the cover of the box is, remains challenging due to the very large number of very small pieces, which must be assembled using current approaches. As reported May 5 online in the journal Nature Methods, a collaboration involving DOE JGI researchers has resulted in an improved and fully automated workflow for genome assembly.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 25-Apr-2013

Nature
Bold move forward in molecular analyses
New metrics for analyzing data from small angle scattering experiments should dramatically improve the ability of scientists to study the structures of macromolecules such as proteins and nanoparticles in solution.

US Department of Energy Office of Science, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 15-Apr-2013
UNC Charlotte researcher leads effort to forecast optimal energy investments
A Department of Energy SunShot award will fund a team that will use modeling based on the principles of ecological dynamics to forecast optimal investments for the array of solar energy technologies that are emerging.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 9-Apr-2013
NREL employees lauded by industry peers
Employees of the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory were recently recognized by industry peers for their work in grid integration, industry advancement and electrochemistry. NREL was also named an Outstanding Large Company by IEEE.

US Department of Energy