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We have completed a 3-year project to enhance the atmospheric science program at the University of Louisville, KY (est. 2008). The goals were to complete an undergraduate atmospheric science laboratory (Year 1) and to hire and support an assistant professor (Years 2 and 3). Both these goals were met on schedule, and slightly under budget.
The mission of the Center for Material Science of Nuclear Fuels (CMSNF) has been to develop a first-principles-based understanding of thermal transport in the most widely used nuclear fuel, UO 2 , in the presence of defect microstructure associated with radiation environments. The overarching goal within this mission was to develop an experimentally validated multiscale modeling capability directed toward a predictive understanding of the impact of radiation and fission-product induced defects and microstructure on thermal transport in nuclear fuel. Implementation of the mission was accomplished by integrating the physics of thermal transport in crystalline solids with microstructure science under irradiation through multi institutional experimental and computational materials theory teams from Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Purdue University, the University of Florida, the University of Wisconsin, and the Colorado School of Mines. The Center’s research focused on five major areas: (i) The fundamental aspects of anharmonicity in UO 2 crystals and its impact on thermal transport; (ii) The effects of radiation microstructure on thermal transport in UO 2 ; (iii) The mechanisms of defect clustering in UO 2 under irradiation; (iv) The effect of temperature and oxygen environment on the stoichiometry of UO 2 ; and (v) The mechanisms of growth of dislocation loops and voids under irradiation. The Center has made important progress in each of these areas, as summarized below.
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) Pacific Northwest Site Office (PNSO) has oversight and stewardship duties associated with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) Marine Sciences Laboratory (MSL) located on Battelle Land – Sequim.This report is prepared to document compliance with the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Title 40, Protection of the Environment, Part 61, National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), Subpart H, ''National Emission Standards for Emissions of Radionuclides Other than Radon from Department of Energy Facilities” and Washington Administrative Code (WAC) Chapter 246-247, “Radiation Protection–Air Emissions.'' The EDE to the MSL MEI due to routine operations in 2014 was 9E-05 mrem (9E-07 mSv). No non-routine emissions occurred in 2014. The MSL is in compliance with the federal and state 10 mrem/yr standard.
This report explores the opportunity and defines the research agenda for mesoscale science—discovering, understanding, and controlling interactions among disparate systems and phenomena to reach the full potential of materials complexity and functionality. The ability to predict and control mesoscale phenomena and architectures is essential if atomic and molecular knowledge is to blossom into a next generation of technology opportunities, societal benefits, and scientific advances.. The body of this report outlines the need, the opportunities, the challenges, and the benefits of mastering mesoscale science.
At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we focus on science and technology research to ensure our nation’s security. We also apply that expertise to solve other important national problems in energy, bioscience, and the environment. Science & Technology Review is published eight times a year to communicate, to a broad audience, the Laboratory’s scientific and technological accomplishments in fulfilling its primary missions. The publication’s goal is to help readers understand these accomplishments and appreciate their value to the individual citizen, the nation, and the world.
The project objective was to fund travel to a workshop organized by the Institute for High Energy Density Science (IHEDS) at the University of Texas at Austin. In so doing the intent was to a) Grow the national academic High Energy Density Science (HEDS) community, b) Expand high impact, discovery driven fundamental HEDS, and c) Facilitate user-oriented research
At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we focus on science and technology research to ensure our nation’s security. We also apply that expertise to solve other important national problems in energy, bioscience, and the environment. Science & Technology Review is published eight times a year to communicate, to a broad audience, the Laboratory’s scientific and technological accomplishments in fulfilling its primary missions. The publication’s goal is to help readers understand these accomplishments and appreciate their value to the individual citizen, the nation, and the world.
The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) held its 15th National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and the Environment: Energy and Climate Change, on January 27-29, 2015, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Crystal City, VA. The National Conference: Energy and Climate Change developed and advanced partnerships that focused on transitioning the world to a new “low carbon” and “climate resilient” energy system. It emphasized advancing research and technology, putting ideas into action, and moving forward on policy and practice. More than 900 participants from the scientific research, policy and governance, business and civil society, and education communities attended. The Conference was organized around four themes: (1) a new energy system (including energy infrastructure, technologies and efficiencies, changes in distribution of energy sources, and low carbon transportation); (2) energy, climate and sustainable development; (3) financing and markets; and (4) achieving progress (including ideas for the 21st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). The program featured six keynote presentations, six plenary sessions, 41 symposia and 20 workshops. Conference participants were involved in the 20 workshops, each on a specific energy and climate-related issue. The workshops were designed as interactive sessions, with each workshop generating 10-12 recommendations on the topic. The recommendations were prepared in the final conference report, were disseminated nationally, and continue to be available for public use. The conference also featured an exhibition and poster sessions. The National Conference on Energy and Climate Change addressed a wide range of issues specific to the U.S. Department of Energy’s programs; involved DOE’s scientists and program managers in sessions and workshops; and reached out to a broad array of DOE stakeholders.
Collaborations are critical to the science, technology, and engineering achievements at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This report analyzed the collaborations as measured through peer-reviewed publications from the Web of Science (WoS) database for LANL for the 1990 – 2015 period. Both a cumulative analysis over the entire time period and annual analyses were performed. The results found that the Department of Energy national laboratories, University of California campuses, and other academic institutions collaborate with LANL on regular basis. Results provide insights into trends in peer-reviewed papers collaborations for LANL.
At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we focus on science and technology research to ensure our nation’s security. We also apply that expertise to solve other important national problems in energy, bioscience, and the environment. Science & Technology Review is published eight times a year to communicate, to a broad audience, the Laboratory’s scientific and technological accomplishments in fulfilling its primary missions. The publication’s goal is to help readers understand these accomplishments and appreciate their value to the individual citizen, the nation, and the world.
The National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) received $50,000 from the US Department of Energy to support the organization of the of the 16th National Conference and Global Forum on the theme of The Food-Energy-Water Nexus, held January 19-21, 2016 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Crystal City, VA. Approximately 1,000 participants attended the event from the fields of science, engineering, federal and local government, business, and civil society. The conference developed and advanced partnerships focusing on strategies and initiatives to address the world’s interconnected food, water and energy systems, specifically how to provide these resources to a population of 9 billion people by midcentury without overwhelming the environment. The conference emphasized actionable outcomes—moving forward on policy and practice with a focus on “opportunities for impact” on the most critical issues in the relatively near term.
LAMMPS is a classical molecular dynamics code (lammps.sandia.gov) used to model materials science problems at Sandia National Laboratories and around the world. LAMMPS was one of three Sandia codes selected to participate in the Trinity KNL (TR2) Open Science period. During this period, three different problems of interest were investigated using LAMMPS. The first was benchmarking KNL performance using different force field models. The second was simulating void collapse in shocked HNS energetic material using an all-atom model. The third was simulating shock propagation through poly-crystalline RDX energetic material using a coarse-grain model, the results of which were used in an ACM Gordon Bell Prize submission. This report describes the results of these simulations, lessons learned, and some hardware issues found on Trinity KNL as part of this work.
The 2016 TSRC Summer School on Fundamental Science for Alternative Energy introduced principles, methods, and approaches relevant to the design of molecular transformations, energy transduction, and current applications for alternative energy. Energy and environment are likely to be key themes that will dominate the way science and engineering develop over the next few decades. Only an interdisciplinary approach with a team-taught structure as presented at the 2016 TSRC Summer School can be expected to succeed in the face of problems of such difficulty. The course inspired a new generation of 24 graduate students and 2 post-docs to continue work in the field, or at least to have something of an insider's point of view as the field develops in the next few decades.
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) Pacific Northwest Site Office has oversight and stewardship duties associated with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Marine Sciences Laboratory located on Battelle Land – Sequim. This report is prepared to document compliance with the 40 CFR Part 61, Subpart H, “National Emission Standards for Emissions of Radionuclides Other than Radon from Department of Energy Facilities” and Washington Administrative Code . The EDE to the MSL MEI due to routine operations in 2015 was 1.1E-04 mrem (1.1E-06 mSv). No non-routine emissions occurred in 2015. The MSL is in compliance with the federal and state 10 mrem/yr standard.
At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we focus on science and technology research to ensure our nation’s security. We also apply that expertise to solve other important national problems in energy, bioscience, and the environment. Science & Technology Review is published eight times a year to communicate, to a broad audience, the Laboratory’s scientific and technological accomplishments in fulfilling its primary missions. The publication’s goal is to help readers understand these accomplishments and appreciate their value to the individual citizen, the nation, and the world.
At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we focus on science and technology research to ensure our nation’s security. We also apply that expertise to solve other important national problems in energy, bioscience, and the environment. Science & Technology Review is published eight times a year to communicate, to a broad audience, the Laboratory’s scientific and technological accomplishments in fulfilling its primary missions. The publication’s goal is to help readers understand these accomplishments and appreciate their value to the individual citizen, the nation, and the world.
Terrestrial life on Earth depends on belowground cycling and storage of a significant portion of the planet’s biologically-active carbon. The interplay among organic inputs by primary producers, soil organic matter stabilization, and assimilation and mineralization by soil organisms drives belowground ecology. Understanding belowground carbon dynamics, including the stability and vulnerability of soil organic carbon stocks, is necessary to project the responses and feedbacks of terrestrial ecosystems to a changing climate. Although conceptually understood, belowground hydrobiogeochemical systems are not well characterized with quantitative and mechanistic representations of critical functions. As a result, these systems are inadequately represented in modeling efforts, limiting our ability to understand and project terrestrial carbon source/sink relationships at various temporal and spatial scales. The belowground science community lacks robust databases and data libraries against which model sensitivities and performance can be tested and enhanced. Improved understanding of belowground ecosystems, including biotic and abiotic interactions, is needed to ensure that model structures include and provide adequate representations of critical belowground processes, functions, and dynamics. A one-day workshop brought together experimental and modeling representatives from the four Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories where the Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Terrestrial Ecosystem Science (TES) program has investments in belowground ecology. The group focused on identifying and characterizing (1) critical experimental and observational datasets for testing and developing existing and future belowground-process models and land models; (2) the limitations and needs for modeling belowground processes within ecosystem models; and (3) key areas for leveraging current research activities across the National Laboratories and BER-funded projects. Discussion results are organized in this report as: (I) over-arching data requirements for advancing understanding of belowground ecosystems; (II) efforts that could rapidly improve understanding and model representations of belowground components of terrestrial ecosystems; and (III) longer-term research needs that would benefit from greater and more sustained support.
The design of sustainable biofuel systems requires knowledge about key plant-microbe-environment interactions that provide a range of ecosystem services. Most critical is a mechanistic understanding of how candidate biofuel plants interact with biotic and abiotic factors to affect the ecosystem outcomes that define sustainability. Recent advances in the genomic sciences can contribute immensely to the knowledge needed to design such systems. For example, progress in plant genomics will enable the inclusion of sustainability traits in future feedstocks, and advances in microbial genomics will allow insights into plantmicrobe-soil interactions that might be used to manage and support plant productivity and vigor. Linking these advances to breakthroughs in ecosystem science enables the use of systems biology in the fundamental design of sustainable biofuel systems. To identify research opportunities in developing such systems, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) held the Research for Sustainable Bioenergy Workshop on Oct. 2–4, 2013, in Germantown, Maryland. The workshop convened more than 30 researchers with a broad and diverse range of expertise, including ecology, microbiology, plant genetics, genomics, computational biology, and modeling. Participants discussed and identified research gaps, challenges, and opportunities for enhancing the understanding of influences that biotic, abiotic, and genetic factors have on long-term plant feedstock performance and the delivery of ecosystem services at multiple scales. This report identifies the key topics and questions that could be addressed effectively to achieve this understanding. Research opportunities are organized into four categories: (1) plant systems, encompassing plant productivity, resource use efficiency, genotype/phenotype breeding, and crop diversity; (2) the plant microbiome, which includes microbes living in close association within or adjacent to plants; (3) ecosystem processes, such as carbon capture, greenhouse gas mitigation, and hydrologic processes; and (4) multiscale modeling, which integrates and extends results across spatiotemporal scales.